"Brother brother we all see, Your hiding out so painfully, See yourself come out to play, A lover's rain will wash away
Your envy and your fear, So have no envy and no fear..." -- Joshua Radin 'No Envy No Fear'
9
Mondays stink. Mondays are like the unwanted fruit cake gift of the entire week. Mondays should be banned and just ignored all together. They're like the annoying kid in the fifth grade who is always trying to steal everyone's chocolate pudding at lunch.
"Tess where are you?" Blake asked, not giving Tessa a chance to answer the phone.
"Errm," she wasn't able to make whole words yet. In fact, she was in denial of the phone ever ringing, so she kept her eyes shut and buried herself under the covers.
"Tess! You're going to be late, you need to get up!" Blake laughed. "Its seven! Get out of bed."
"Its seven?!" She shot up like a fire had just been lit underneath her. "Oh crap!"
She slammed the phone shut and ran to the bathroom to take the quickest shower she could, and then managed to throw on a quick, dark gray cotton dress with three-quarter length sleeves over a black cami and black leggings. She blow dried her hair quickly and grabbed her mascara, which she planned to do on the way.
She skipped breakfast, and made it to the school just five minutes after seven. She grabbed her bags and made a bee line for the school, nearly running over the janitor as she passed by.
"You made it!" Blake laughed as she passed her in the hallway. "Ok, you can slow down now."
"I can't believe I forgot to set my alarm last night!" She cried as she unlocked her door and set everything inside, then turned out the light and locked the door again as she followed Blake to the early morning meeting they were supposed to have. "I hate being late!"
"I know, but don't worry about it! I'm always late to these things."
"Yes, I know." She sighed, then finally burst into a fit of laughter.
"What's so funny?" Blake asked curiously as she laughed along too.
Tessa pointed to her shoes. "I have on two different colored shoes!"
"How did you manage that?" Blake laughed as the two girls stared at Tessa's feet, where one grey flat and one black flat stared back at them. Blake giggled, "Thats like something I would do!"
Tessa nodded as she laughed, "I know!"
"What are we going to do with you?" Blake laughed as she linked arms with Tessa and pulled her towards the teachers' lounge.
- - - -
"As you all have heard, we now have a new soccer coach, who will also be the new gym teacher to cut down on class size. It will make things a lot easier on Mrs. Taylor." The principal stated, referring to the current female gym teacher, as she stood in front of everyone in the lounge.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head at Blake, who was elbowing her teasingly as she looked across the room, where Jarrett was sitting with Nate. He gave her a small, discreet smile, before the principal called his name.
"Mr. Scott," she held her hand out in his general direction, and he raised his hand to wave at everyone. "Ok, so I also wanted to talk about dress code a little. Some of the girls have been wearing those short shorts in gym, and Mrs. Taylor has issued detention after detention, but they still do it, so we have gone back to issuing gym uniforms."
She pointed to several boxes piled along the wall, then continued her lecture on dress code. Tessa bit her lip as she looked at Blake who was grinning. Blake never wrote anyone up for dress code violations. She thought everyone should be able to wear what they wanted as long as it wasn't a string bikini or anything. The rest of the meeting was rather boring, and had Tessa not been casually sneaking glances in Jarrett's direction, she probably would have fallen asleep.
When the meeting was over, she and Blake made their way to Nate and Jarrett, who were getting ready to carry the cardboard boxes to the gym.
"Hey hey," Blake spoke up first. "Welcome to Lakeside High."
"Thanks," Jarrett smiled, then turned to Tessa and put his arm over her shoulder. "So I heard that you liked my flowers."
She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I did. Thank you."
"So I was thinking that we could go do something tonight. Of course, I'm not exactly sure what there is to do around here, but.."
"You could go to a haunted house," Blake spoke up, "Which I've been meaning to do, but I've never had a group of friends to go with, until now. I mean, if you guys want to go on a date by yourselves thats cool too, we could always do it another time."
"No, that sounds great. I've never been to a haunted house," Jarrett laughed as the three of them looked at him like he was an alien. "What?"
"You're going!" Nate laughed as he handed his cousin a box, and they all began making their way towards the gym.
- - - -
'ted, t'm at work,' she sent him a text after finally responding to his.
'i know. but i just wanted to say i'm sorry.'
'its ok. i was being stupid too.' She apologized for leaving like she did, but she still wasn't sure she wanted to tell him where she was.
'so you're done being in the witness protection program?' she almost snorted as she tried to hold back her laughter at his attempt at making a joke.
'not exactly.'
'ok.'
'i'm just really happy with jarrett, so...'
'i know.'
