Unfortunately, Creative Writing was not the only class I had with him. He followed me right into my next class which is Calculus. Thankfully I don't have to brave this class by myself because Sabrina has this class with me.

I walk over to my regular desk which is right next to Sabrina's. She watches as Connor walks into the classroom right behind me. I can already see the disgust in her eyes.

"What is he doing here?" She asks as I sit down.

"I'm going to guess that he is in this class with us," I respond.

"He shouldn't be here. Nobody wants him here," Sabrina continues.

I look around the room for him and see him talking to the teacher. She gestures to the seat behind Sabrina and he walks over.

"No. You are not sitting this close to me," Sabrina groaned.

"Hey, the teacher said I had to sit here, it's not my fault," Connor says in defense.

Sabrina rolls her eyes and turns towards me with an annoyed look. I just shrug and turn my attention towards the teacher.

The class continues to go as normal and thankfully Connor doesn't bother us. Soon enough the bell rings and me and Sabrina go off to our next classes.

"I'll see you after school," Sabrina says, waving goodbye.

I wave back and continue walking to my next class.

As I am walking, I feel someone following me. I look behind me and see Connor looming over me.

"Jeez!" I say in surprise, "Why are you following me?"

"I'm not following you. I'm just trying to get to my next class," He responds.

"Oh yeah? And what might that be?"

"History. With Mr. Dallas."

"You have got to be kidding me," I grumble as I turn away.

I walk a few doors down and into my next class, History. I am quickly followed by the one and only Connor Sullivan.

I quickly take my seat next to Kayla and Tony and put my head on the desk.

"What's wrong Nova?" Kayla asks.

"I have had three classes in a row with that Connor kid and I can't seem to shake him," I complain.

"Has he done anything to you?" Tony asks defensively.

"No, but his mere presence is annoying."

"He can't be that bad. You have to remember that he is coming into a new school and he is not really liked by anyone," Kayla reminds us.

I take in what she says and start to feel bad. It's not his fault that he's new to school, I don't have to be a complete ass to him.

Soon class starts and I am happy to see that Connor is sitting across the room from me. I'm not going to be a jerk to him but that doesn't mean I still have to like him.

"Alright, today we are going to be starting a new project. I'm going to be putting you into pairs and you will have to pick an important moment in American history that affects your life today. Now, this is a fairly broad project so I expect lots of details and careful work. I will put the list of partners up on the Smartboard here in a minute," Mr. Dallas debriefs us.

The Smartboard lights up and on it is a list of names. I scan the list and try to find my name. After a little bit I find it and look at the name next to mine.

"You have got to be kidding me," I groan.

I look across the room and lock eyes with my partner, Connor Sullivan.

"You'll be fine Nova. It's just a project," Kayla says.

"Easy for you to say. You get to work with Tony," I mumble.

Kayla gives me a comforting smile and I grab my bag. I move all of my stuff and sit in the desk right next to Connor's.

"Listen, I know you don't want to be doing this project with me, so if you want I can do it all on my own," Connor suggests.

"Yeah that's not going to happen. I'll do the project all by myself," I retort.

"No offense, but I don't really trust you with my grades."

"Fine. We can work on the project together," I sigh.

Connor gives a satisfied nod and opens up his notebook. We start coming up with ideas for how we could go about this project, but it was a lot harder than we thought.

Suddenly, the bell rings and class is dismissed. Even better, that bell also signifies the end of the school day.

I quickly pack up my bags and walk out of class with Kayla and Tony. The three of us start walking towards our groups usual meet up spot after school.

"So how did being partners with Mr. Rival go?" Kayla asks.

"It was fine but we have no idea how to do this project. What are you guys going to talk about?" I ask.

"Oh we have no idea. We'll figure it out though," Tony says.

Sabrina and Allie walk up to us and join in on the conversation.

"What's new?" Sabrina asks.

"We were just talking about this history project we have. Nova is partners with the new kid," Kayla explains.

"Ugh. I do not trust that guy," Sabrina complains.

"Connor?" Jasper asks as he walks up to us, "I don't trust him either."

"I don't think he can be all that bad. He's just from another school," Allie says.

"He's from Oakland, Allie. It's not just some random school," Tony puts in.

"I just think that you guys shouldn't be so quick to judge," Allie sighs.

