The rain is pouring onto the roof, sounding like a herd of horses galloping.

I push myself up in my bed and glance around my room. It's not very bright in my room due to the storm clouds hovering over Washington.

I hear my phone buzzing suddenly and look over to see that I have five missed calls. All of them are from Will.

I also notice that it's 7:45 in the morning and I have 15 minutes to get ready and get to school.

Dialing Will's number, I bustle to grab a pair of jeans and a shirt to pull on. I hold the phone between my shoulder and ear as I drop my clothes on the bathroom floor and grab my toothbrush.

"Where are you?" Will asks as soon as he answers the phone.

I quickly spit into the sink and drop my toothbrush into its holder.

"I just got up," I say in a panic. "I don't know why or where the heck my dad's at."

"I passed him on my way here, Jessa. Where is your house key?" I hear shuffling on the other end of the phone.

"Under the door mat where it's always been," I say as I put my phone on speaker to pull on my clothes. "How long have you been out there?"

"I've been waiting - beeping the horn and everything - for at least fifteen minutes. I figured you were getting ready." The sound of the rain stops on his end so I guess he's entered the house now.

"Seriously?" I ask him frustratedly. "It takes me not even ten minutes to get ready."

His voice disappears suddenly and I look at my phone to see if it had died or something.

"Chop chop," Will says from behind me. "We still have coffee to get."

I roll my eyes at him and take a look in the mirror to see a rats nest in my hair. Speaking figuratively of course.

I brush it out and pull it into a bun on the top of my head, then find some makeup to dust on quickly.

By the time it's 8 o'clock, we're driving down the road towards town where Will plans on getting coffee from McDonald's.

"We're going to be so late," I argue. "We can get coffee another time, okay?"

"Jessa, judging by the sound of your voice and the way I just want to go back to sleep, I'm pretty sure we need some caffeine."

I lean back into the seat and look at my phone every five seconds to check the time.

"What are you doing?" I ask when Will pulls into the drive-thru. "We need to hurry!"

"It's pouring the rain down," he tells me. "Stop worrying, we'll be fine."

"This drive-thru is so slow, though," I whine. "Also, I'm afraid your truck is gonna die if we idle for too long."

"Ha-ha," he says. "This ole' thing'll get us anywhere."

I roll my eyes and check the time again. At this time in school we would only have about five minutes left of first period.

"Can I have..." Will trails off as he orders for us. Surprisingly, he orders the only kind of drink I'll ever take when there's coffee involved: iced coffee.

Satisfied, I try not to argue until we pull out into the road again, both of us sipping our coffees.

"Okay," I say. "Now let's book it."

Just as I say it, Will presses harder on the gas pedal and the truck lurches forward, causing me to jerk my drink which leads to some coffee spilling over the cup and onto my shirt.

I let out a squeal from the coldness of it and then glare at Will. He tries not to laugh, but I go ahead and punch his shoulder just because he thought about it.

"Now what am I gonna do? I have a giant stain on my shirt," I say as I pull the shirt off my skin and look at it.

"Dab, don't rub," Will jokes. I shake my head at him and try to find a napkin.

"I would advise you to shut up," I tell him.

"You're so violent all the time," he states, then reaches behind him to grab and gray sweatshirt. "Put this on."

He drops it into my lap and I hold it up to see our school mascot on it. Luckily his last name isn't on the back so I don't have a problem slipping it on.

"What?" Will asks. "Scared someone might see my name on your back?" You never cared before.

"Well, my boyfriend might mind." I take a sip of my coffee and shake my leg as I wait for us to reach the school.

"Didn't you guys break up or something?"

"I'm mad at him - he doesn't realize it - and I've ignored all his texts. That doesn't mean we're broken up," I explain to him.

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever."

Finally, we reach the school and are walking inside right as the bell rings for second period. I race to Mr. Simmons' class. All the students are already in the hallways, so the room is empty except for Mr. Simmons who is sitting behind his desk.

"What did we miss?" I ask him as I approach the desk. I hear Will trailing behind me. "We were late."

I make sure not to go into any details.

Mr. Simmons looks at us with the most unimpressed look ever. "We did a chemical lab this morning. You'll have to make it up. Do you have study hall seventh period?"

I glance back at Will and he nods his head. I turn back to Mr. Simmons and nod my head as well. "Yeah, we both do."

"Come in then and wait for me to help," he tells us. "It's a complicated experiment."

*

I take a seat at my lab desk like any other day as I wait for Mr. Simmons to come in and show me how to do our experiment. Will walks in then, looking like he doesn't want to be here anymore than I do.

"Hey," I say, grabbing his attention. "It's your fault we're here."

He gives me a blank stare. "Whatever, Jessa."

"Who peed in your cheerios?" I ask him as I grab a few test tubes and set them on our desk. All the chemicals are already setting out, so I grab two pairs of goggles for Will and myself.

He pulls them over his head and into his face. "Your stupid boyfriend, that's who."

I think about how I ignored him all day, even avoided questions from everyone else - including Hannah, only to hear about it now.

