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CHAPTER TWENTY: FRESHMEN YEAR 

D A T E : September 2010

✖ high school ✖

The summer before freshmen year didn't even count because it was all circled around high school, high school, high school even though none of us were really prepared for any of it. We were scared, scarred, and most of all stuck by all the stern warnings we got from each of our teachers all through eighth grade. With the exception of Joni, we all pretty much felt like we were being tossed into a fish bowl of crazy and swirled up a bit.

Joni already pretty much knew what high school was about, and made a point to correct all the rumors before the very first day. Her mom being one of the English teachers, she knew a thing or two about what it took to make it through those four dreadful years.

"After the first day, you'll know who all the seniors are, but they don't know you so don't even talk to them," she informed Landon and I the day before it all began. I had my feet dangling off the concrete ledge of the lighthouse walkway, and below them, the waters of Lake Michigan churned and crashed about.

Landon had his ginger curls hidden under his baseball cap, and a look in his eyes that said he wasn't at all ready for tomorrow to come around. "How many of them are there?"

"Like, two hundred, something like that. But don't even sweat it, they're just obnoxious among themselves, they don't bother with us," Joni reassured him as she propped her sunglasses on top of her head. "And don't wear polos. Those aren't in anymore."

"They were never in," I told her, and Landon gave a little gasp that had us both laughing giddily.

"Anything I wear is in!" he insisted, and while that was partially true, his fashion statements never really caught on to any of the other guys in our grade, or any grade for that matter. He was the only guy who could pull off bright red pants and get away with it on a normal Tuesday—red was too bright for Mondays anyway.

"Remember, we all have to meet up ASAP at lunch or else we'll never get a table. The upperclassmen usually stick to the same ones, but we shouldn't have a problem."

"Are the classes really hard to find? Because now we'll be in a two story school and there's stairs and people..." Landon mused aloud, his voice already overflowing with the pressures of high school. Joni was practically already there, considering her overachievements in school the year before, and her mom's occupation at the high school.

Joni debunked all of Landon's worrying, and for the time being he was settled. He stopped panicking until the minute I found him at his locker the next morning, floundering through his backpack in search of his lucky pen.

"Whoa, calm down, what's up?" I said as I swiftly approached him, hanging onto the straps of his backpack so it wouldn't be so much for him to carry.

He looked me dead in the eyes and said, "My pen! You know, the one that I colored on with red sharpie—I can't find it!"

It didn't take a genius to find it—he'd gone and left it on the top shelf of his locker. I reached over and picked it up, and set it in his hands as he came to, a gasped sigh leaving his lips. "I thought I'd have to go home and find it."

"We don't have time for that anyway. C'mon, let's get to class," I urged him, and shut his locker door for him so we could get a move on. The first bell was bound to ring any second, and I still needed to find out where I was going. First thing's first: Math class.

Since Landon and I weren't Joni, or even Zack for that matter, we had algebra and good old earth science all through freshmen year. Half the time I wanted to kick myself just to be distracted from the pain of learning numbers and equations when all I wanted to do was learn about actually interesting, applicable things, like English or art, or even history for all I cared. I just knew I would never pursue any sort of career within mathematics, and sitting there in class with my chin against my hand, and my eyes staring blankly at the board, I understood that it was all being forced on me.

It didn't make sense that the school would mold me into somebody that I wasn't when they did a crap job at pushing the arts onto the science and math kids. Aside from Landon, Clara was the only other friend of mine that was in any of my science and math classes, because the rest were excelling their way to becoming genius scientists.

There was one individual that Landon kept his eye on for me all of that first day we spent roaming the halls together, and every day after. He'd punch me in the side whenever he spotted Kole, even if it was just for a brief second, but I tried to stand it the best I could. It was insufferable pretending I didn't see Kole when we crossed paths, which was why I practically fell over backwards when Landon and I bumped into him in the art hall.

"Kole! Hi!" Landon stammered from beside me, a wicked grin gracing his lips as Kole practically froze mid-step into the corridor.

"Hey Landon, Skye," he greeted with all the grace bestowed onto him from his father, ever the enthusiast for courtesy. I could feel my whole face lighting up like a flame, so I only managed a weak wave in response.

It was weird to say the least. I hadn't seen him all summer, and our Facebook chats were so minimal, they practically didn't exist anymore. Still, Landon and Joni had this weird fantasy of Kole and I getting together one day, and while it nearly happened, I botched it all up the minute he accidentally confessed he liked me that day on the beach.

"Where are you heading?" Landon asked when neither of us said anything. My eyes were on the ground, but I knew Kole's were looking at me curiously before flickering back to Landon.

"I have foundations this hour. I'm... waiting for someone," he answered.