"And that is why you are the nice and innocent one of the group," Jasper adds.

We all nod in agreement and start walking towards our cars.

"Where are we hanging out tonight?" Tony asks.

"My house. See you all there in an hour," Kayla calls.

I get to my car and Greyson is already waiting there.

"What takes you so long?" Greyson asks.

"We got out of school like five minutes ago. Relax." I say.

We get into my car and start heading home. Now, Greyson is much more keen on talking to me and he tells me all about his day.

"We have to read To Kill a Mockingbird in English and I am not looking forward to it," he complains.

"Yeah, I remember not too many people liked reading it when I had to."

"But you probably liked it, didn't you?"

"It wasn't my favorite of all time but I thought that it was an okay read."

He nods his head and leans back in his seat. Soon we arrive to our house and I drop him off.

"Where are you going?" Greyson asks.

"Kayla's. Can you tell mom and dad that I should be home by nine?"

"Sure. Bye."

He runs into our house and I pull away.

My friends and I have been having Thursday study nights for almost two years. I could not really say why we do it on Thursday's but it's been like this for a long time.

I will say that these nights always make me feel so much better, no matter what happened during the day. Today is definitely no exception. Nothing gets my mood up better than a night with my friends.

As I pull into Kayla's driveway I can see Jasper tinkering with something through the window. This is going to be a good night.

***

"No, Betty Crocker is not a historical figure." I hear Sabrina say as I walk into Kayla's house.

When I walk into her house everyone else is already there. Jasper is sitting on the floor, tinkering with something, Sabrina and Allie are laying on the couch, and Tony and Kayla are sitting on the floor.

"Nova, thank God you're here. You at least have some common sense," Sabrina says.

"Listen, I am not good at history, I'm sorry if I don't know who is important or not," Tony grumbles.

"Then it's a good thing you have me as your partner for this project," Kayla says smiling.

I drop my bag on the floor and go sit on the floor. These study nights very rarely end in us actually doing any studying.

"Hey Jasper, what are you working on over there?" I ask.

"It's a surprise," He responds.

"You just better not blow up my house. My parents would kill me," Kayla warns.

Jasper grumbles something and turns back to whatever he's working on. After a couple of minutes sitting in a comfortable silence, Sabrina gets up in exasperation.

"I need a snack," she says walking to the kitchen.

"Grab whatever you want!" Kayla calls out to her.

After a couple of minutes she comes back into the living room with pretzels in her hand and a smile on her face.

"I'm all better now," Sabrina says.

We all go back to working or rather, everyone keeps working on homework and I just sit there writing some poems.

Suddenly, Jasper jumps up, holding some weird contraption.

"Behold! The one and only.... Warren-Waker!" He announces.

"Warren-Waker? What does it do?" Sabrina questions.

"You hook it up to your wrist when you are doing homework late at night and if you ever start to drift off, it will slap you!" Jasper explains.

"Alarm clocks rarely work on me... so I think you're actually on to something here Jasper," Tony shrugs.

"I still have to work out some kinks so it's not ready for use yet," Jasper adds.

"Your inventions always turn out, Jasper. You are a genius after all," Allie says.

Yeah, Jasper is way to smart for his own good. He is in college level classes for all of his STEM subjects and he could graduate early if he wanted to. However, having a genius mind gets him in trouble more times than I can count.

A couple of months ago he made an invention that was designed to speed up the process of microwaving, because apparently it was too slow for him, and he ended up almost setting the cafeteria on fire.

Now that Jasper was done tinkering, he was a lot more talkative.

"So I know that this has kind of been the main topic of discussion today, but what do you all think of that Connor kid?" Jasper asks.

Sabrina just grunts from the couch and continues with her work.

"I think he's trouble. It's just not normal for him to come here," Tony contributes.

"I'm not really sure how I feel about him yet. I do know that there are a ton of girls who are crushing on him hardcore. Something about him being some forbidden guy seems to turn them all on," Kayla adds.

"You guys just need to remember that he is a new guy in a new school. I don't think he can be all that bad," Allie explains.

"What do you think Nova?" Jasper asks.

"I don't know.Something about him throws me off, though. However, I will keep what Allie said in mind and not be too quick to judge. I do have to work with the guy," I mutter.

