Chapter Thirty

      “Is it true?” Trent demanded the minute I step foot in homeroom.

      “Mr. Johnson! What are you doing in here?” Ms. Hennings, our homeroom teacher questioned him.

      “Talking to Jules,” he answered.

      “No. You can talk to her later; right now, it’s homeroom. Please leave,” she requested, making a pushing motion with her hands. She wasn’t very intimidating, being my height (Meaning short), and was wearing a knee length skirt, nice blouse, and flats. Her rounded glasses shaped her face in a very chic, modern way.

      Through the past few months that I had known her, Ms. Hennings proved to be a pretty cool teacher. She was kooky and creative, and one of those teachers that didn’t follow the guidebook. I had her for Language Arts, and we were always doing cool projects around the literature that we read. We didn’t write your average book reports, we did things like discussions and debates about the novels that we read in the class. It was cool.

      “Fine,” Trent said in defeat, “but Jules, we’re talking during lunch.” He left the room with an angry presence about him. What a fun day this would be!

      Last night, I got barely any sleep, considering I went to bed at about midnight, and couldn’t fall asleep due to excitement towards and overthinking what had happened with Chase. Right before I fell asleep, in that moment between slumber and consciousness, I’m almost positive that I had a smile on my face.

      I had called Adam, asking him to pick me up from Chase’s house, and he was confused, until I told him the reason to why I was there. He understood, and congratulated me, informing me that a lot of crap would be headed my way. Thanks for the heads up, Ad! Like I didn’t already know…

      “Jules!” Chase called, waving to me from the doorway.

      “Chase,” I said, biting my lip to hid the surplus of happiness my face was itching to break out into. He walked over me, and set his stuff down on a desk.

      “Okay, what happened, I saw your posts on Facebook, and wasn’t sure if someone hacked you… both,” Aiden said, coming over to us. I noticed the slight formation of a bruise I hadn’t the day before under his eye, but didn’t mention it.

      “We’re going out,” Chase said confidently.

      “No, don’t say that; say dating,” I said, shaking my head. I hated that term: “Going out”. It begged the question “Where?”. Besides, dating sounded so much more pleasant.

      “Okay, we’re dating,” Chase corrected, poking my side.

      “What happened?” Aiden asked, interest sprinkled across his demeanor.

      “After I left the skate park, I was skipping home, and I got kidnapped by alligators!” I said exaggeratedly.

      “Then, she was only allowed one call, and called me. I saved the day, and as a reward she’s now my girlfriend,” Chase said, building onto my statement.

      “Haha, funny. What really happened?” Aiden asked, not amused in the slightest by our tale.

      “What’s it matter? We’re together now, and everything’s good,” Chase said.

      “Whatever,” Aiden mumbled, dropping it, and accepting our answer.

      “What happened to your eye, bro?” Chase asked, bringing up a topic I hadn’t wanted to touch upon.

      “Uh… I told Logan Evans about the Katrina thing, and he socked my eye,” he explained. I gave him a pitiful look, unsure of how to respond. “I’m fine though,” he assured us just as the bell of hell rang, meaning class was about to start.

      “See ya later, guys!” I said, taking my things, and going over to the doorway.

      “Bye, Jules!” Chase said, matched with Aiden by simply nodding his head in my direction. I flashed Chase one last smile as I left, and found my way in the muddle of the hall.

      I loved Fridays. My schedule was what the word “Chill” was invented for. I had a Study Hall first, where I basically slept for an hour, or occasionally caught up on the previous night’s homework I hadn’t completed. Following the Study Hall was Art, History, Spanish, Lunch, and an afternoon class. It was a relaxed day. Fridays were great.

      I plodded my way into the computer lab, seeing my fellow classmates already hard at work, sleeping, texting, reading, or talking. The computer lab was this big room with a few tables in the back, a couch or two, some chairs, and, obviously, computers. There were rows upon rows of computers lined up, designated for students to accomplish the task of typing papers, and researching. Thank god the administrators weren’t smart enough to block anything.

      During this hour block, I had close to no friends. There was one person, however. We hadn’t said anything to each other for the duration of the past months during this class. I had made contact with them, but I hadn’t gone out of my way to do so. Things still felt a bit weird, and unresolved between us, though there was never really anything to resolve.

      Today, I felt different. I felt like I could stand up, and talk to this person. I wanted to; I wanted to tell them about Chase and me, and my life in general. I missed them. Alas, I couldn’t. I didn’t feel like getting into any further complications than the ones already sure to arise.