While he talked to Landon, I plucked up enough courage to get a good look at him, and not the weak, glance-out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye kind of looks. If possible, he got even taller over the break, but he was just as skinny as ever, wearing a baggy sweatshirt to cover up the fact that he was a walking skeleton with wrists the size of toilet paper tubes. He had the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he wore a classic pair of bluejeans instead of the usual Adidas sweatpants. His hair was far more unruly than before, though, as if he hadn't gotten it cut since I last saw or heard from him.

"No way! We're headed that way, too—you should sit with us, ya know?" I wanted to smack myself in the face when Landon said that. He had no idea.

"Yeah, sure, maybe," Kole replied, taking a brief step away from us and glancing back down the corridor. "I'll meet you guys in there."

I grabbed Landon by the arm and urged him onward to class. He started squealing in my ear the minute we were out of reach and prodded me discretely in the rib. "He kept looking at you!" he said to me.

I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, that's because it was just the three of us. It wasn't like we were in a huge crowd or anything."

"But still!"

God, did I hate that phrase. It was a weak attempt at shedding light on a situation, or making something out of nothing, like there might be more to the situation than there should be. But still...

We walked into the room one after another, because if we went at the same time we'd get stuck in the doorway. The art room ceilings were massive, like the gym's, and I could see all the pipes painted white over our heads like someone tried to camouflage them. There weren't desks at all, which was a relief considering all the other classrooms did, so Landon pointed to the farthest table and we took a seat there, facing the center of the room like everyone else seemed to be doing.

Our art teacher was a man in what could only be his early thirties. His dirty blonde hair made his brown after-shadow seem thicker and fuller than it actually was, but overall, he looked like he stepped out of an outdoors magazine and straight across country to get to class today. In fact, he was incredibly tan.

The second bell ticked off the final call, and so class commenced. I was disappointed, really, because no matter how hard I tried, I felt put down by the fact that Kole hadn't made it in time. He was already slacking, but perhaps I was jumping the gun. It was the first day of school, anyway. Usually all the freshmen were supposed to be on their A-game or there'd be no-game.

The teacher got straight to work, and just as the bell rang, he made a weird gesture like he threw a ball onto the ground and it exploded. It was perfectly timed, too, because when it fake-exploded, the sound of the bell went off.

"Welcome, welcome. It's always great to see new faces, new faces," he said, his echo fading a bit as he took everyone in, eyes bright and almost comical. I couldn't help but laugh a little when he passed over Landon and I. "As you may or may not be aware, you are in the presence of Sir Frank Lancaster, enthusiast of the arts, awesome by day, asleep by night. I recognize a few here today, but no matter! I see potential all around me today, and I'd like to draw some of your creativity out. Relax a little—today's the first day of many more to come! Hopefully."

We all chuckled at his joke, not because it was decently funny, but because of the faces he pulled and the voices he made. He was a one-man show all on his own.

He declared that we each grab a sheet of paper from the massive wooden table in the center of the room, which was currently tidied up with various art supplies and papers for us to utilize. In the center of each table, an small still life was on display for each of us to draw. I got up and grabbed two sheets for Landon and I, and on the way back, I saw Mr. Lancaster out of the corner of my eye grasp his heart like he was suddenly fainting.

"Late, terribly late. Five minutes to be exact, and you've missed my speech," he exclaimed to the newcomers, both of whom I recognized, and at the sight of them, I sat down with a frown on my face.

"Sorry, I forgot my assignment notebook at my locker."Bluebitch. And she said it with such innocence, that even if Mr. Lancaster picked up on it, there wasn't much anyone could say to disagree.

Kole passed in front of her, making a beeline for our table like he expected to be exempted from Mr. Lancaster's teasing, but alas. "And you as well?" Mr. Lancaster commented, and Kole gave him a brief glance before saying something I didn't quite hear. He grabbed a paper from the center table and claimed the seat across from me, and to mine and Landon's great misfortune, Bluebell slid gracefully into her chair, fixing her white summer dress in the process. She looked like orange juice had seeped into her pores.

"Hey Landon, Skye," she greeted us, and I couldn't tell if the smile on her face was fake or not. Even while I was writing my name on the corner of my page, I still glowered at her from under my eyelashes, watching her search for a pencil and come up blank. She nudged Kole on the arm and said, "Hey hey, get me a pencil or a pen or something."

"You forgot your pencil bag too?" I'd never heard such sass come from Kole's mouth, but it made Bluebell laugh just the same.

"Duh. C'mon, get a move on."

I was surprised my pencil wasn't snapping in two by this point. I stole a look in Landon's direction, as as if he sensed it, he looked at me with a face that said, Shoot me now.

The whole time we worked, Mr. Lancaster's classical music couldn't drown out Bluebell's incessant bitching about how her lines never came out straight, or joking that it looked more like a lopsided walrus than a bottle. She whined for Kole to help her, and she even managed to compliment Landon on his. He even shaded his drawing.