Jasper just nods his head and goes back into his thoughts.

Sabrina sits up and clears her throat, ready to make some announcement.

"Alright, enough about this Oakland scum. Tomorrow I have a swim meet and I would really appreciate it if you all would come," Sabrina announces.

"Of course we're coming Sabrina. We would never miss something like this," Allie responds.

"Good. It starts at six tomorrow and make sure to wear neon," Sabrina commands.

"Neon? I thought that the theme was white out," Jasper questions.

"It is. But I've been really feeling neon lately I think that that is the kind of vibe I'm going for tomorrow," Sabrina explains.

The rest of us all give each other a knowing look. Sabrina always has a sort of pre-meet ritual where she goes through a series of things to help get her in the right head space. I guess tomorrow she wants neon.

"Now do you want us to wear the neon to school or just for the meet?" Kayla asks. This is a very valid question. One time we didn't wear the right clothes to school and she got completely thrown off.

"Just for the meet. I can't get too distracted before I actually compete," Sabrina responds.

Swim is something that Sabrina takes very seriously and if any of us get in her way, we are in danger.

"Well, I cant wait to see you absolutely kill it tomorrow," Kayla says.

We start talking about random things now, our homework now completely disregarded. Eventually someone orders pizza and all of us start digging in.

"Hey, Allie did you finish writing that song you were working on?" Tony asks in between mouthfuls of pizza.

Her eyes light up and she quickly swallows her bite of pizza. She runs out to the living room and grabs her guitar that she must have brought in earlier.

"Now this song isn't completely perfect yet, but I do have all of the words written out and the main melody," Allie explains.

She starts plucking out some notes to warm up and then she strums into her melody.

"A whisper in the wind, the stars in my eyes. The hope I feel within, when you're in my life," She sings.

She continues to sing and all of us become transfixed in her words. After a couple of minutes, she plucks the last notes and we all sit in silence for a moment.

"Damn, Allie. I can never believe how you can always write something so beautiful, it's just not fair," Tony eventually says.

Clearly flustered, Allie says, "Shut up. You all can do such amazing things. I can just sing."

"I can't wait for you to make it big, Allie. We will all go to every single one of your concerts," I add.

She just stands there with a small smile on her face, trying not to look too proud.

"Well now that I got my Allie fix and a crap ton of pizza, I think I can head home," Sabrina sighs.

"Yeah, I better get home. But I will see you all tomorrow," Jasper cheers.

We all start packing up our things slowly, trying to prolong the inevitable. Eventually though, all of us except for Kayla, leave and head on our ways.

I get back home just before nine and see my parents watching TV together.

"Oh good you're back," my mom says, "Did you eat at Kayla's?"

"Yeah we had some pizza," I respond.

"How was your day?" my dad asks.

"Good. There was a new kid today. From Oakland," I reply shortly.

"From Oakland? I bet that stirred up a riot," my dad muses.

"Oh, it did. I'll make sure to tell you guys if anything else happens," I say smiling.

"Well, good night Nova. I'll see you in the morning," my mom says softly.

"Good night," I say as I head up to my room.

I see that Greyson's light is still on and peak my head through his door. He is sitting at his desk doing his homework.

"Hey Grey. How has your night been?" I ask.

"The same as always. I did FaceTime Lila earlier though," he admits.

Lila is my brothers girlfriend. They have been dating for almost three months now and although it does hurt a little that my younger brother is in a relationship and I'm not, they are pretty cute together.

"Oh yeah? How is she?" I ask.

"She's great. We were talking about school and our dream vacations," he pauses, "she wants to go to Rome."

"God, you guys are too cute that I'm starting to feel hopelessly single over here," I groan.

"Relax, you'll find someone. You never know when love will strike," he grins.

"Oh shut up," I laugh and tussle his hair.

I turn and walk out of his room and go and plop down on my bed. I kick my shoes off and just stare at the ceiling for a moment, thinking.

Thinking about my friends and how nice of a night we had together. Thinking about my brother who is in a great relationship when he's  only fifteen. Thinking about how many great people I have in my life.

Finally, somehow I think of Connor Sullivan.

Wondering if he too, has people he can rely on in his life.

***

Thank you so much for reading!

I would love to hear what you all have to think about the story so far!

Love you all ❤️