Disclaimer: I don't own Degrassi or any of it's characters.
Chapter 5 Back to School
Jay pulled his car into the student parking lot and slammed his head against the headrest. Another year at Degrassi. Yay! Jay thought sarcastically. Jay turned around and grabbed his backpack from the back-seat and got out of the car. "Well I guess it's now or never." he said out loud to himself.
"Come on man it's not that bad." a voice said from behind him.
"Hey Spin. Santos." Jay said to Spinner who had his arm draped around Manny's shoulders.
"Jay." Manny said coldly.
"So, here we are back at Degrassi. I missed it." Spinner said looking at the school.
"You actually missed this place? You missed getting up early to drive here, spending eight mind numbing hours sitting in a seat listening to crap we are never going to use again?" Jay asked.
"No, I mean I missed the atmosphere, the people, my friends. I told you that." Spinner answered.
"Yeah I know. Well I am glad you got your friends back. I on the other hand get to spend the year all by my lonesome." Jay said.
"What about Em, she doesn't hate you. You can hang with her, right?" Spinner suggested.
"I think she's busy." Manny piped in staring off at the other end of the parking lot.
"What are you talking about Santos?" Jay asked.
"Look." Manny said pointing to where she was looking. Jay and Spinner followed the direction of Manny's finger. What they saw shocked them all. There, sitting in Emma's car was Chester and Emma making out like crazy.
"Holy crap!" Jay exclaimed with a little bit of jealousy in his voice. What the hell? She said it wasn't that serious and last night she almost kissed me! Jay thought.
"Jay, you know she's with Chester. You saw them together at The Dot yesterday." Manny said confused.
"I know but--" Jay started then decided it would be best not to tell them what had almost happened last night between him and Emma.
"But what? Jay?" Manny asked.
"Nothing. I just didn't think it was that serious yet." he answered.
"Well I think you were wrong dude. Man, look at them go!" exclaimed Spinner.
"SPINNER!" Manny said slugging her boyfriend in the side, "Could you possibly be a little less of a guy, please."
"Well I gotta get to homeroom. I'll see you two lovebirds later." Jay interrupted.
"You, Jay Hogart, want to go to homeroom?" Spinner said with a laugh.
"Yeah, well it's either that or sit and watch those two until the last minute and I really don't want to see that." Jay said pointing at the scene they had been watching for about five minutes.
"Is someone jealous?" Spinner asked teasingly.
"No." Jay said.
"All right, whatever. I'll walk to homeroom with you. Who'd you get for homeroom?" Spinner asked.
"Kwan, you?" Jay answered.
"Emma has Kwan." Manny said accidentally.
"What?" Jay asked looking at Manny.
"Oh, did I say that out loud? Oops." Manny said biting her bottom lip and looking away.
"Well that's fascinating but I don't want to be late. Armstrong will eat me alive if I am late. Let's go Jay. See you at lunch babe." Spinner said giving Manny a kiss and walking off with Jay, who had a goofy grin plastered all over his face.
"Bye." Manny said as they walked away.
-----------------
"Excuse me, but would you two mind letting up on the PDA. People are whispering." Manny said walking up to the driver's side of Emma's car.
"Oh, hey Manny." Emma said straightening her shirt as she pulled away from Chester.
"Maybe next time you should put the top up?" Manny suggested.
"Yeah, didn't think of that." Chester piped in obviously annoyed at the interruption.
"Chester would you mind giving me and Emma a few minutes?" Manny asked with a smile.
""Yeah, sure I gotta get to homeroom anyway. See you at lunch?" Chester asked Emma.
"Yeah of course. Wait one more." Emma said pulling Chester into a quick kiss before he jumped out of the car and walked towards the school. "So what's up Manny?"
"I think you made Jay jealous." Manny said.
"What? Why would Jay be jealous? We're just friends." Emma said as she got out of the car.
"Well that may be true but I think he may feel a little different than you do. He was just acting like a jealous boyfriend the way he was looking at you two. And he was in quite the rush to get to homeroom with Kwan. Face it Em, Jay likes you."
"No he doesn't. And Kwan hates it when anyone is late, you know that. Speaking of which, I gotta get to homeroom too."
"Yeah, about that. Jay knows that you have homeroom together."
"What? How?"
"It kinda slipped out. Just like that gonorrhea did in class last year. Why was it a big secret anyway? He was going to find out eventually."
"I don't know. I know that he was gonna find out but I didn't want to tell him." Emma said as they walked into the school.
"Well I'm this way, it's MI homeroom for me." Manny said.
"Yep, Kwan's this way. See you later." Emma called out as she walked down the hall. How am I gonna explain this to Jay? She thought. Emma opened the door to Ms. Kwan's room, she noticed that she was the last to arrive.
"Hello Emma, please take a seat." Ms. Kwan said politely.
Emma looked around the room, the only seat that was left was the one at the back next to Jay, who was leaning back in his chair grinning at Emma devilishly.
-----------------
Jay watched as Emma made her way to the only seat available in the room, the seat he had purposely savedfor her. Man, does she ever not look hot? Jay asked himself. Emma was wearing a black halter top, a blue denim miniskirt and black thong flip flops. Emma tossed her blue messenger bag on her desk and sat down.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Jay leaned over and asked.
"I don't know. I guess I forgot. Oh, by the way we have MI together too." she answered.
"Okay, that's cool. But you could have told me last night."
"Not now. We'll talk later."
"Okay."
"Class, let me first say welcome back. I hope you had a great summer. There will not be any announcements this morning so we are going to start. This will be your homeroom for the rest of the year and the seat you have chosen will be yours for the year as well. Now I am going to call each of you and give you a locker number and a piece of paper with the combination on it. This will be your locker for the rest of the year. Okay let's start." Ms. Kwan said as she started down the list.
Emma looked around the room, there were a few students that looked familiar but Jay was the only one she had ever talked to before.
"Jay Hogart," Ms. Kwan called, "locker number 137."
Jay got up and walked to the front of the room. "Thanks." he said as he took the piece of paper and went out into the hall to put his stuff in his locker.
"Okay next is, Emma Nelson, locker 138."
You cannot be serious! There's no way! Emma thought as she went to the front of the room to get her combination and left the room.
"Hey, looks like we're neighbours." Jay said as Emma opened her locker.
"Yeah, I guess so." she replied.
"Em, why? Why didn't you tell me that you had Kwan for homeroom? I mean it's not that hard to say, 'Hey, Jay we have homeroom together.' or 'I have Kwan too.' Come on Em, what's the deal."
"I guess I wasn't sure how you would react. I mean Jay up until yesterday you and I were barely even speaking. And then last night on my couch we almost---"
"I know I was there." Jay said cutting her off. "Em, it's cool." he said turning her to face him. "I want you to know that I'm cool with being friends."
"Okay. All right." Emma said sounding sort of disappointed.
"You okay Em?" Jay asked.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"You just did but you can ask another one. Shoot."
"Why? Why did you want to kiss me?"
"Because I like you Em. But if I have to settle for being your friend, I can deal with it. Just do me a favour."
"What?"
"Don't make out with Hosoda when I'm around."
"Sure no problem. We better get back."
"Yeah, don't want to piss off Kwan on the first day."
Emma and Jay walked back to class without noticing that Ellie had come around the corner. "Well isn't that interesting." she said out loud, "I'm sure Chester would love to know what his sweet little girlfriend is up to." Ellie said as she turned to go back to homeroom.
