CHAPTER 3: CAMERON JOSEPH
It took me about five minutes to find out where the English classroom was located, but once I found it I entered the classroom only to run into the teacher, knocking his coffee onto his suit. Everyone in the classroom then started laughing their asses off as they saw the teacher wipe the hot liquid off. Great, I thought. My first time stepping into a classroom and already I ruined a teacher's outfit. An outfit that probably costs hundreds of dollars. "I'm so sorry", I said nervously while backing away from him. "It's fine", the teacher says, "it's all alright".
"This is the English classroom?" I then asked him, making sure that I didn't come in the wrong classroom just to split coffee on him. "This is English class, alright", the teacher answers. "My name is Mr. Galloway. You must be the new kid". He then looked onto a piece of paper, probably telling him that I was going to be in his class, and said, "Yeah. Mr. Greg Winston, correct?" "Yes, sir", I told him. "Good", Mr. Galloway says before continuing. "We're doing an assignment right now that requires a partner. You're suppose to read any of the poems from Robert Frost that you like and then give a detailed description about what the poem is all about. Almost everyone has a partner right now". He then looked in the direction of this one girl in the back of the classroom. "Cameron, where's your partner?" Mr. Galloway then asks.
Looking at the back of the classroom, I remembered who that girl was right away. "Jamie is out sick today with the flu", she tells Mr. Galloway. "Greg, go partner up with Cameron for now and I'll see if I can assign you a partner for any future assignments", Mr. Galloway tells me. "Okay", I said as I started walking towards the back of the classroom. While walking down the aisle, one of the Jocks, with dirty blond hair and blue eyes, gave me a dirty look when I walked by his desk. Once I got to her desk, I took one of the empty ones near by and dragged it next to her's. Once I sat down in the desk, I started to get nervous. From seeing her for the first time yesterday to seeing her now, I could tell that she was one of the popular girls. Maybe even the most popular one out of the entire school.
"So, huh, what poem do you suggest?" I asked her nervously. "I was thinking Nothing Gold Can Stay", she answers. "Easy enough", I told her. I remember reading the poem a few years back and knew the meaning. Well okay, I read it from reading The Outsiders, but that novel really did well explaining what the meaning of the poem was. Plus, I could always lie and say that I never did read the novel. "I read the novel too. That's why I chose it", she says to me. For about twenty minutes we worked on the assignment, talking about how everything during youth is new. During the conversation though, she then unexpectedly changed the subject. "You're very shy for a teenage boy. Tell me about yourself", she says to me.
"What do you want to know about me?" I asked her. "Well for starters, how about the basics? Like your full name, where you came from, favorite color and so on", she tells me. That stuff, I could handle. "My name is Greg Winston. I use to live in Liberty City before I came here. And my favorite color is green. I don't know what else you want to know about me", I told her. "How about how you got here? What made you transfer from your old school to here?" she then asks me. Now that, I couldn't handle. I took a deep breath and thought about how to answer her, but I just couldn't think of what to say to her. After a while of thought, Mr. Galloway then announced to the class, "Alright, time is up. I'll be calling each team up to the front of the class so they can share what poem they read and what their thoughts of it were". Thank God, I thought. Now I didn't have to explain anymore of my personal business to her.
Two Hours Later; 11:30 AM
Once English class was over, I pulled out my cellphone and noticed the time. "Damn, 11:30 AM already?" I then pulled out my schedule and looked it over. I didn't noticed it before, but it seems that there's only two classes each day and that my next class was at 1:00 PM and last till 3:30 PM. Now that was cool. And from the looks of it, lunch period lasts for over an hour. That was even better.
I didn't know where the cafeteria was and I didn't have my map on me at the moment, so I had to follow a few students who were going to get some lunch. When I got to the doorway leading to the cafeteria, I noticed how there was a long flight of stairs leading downward. An underground cafeteria? That sounds appealing, I thought to myself. I went down the stairs and found that I was one of the earliest people there. I quickly got in line and moved up when the line moved up. When I got to where the food was, there was meatloaf, broccoli and corn. I grabbed all three and then went to a empty table at the far end of the cafeteria. I took a good look at all three pieces of the meal and wondered which to take a bite out of first. This stuff had to be really delicious if it looked this good. After a moment of choosing, I decided to try the meatloaf out first. I picked up my fork and was about to take a piece off when someone caught my attention. I looked up and saw that it was Cameron again.