Mr. Lancaster went about studying everyone's pieces, refusing to involve himself in the making of them—he wanted to get a scope of everyone's talents. Eventually he rounded our table, making chitchat with with everyone on the way. I don't know how he could manage it, but he did. I already knew half the people in the room, and half of them were burnouts, and some of them were upperclassmen who needed an easy class to pass—good luck with that.

He asked for our names so that he could work on memorizing them, so Bluebell jumped in and introduced herself and Kole, and I was tempted to introduce the entire table just so I could say Bluebitch out loud, but I restrained myself.

Mr. Lancaster gestured to us, so Landon spoke up, "I'm Landon and that's Skye."

"Peculiar names... I love it. As an art enthusiast, I must say, Skye—is it?—that you could be the sister of Pocahontas, no joke." Bluebell gave a little snort from her corner of the table, and I blushed like mad until my ears felt like they were going to shrivel up and die. Mr. Lancaster gave us a brilliant smile behind his scruffy stubble and leaned casually on the table, like he was preparing for an intense chat with us all. "You know, crazy fact about myself, I interned for two weeks at Disney—saw all there was to see about Pocahontas before I left."

"Really? Why'd you leave?" Landon inquired. "That sounds incredible!"

"Oh, it was. I had to cut my stay short because they defaulted me into paperwork. Straight out of art school, and I became a secretary—that's not my kind of gig," he told us, and briefly glanced at his desk where, ironically, there were stacks of empty papers most likely to be filled out by students, and later assessed by him. He waved his hand absently and said, "Anywho, I saw you walk through that door, and if you had a feather in your hair, I woudn't've known the difference. Keep up the good work."

The moment he was out of earshot, Bluebell muttered under her breath, "Well that was weird, and awkward, and all of the above."

"He's cool. He interned at Disney, that's, like, an automatic win," Landon corrected, and I could tell he was having a hard time not glaring.

Bluebell brushed off the conversation without so much as a shrug. I expected her to insult Mr. Lancaster—it sure as hell looked like she wanted to—but what infuriated me more was that she dropped it like it was nothing. All during that time, I was making awkward delayed eye-contact with Kole—not entirely meaning to, but it happened nonetheless. We'd both look away, mind you, but I could feel his eyes flickering towards me just as much as mine did his.

There was still a dump truck load of middle school awkwardness whenever we crossed paths, and after a while when I discovered that I truly missed the friendship we had, I feared that we'd always be stuck there. Neither one of us would know what to do even if someone initiated it, but a week into school, I was fairly positive who'd be the one to initiate it, and it wasn't me, nor was it Kole.

It was at lunch while Lizzie threw her hands down and gestured madly at me, churro hanging out of her mouth like a cigarette. "I've never seen a person as unmotivated as you!" she shouted, breaking up a conversation that had been about the upcoming school dance, but was now wildly thrown into a different direction.

My shoulders curled up as if I was about to turn into a hedgehog and roll away. "What're you-"

"She has motivation! You should see her in art class," Landon countered. "And maybe American Government, but that's not the point."

"I'm not talking about school, I'm talking about 'in general'. Like, when was the last time I saw you excited about anything?" Lizzie brought up a good point that I couldn't deny. The only thing I ever really got into was making videos, but even those were slacking lately. Besides, making videos reminded me of how Fynn was sort of branching off, forming his own little clan of movie buddies from a trip he and his family took to Italy. He was crazy fluent in Italian now, and I imagined it was because he hadn't waited until eighth grade to start foreign language classes.

Even then I wasn't really feeling Spanish, and the German teacher always sounded like she was yelling at someone.

"I read a cool book last week," I admitted, straightening myself up and pondering on it a moment longer. "I like reading."

Lizzie groaned like the entire point flew over my head. Olivia giggled beside her, and it was like everyone was a page ahead of me on this. "I'm not talking about that either! I'm talking about... a certain someone who's name starts with a 'K'! You aren't even trying to win him back."

"You make it sound like I owned him at some point—which I didn't! It wasn't like he came with a receipt or anything," I told her, hoping I sounded serious, but I cracked when Joni laughed aloud.

"Ya'll were totally a thing! He did practically everything for you-"

"That's ridiculous, and besides, I don't want to deal with Bluebitch anyway."

As soon as I said it, I went back to eating, only to be hit in the face with a French fry. I glared at her, and she glared right back. "She's not even good for him! Ryan, maybe, but not Kole!"

She shouted it so loud that I had to look around to make sure no one heard us from the other tables. When all came up clear, Landon spoke up from beside me, "We need codenames. I call Beanie Baby for Kole."

Someone dig a hole and bury me in it, please.