      I walked over to a couch, let my bag plunge to the ground, and dropped myself down. I withdrew my phone and earphones from a small pocket on the front of my backpack, and plugged in. Lying my head down, I stretched my legs out so they were touching the other end of the couch. I needed more sleep. I pressed shuffle, and closed my eyes. I loved study halls…

      “Hey, babe!” someone said, jumping on my stomach.

      “What the fuck?!” I yelled.

      “No, what the Aaron!” he remarked.

      “I don’t care, get the hell off of me,” I commanded.

      “Nope,” he defied, his weight heaving my body down. OUCH!

      “Aaron!” I groaned.

      “Jules!” he mimicked. “I want to talk to you.”

      “I want to sleep!” I said, my ears still buzzing with the remnants of the end of a song.

      “Too bad!” he said, taking out the white buds in my ears, and crumpling them up, tossing them onto the floor. Jerk.

      Aaron was like the brother I never had. Yes, I had Adam, but Aaron was… well, Aaron was Aaron. We fought, but in a playful way, had our inside jokes, and felt totally comfortable around each other. Aaron Kennings… He had been my “BFFB” or “Best Friend Forever’s Brother”, and I his “SBFF”, aka, “Sister’s Best Friend Forever”.

      “What?” I grumbled, accepting the fact that I wouldn’t be catching up on sleep, but rather talking to Aaron.

      He cupped his hands together, and put them up to my ear, loudly whispering, “I heard you had a boyfriend.”

      “Did your sister also hear this?” I asked, hating the fact that the truthful rumor had already gotten that far.

      “Not yet. I’m sure she will, but I wanted to know first hand from the primary source. Is this true, J?” he asked.

      “Don’t call me J, and if I give you the answer, will your sister then be told?” I didn’t want Taylor knowing. She wasn’t apart of my life anymore, and the less she knew about my life, the better.

      “Julia, you know me, do I tell Taylor anything?” he said reasonably. He didn’t. He and his sister weren’t exactly what one would call “Close”. He had his own life, and, yes, he did love his sister, but they didn’t talk too openly about their own lives… or, so I remember. I didn’t bother mentioning the fact that he had called me Julia because it didn’t matter at this point, and he was Aaron.

      “Chase and I,” I said, as he took his hands off my ear.

      “You and Chase are…”

      “Dating,” I finished for him.

      “Awwww! Jules! That’s so cute!” he said in the type of voice one would use when trying to pursuade a baby to eat applesauce, hugging me. It was a little on the patronizing side, but it was Aaron, so who cared?

      “Okay, Aaron, get off of me, and please, let me sleep?” I requested.

      “That’s so adorable! You’re inviting me to your wedding, right?” he said.

      “Shut up, and leave me alone!” I said, pushing him away.

      “Oh Jules… I’ve missed ya!”

      “I know, and I’ve missed you too,” I admitted, “but will you please let me sleep?”

      “So, now the princess wants sleep? Fine!” he said, dramatically putting his hands up, and smirking at me. He retreated, and headed over to one of the many computers to do… whatever it is guys do on computers.

      For the rest of the class, I chilled on the couch, unable to sleep, but instead played Temple Run. The second bell of the day sounded, and I got up, leaving the room without a word to anyone. I maneuvered my way through the flow of students, and came to another wing of the school that had become one of my favorites: the Art Department. I had Art once a week, on Fridays, and it was one of my favorite classes.

      I had never been much of an artist, but I liked the concept of art, if that made sense… I liked the fact that no art was bad art, and that creativity could be expressed in various ways. It was one of those things in life that no one could tell you was wrong, and was another outlet to articulate your thoughts and ideas.

      “Jules!” Izzy said, waving me over eagerly.

      “Hey Izzy,” I said, making my way over to the table we had claimed long ago to be ours. Izzy had already begun the assignment for the day, which looked to me like she was scribbling on a piece of paper using a variety of different colored paints. I looked up to the board at the front of the room, and quickly read about the project I would be doing for the next hour: Abstract Art.

      I went over to a shelf in the corner of the room, and took a piece of paper out, bringing it back over to our table. I set it down, and picked up a red pencil. I commenced to mindlessly draw heart-shaped figures about the page, my mind going blank as I did so. That was another thing I liked about art- a million things could be racing through your mind, but when you picked up your utensil, everything washed away, and the only thing left in your awareness was the one entity you were creating. It was pretty cool.

      “Julia,” our art teacher said, coming up beside me.

      “Jules,” I corrected her.

      “Jules, your drawing is very nice, but I’m afraid that’s not abstract,” she said in her quietly tranquil voice.

      “Excuse me?” I said, looking down at my picture.

      “I see hearts on the page, and hearts are a shape. Abstract Art is about not knowing what something is, and using your imagination to envision it. Yours is not abstract,” she explained, making motions with her hands.

