Shade let out a sigh as he entered his English class and took his seat. Lucky for him, his seat was in first row by the door which made for quick exits at the end of class. He placed his backpack on the ground by his desk before using his foot to kick it under the desk. Then, he pulled his phone from his pocket, turned the music down so that he could hear what was happening around him, and then placed his phone face down on his desk. The boy leaned back in his seat and watched the last students file into the class moments before the bell.

The teacher, Mr. Bales, entered the room just as the bell went off and shut the door. Shade turned his music off, removed his earbuds, and shoved both into his pocket. He walked over to his desk and stood in front of it. He glanced around the room at the chattering students before clapping his hands together in attempts to gather the students attention.

"Alright, phones up, earbuds out of sight, and no talking," Bales said as most of the teens moved to sit facing the teacher and put their phones away. Bales then went on to call out the specific students who were not listening to him. Shade stared up at the white board in front of him, waiting for class to actually begin. Finally, he heard: "To start today off, we're gonna talk about an extra credit project that we'll be doing in here. It is required."

"If it's extra credit why is it required?" A student called out causing Bales to let out a sigh before sitting down in his seat.

"First off, raising your hand takes like three seconds. C'mon, it's not that hard to do. Second, it's required because we, the English department, said we wanted it to be. Third, this project is really simple and honestly, an easy grade." Bales leaned forward onto his desk, "It's worth twenty percent your grade. Not much. But if you do this, it could help your grade out." The murmurs and groans of students made Bales slam his hands down onto his desk, capturing the students attention. He spoke desperately, "You get a partner for this project." The students' murmurs became happy but stopped when Bales went on, "From Midtown. You will be paired with someone from Midtown High School."

A student raised his hands and Bales pointed to him, giving the student the ok to speak, "How is that gonna work? I mean, how do we do a project with someone we don't go to school with and cant communicate with?"

"Texting. You'll be texting the student." Confusion rose amongst the students and multiple hands raised in the air to ask questions. Mr. Bales made a motion for the students to put their hands down, "You have all already been paired up with a student. After I'm done explaining and answering questions, I'll give you the number of the student you are paired with. Your job is to get to know your partner. You will not tell them your name or show them what you look like and vise-versa. You will get to know each other based off personality. Then, at the end of the semester, we will meet up with the Midtown students in either our gym or theirs and it will be you job to find your partner. Your phones will be taken as you enter the gym so you cant text your partner and just ask where they are. You will have to talk to others and try to find your partner based off what you learned about them."

"This is so damn stupid," A kid in the back laughed. His friends laughing along with him. Other students slowly joined in, making jokes and talking about how pointless the project is. "We shouldn't have to do this. There's no point!"

"Jake—"

"This is the stupidest project ever, Mr. Bales. And it shouldn't be required. Some of our grades in here are just fine. Failing this could change that!"

Shade pushed himself up and turned to face the back of the class. He looked back at the student at the back of his row, "So, do the project and don't fail it, moron. All you have to do is text someone under the end of the semester. Shouldn't be too hard seeing as that's all you do in math." The teens stopped laughing. They looked to Jake, waiting for his response.

"You don't know what I do in math!" Jake pointed a finger at Shade. The teens looked to Shade who raised an eyebrow.

"I sit right next to you and can literally see you texting throughout the entire class," Shade pointed a finger to Mr. Bales, "Bales has presented us with what is possibly the easiest project we'll ever get. It's worth twenty percent of our grade and could boost someone up to a passing grade—in other words, it could boost you up to a passing grade. Heard coach riding your ass for that big, fat 'F' you have in here. I really don't think you should be complaining about this project."

Jake opened his mouth to speak but Mr. Bales cut in, "That's enough. You do the project or you don't but know your partners grade is on the line if you don't and if you want a Midtown kid and their parent coming at you for their kid failing this project, that's on you. Not me. And I won't be swooping in to help. You've all gotten a warning now and know if you wanna fail, you're making someone else fail. So again, whatever you do is on you." He stood from his desk and picked a pile of slips up off his desk. He made his way around the room, handing students slips that included their names and a phone number.

intro chapters haunt my nightmares i hate writing introductions my introductions tend to suck so i apologize so much

should i double update today?

Also, in case you guys cant tell Shade is That Bitch! But he's secretly That Softy Bitch meaning he was being an asshole to Jake but it was mainly because he didn't appreciate Jake being an ass to the teacher and was like lemme just FUCK this disrespectful bih up

WORD COUNT.        991