"What about him?" I ask. My goggles are too big at first so I have to tighten them, the loosen them, then tighten them again.

School hand-me-downs for you.

"Nothing, just give me that." Will reaches across me to get the glass container that contains sulfuric acid. I remember learning about how corrosive it is, so I make sure Will and I both put on rubber gloves.

Will starts to reach for the sulfuric acid and immediately pours it sloppily into an empty another glass.

"Mr. Simmons hasn't told us what to do yet, Will," I tell him, but he doesn't care. He grabs the other chemical that I don't know the name of and adds it to glass as well.

"Hey!" I shout and jerk his hand away. He sets the empty test tube down and looks at me. "Those could explode, Will!"

"I know what I'm doing," he tells me.

He goes to grab the other liquid setting on the desk but I step in front of him.

"What's your deal? You were fine this morning."

"I don't have a deal."

"You do."

"Jessa."

"William."

He shakes his head and maneuvers around me. "Look there's nothing wrong. I'm just not a fan of Connor Reed is all."

I roll my eyes. "Like I didn't notice. What happened today?"

"We just had a small misunderstanding. Nothin for you to worry about. He has misunderstandings with everyone."

I purse my lips and step away from the counter, crossing my arms over my chest. There's nothing I can do about Connor's attitude, and I know he doesn't get along with many people.

Especially me, apparently.

When I turn around to ask Will what exactly happened (not that he would answer the question any differently than he already has), I see him pouring the other lights into the glass.

And then everything turns red.

A red gas spreads throughout the room, up to the sprinklers. My eyes widen and they drift down to meet Will's just before the water begins to pour down.

I let out a scream and dash towards Will, running into him and pushing him for the door. We both burst through the closed door and almost hit the ground.

Mr. Simmons is already running down the hallway. He has to push through a few students to get to us, but when he does, I'm almost scared for my life.

"What did you do?!" He exclaims as he looks into the classroom, then grabs us by our arms and rushes us out the door with the rest of the school.

It doesn't take but ten minutes for the fire department to show up, though I k ow it's pointless.

"It was so type of red gas..." I hear Will telling Mr. Simmons.

Mr. Simmons looks like he could smack both our heads together, but instead he gives us an angry stare. "You were to wait for me. But you actually must've done it right, just not in the correct manner."

That earns me a smirk from Will.

"I told you," I snap at Will. He shakes his head and crosses his arms over his chest loosely, that smirk still playing on his lips.

"Jessa!" I hear my name and turn to see my dad marching across the grass to get to me. I look at Will and he looks as anxious as I do.

We should be used to this by now. Anytime Will and I got into something we weren't supposed to, my dad got on to us. This time seemed different.

"I'm sorry!" I say before he even reaches me. "It was an accident, okay?"

Without warning, Dad wraps his arms around me in a hug, then quickly releases me.

"You were late to school and then you cause the fire company to show up? What have you two been up to lately?" He asks Will and me. I turn to Will for an explanation, but neither of us have one.

"We just wanted coffee. And we should've waited for Mr. Simmons to come help us. I'm sorry." I used to hate apologizing, too. But I find it easier to do with Dad.

Also, once he and and my mom find out I'm not actually a cheerleader, everything will fall apart.

I'd like to hold that off for as long as possible.

"Look, just let them check you and then go home and stay there. I'll deal with you later." After he's finished being my father, Dad marches back to where he came from.

*

"I swear, every time I'm around you, I can't help but to get myself into trouble."

"You know you love it."

"No, not really."

Will smiles to himself and keeps his eyes on the road. He's currently driving toward my house to drop me off.

After a few moments of silence, another thought crosses my mind.

"How has my dad not figured out that I'm not a cheerleader?" I say aloud.

Will shrugs his shoulders. "As long as he thinks you're going to practices, he doesn't suspect a thing."

"And you know this how?" I ask him.

"I have my ways."

"Whatever."

Once we reach my house, I get out of the car and slowly grab all my things. Then I remember to give Will his sweatshirt back.

"You could keep it," Will says nonchalantly.

"It's okay, thanks," I tell him. Then I add, "are you coming in?"

"No, I have stuff to do."

I raise an eyebrow. What would he have to do?

I have to stop myself. Why do I care? I'm not even supposed to be talking to him, let alone getting mixed up in situations with him.

"What stuff?" I ask against my better judgement.

"Stuff, Jessa."

I nod my head and shut the door, turn to head to the house and change my dirty shirt.

I glance out my windows free changing my shirt to see that Will is still sitting in front of my house, talking on his phone.

"What are you up to?" I know I'm talking to myself, but I decide that it's okay because I've already gone insane.

With that thought, I decide to embrace my insanity and grab a jacket, then go out the backdoor to get to my car so that Will doesn't see me sneaking into it.

I watch him turn and take off towards town again.

And I follow him.

________

Any thoughts on where Will may be going?
The song is Cynical by Blink-182!
The next chapter may or may not be a little late.. but hopefully not! Haha
Thanks for reading!!