      I had always found it odd how people used their hands to communicate what they were saying. It wasn’t sign language, but motions that better one’s articulation of his or her thoughts. Personally, I didn’t use my hands when speaking, but I had seen my mom do it before.

      “But it is…” I said.

      “It isn’t. I’m sorry if I wasn’t explicit enough about the task, but could you please start over? Isabelle, how about you help?” she suggested, giving me a sympathetic smile before leaving us, and making her rounds to the next group of students.

      “How is this not abstract?” I asked Izzy. She shrugged, and continued her picture. I sighed, not taking into account what our teacher had told me, and drew hearts for the residue of the class period. Izzy didn’t say or ask anything about my whereabouts the previous night, and I wasn’t dying to bring it up. The third bell of the day finally sounded, and I left the art room, taking my hearts with me.

      I found my way into my History class, and was pretty quiet for most of it. There was no one in the class I was particularly close with, resulting in me being noiseless. We were writing papers on our opinion of what truly caused the French Revolution, and I didn’t find it a terribly interesting topic to write about, so I zoned out for most of the class. After wasting an hour in History, I left and went to my Spanish class.

      Spanish. I started learning it in middle school, and had continued my studies of it through my current grade. I didn’t like Spanish. I wasn’t in the smart class, and, in my mind, learning another language didn’t make a great amount of sense. I knew English, therefor, I had the ability to communicate; I didn’t need Spanish. It just took up space in my brain that I could use to store… anything other than Spanish!

      “Hola, Jules!” Mia said.

      “Hi…” I said. Though we had cleared everything up between the two of us, I was still on the apprehensive side about interacting with Mia. I wanted to be careful, and not wreck or damage anything.

      “You and Chase?” she said, grinning as if it was she who had just entered the relationship.

      “Me and Chase…”

      “You’re together?”

      “Yeah,” I said slowly, shrugging. Sometimes I masked my emotions with indifference, because it was easier to cope with that way. I was unsure why not allowing people see what was truly racing through my head and presenting an apathetic façade to the world worked for me, but it did.

      “That’s so sweet!” she squealed.

      “Yup…” I sat down at a desk next to hers.

      “Hi guys, I hate to inform you, but Ms. Ramos isn’t in school today, so I’ll be subbing,” said a girl at the front of the room. She sounded too young to be a teacher.

      “But you’re a kid…” someone objected.

      “I’m a senior, and they didn’t feel like getting a real sub, so I’m the student teacher for you guys. I speak Spanish, but that really doesn’t matter. We’re just going to have a free period. Don’t leave the room,” she said, pausing. “Any questions? Didn’t think so. Jules!”

      I looked up, realizing our sub was none other than Talia Ryan. The entire class turned to look at me, and I sunk down into my chair, not wanting to be the center of attention at the moment. Talia walked over to me, intent apparent on her face. Mia took out her phone, and began texting, not paying any attentiveness to Talia or me.

      “Hey,” I said.

      “Come here,” she ordered. I went over to her, and she immediately attacked me with a giant hug. “Congrats!”

      “Thanks,” I said, placing my arms around her torso in the same manner hers were positioned, encircling me.

      “I think it’s so great!” she said, letting go.

      “You do?”

      “Yeah! You and Chase are so cute together!” she said. “I mean, not as cute as Adam and me, but still.” 

      “Funny.”

      “I know. Now, Jules, I have a question for you.”

      “Do you?”

      “Yeah, I do,” she said, giving me a thoughtful expression.

      “What?”

      “One day, not now, but one day, what if- what if we switched last names?” she mused. I thought about the meaning of her words for a moment before shaking my head a smiling at the implication she had made.

      Talia married to Adam and me married to Chase. That was too far into the future for me. I admitted to liking Chase less than twenty-four hours ago, and Talia already wanted me to think about a commitment like marriage? No. I was incapable of doing a feat such as that. Relationships already scared me enough, so adding the “M word” was like pushing me off the Empire State Building; it was terrifying.

      “Maybe,” I said, “but, right now, I think it’s too soon to even begin thinking of something like that.”

      “I guess. But a girl can dream, right?” she said hopefully.

      “Right,” I said, as I could feel the sincerity emanating from her. She kept talking about how awesome and amazing it was that Chase and I were now a couple, and I nodded at the appropriate times, not paying full attention.

      I casually took out my phone, and speedily sent Adam a text: hav u askd talia 2 the prom yet? I waited impatiently for a few seconds of listening to Talia talk before receiving his response: not yet. doin it 2day afta skool. I wanted Talia to have the fairytale romance… even if it was with my brother; she deserved it.