"You looked lonely, so I decided to eat with you", she says as she sits across from me. "So Greg, have you made any new friends here yet?" she then asks me. "Not yet", I answered. "Trust me, this is the kind of place where you should make friends immediately. It's very important that you find someone who has your back..." Before she could say anything else, I then bluntly said to her, "Do you mind? I rather eat alone right now". She then gave me this look like I just told her to shut up. Smooth move dip-shit, I thought in my head. Someone is trying to be your friend and you had the nerve to tell her to get lost.
Just as she got up to leave, I then told her, "Wait. I'm sorry". I continued just as she turned to look at me. "I'm just rusty when it comes to making new friends. My friends back at my old school turned their backs on me when I got into so much trouble and I'm not really the trusting kind of guy at the moment, especially not with someone as pretty and possibly as popular as you are. You came on me strong and I didn't know how to react to it and I'm sorry". After a moment of hesitation, she sat back down and then says to me, "Well, I guess I shouldn't have come on strong like I did. I guess asking about how you got here is personal, right?" "That is a detail about my life that I don't even want to talk to anyone about, not even my own dad", I told her. "I'll respect that", she said right before saying, "How about we start over? My name is Cameron Joseph".
"Greg Winston", I said as we both shook hands. "So you just showed up yesterday, right?" she then asks me. "I'm guessing you heard the radio announce that?" I asked her. "Eric Young usually announces almost anything, from new students to upcoming events such as an upcoming football games and fights in The Hole", she tells me. "The Hole?" I asked. "It's where students usually duke it out when they want to prove something of themselves. It's set in a sewage drain hole", she answers. "Gross", I said out-loud. "It serious is gross. But it's a tradition that was passed down for many years". While we were talking, I noticed a shadow forming over us. I turned around and noticed that it was that same Jock from English class was standing above me.
He then grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me over to the wall and shoved me right into it. "Who do you think you are just by hitting on my girlfriend?" he says to me. "Go ahead and beat his ass, Jake", one of his friends says to him. "Jake, stop. He wasn't hitting on me", Cameron says while putting her hand on his shoulder. "I wasn't hitting on her", I told him calmly, despite the possibility of getting beaten looming over me. "Bullshit, I saw you looking at her, wanting her", he spat out. "JAKE", Cameron yells while grabbing the backside of his head and turning it towards her. "Why would I cheat on you? You know I'm not that kind of person", she tells him. For a moment, he believed her. But then the next moment, he pushed me against the wall again and said to me, "I'll be watching you, new kid". He let me go and then left the room along with his gorilla friends.
"I'm sorry about that. He's very overprotective", Cameron says. "You two date?" I asked her. "Yeah", she answers, "but it's really tiresome how he's so protective of me. He treats me more like property nowadays than he does like a human being. He thinks that we're meant to be together no matter what". "Well thanks for saving me, but I could have handle that punk", I told her. "I didn't want to see you get in trouble and besides which, if you even fought back against Jake, then the whole football team would have been after you. Jake Summers is the captain of the football team", she tells me. "Thank you for saving me then", I said again. "No problem. I'll talk to Jake about this and hopefully this doesn't happen again", she tells me. "Good. I'd rather not go through that again", I told her.
We went back to our table and continued eating and talking to one another. After a while, she handed me her cellphone number. "Call me or text me when you need someone to talk to, okay?" she tells me. "Why are you doing this?" I then asked her. "I'm pretty much a nobody to you. In fact, you're the most popular girl on campus". "Well let me put it to this way", she started to explain, "Everybody needs a friend here. You needed one. If you didn't have one, then this school would have been a living hell for you". After she was done talking, she pulled out her cellphone and said, "I gotta go check up on my friend Jamie. I'll talk to you later". She got up, dumped her tray in the nearby trash can and left the cafeteria. I took a good look at her number, logged it into my cellphone and then placed them both in my pocket.
I got up and threw my tray in the trash before heading back up the stairs to the main hall. Once I was in the main hall, I went outside the building to get some air and to have a smoke. Cameron seems like a nice girl and at least seems like she has a heart. Her boyfriend on the other hand can go jump off a bridge. But at least he might not mess with me so much after Cameron talks to him. It was the Jocks back at my old school that got me expelled in the first place. The last thing I want is to get kicked out of this school all because of that douche-bag.