'i still think about you... for what its worth,' She couldn't believe she was telling him this, but she felt like she had to.
'me too.' She sighed as she turned off her phone, then re-focused her attention back on her class.
"Ok. Is everyone finished with their journals?" She sat on a stool in front of the class as everyone looked back at her, waiting for her to say something else. "Ok, today I want to share a little bit of our creative writing. Who wants to go first?"
A girl in the back raised her hand. "Ok, Becca, what do you have for us?"
"Its a poem. Um, its about a love triangle," she said nervously as she turned to the page in her bright orange notebook and began reciting her poem. Everyone clapped when she finished.
"That was amazing, Becca. Ok, who's next?" Tessa smiled, and so went the rest of her first period class.
- - - -
"What are you doing?" Teddy asked curiously as he talked to Tessa on the phone when she got off work that day.
"I am changing clothes."
"Ohh. What kind of clothes?" He asked.
"Jeans. Something I can go to a haunted house in," she told him.
"Nice. We all went to one the other night. I swear Cooper nearly wet himself," Teddy laughed. "Anyway. How was your day?"
"It was ok. I was late to work, but I didn't get in trouble or anything."
"Thats good."
"How was your day?" She asked as she slipped her dress off and began the process of putting on her favorite blue jeans and a green long sleeved shirt.
"It was ok. I didn't really do anything. Jess had classes today so I just laid around. I hung out with Marshall and his girlfriend."
"Marshall's got a girlfriend now?" Tessa was happy for him.
"Yeah, its Leighanne again. We all told him he was an idiot for breaking up with her, and he wouldn't tell us why but we think it was because he was holding out for someone else too." If only Teddy knew. He rolled onto his back and let his head hang off the edge of the bed, his hair hanging straight down.
"Yeah, well thats good for him, though. I liked her."
"Yeah, she's nice," he agreed. "I can't believe its almost Halloween."
"Yeah. What are you going to do?"
She could picture him shrugging his shoulders before he answered. "I don't know. I'll probably just stay home and do nothing. Its not that big of a Holiday to me."
"Yeah."
"I'm going home for Thanksgiving though. What about you?"
"I can't really afford to come home that day, but I might drive to New York with Jarrett and Nate to visit their family. I'm flying home for Christmas though." She told him.
"Well thats nice. I was planning on being here for Christmas since I've never done it, ya know?" She nodded, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "It will be nice to see you again."
"Yeah," she agreed in a whisper as someone knocked on her door. She let Jarrett in as she continued to talk on the phone.
"Who's that?"
"Who?"
"The person I heard in the background," he laughed.
"That's Jarrett," she told him.
"Oh, tell him I said hi." Teddy was being friendly now?
"Hey Jarrett, my friend Teddy says hi."
"Hi," Jarrett said politely and smiled at her.
"Hey says hi back," she told him.
"Cool. Well, I guess I'll let you get to your haunted house."
"Ok, talk to you later," she rolled her eyes as she hung up her phone and left it on the counter.
She joined Jarrett on the couch, wrapping her arm around his. "So how was your first day?"
"Not too bad," he chuckled. "I had to give out four detentions because these girls refused to wear the shorts we gave out."
"Wait, let me guess. The twins Ashley and Julie, and their two friends Chrissy and Stephanie." He laughed and nodded. "I'm good."
"It was good though. There's a bunch of soccer players in my class so we had a mini game. It was fun," he said.
"Thats good," she said as she looked up at him. He leaned in and gave her a kiss.
"I've been wanting to kiss you all day," he told her and she let out a small giggle as he leaned in and gave her another. "But I thought it might be a little inappropriate."
She kissed him again, "Mmm, well if its anything like this then its definitely inappropriate," she giggled as they continued their little kiss fest, which was interrupted by Blake and Nate.
They both cleared their throats loudly to get their attention. "Can we get going before we become witnesses to something we really don't want to see?"
"How did you get in here?" Tessa laughed.
"The door was unlocked," Blake laughed. "If you want privacy you shouldn't do that, ya know."
Tessa blushed as Jarrett stood up and grabbed her hand to pull her off the couch. He gave her one more kiss just to mess with Nate.
"Ok, ok. Lets get out of here before you two need cold showers," Nate laughed as he shoved both of them out the door.
- - - -
"Did you hear the way he screamed?" Jarrett was laughing at his cousin, who was by far the most scared person the entire night, despite how adamant he had been about Jarrett experiencing it.
"Call me crazy, but when a guy runs toward me with a hacksaw and says he needs my help, I want to run the other direction," Nate tried to defend himself.
"Yeah, but you screamed before we even got in that room," Tessa laughed.
"Ok, how about we all just drop it," Nate was laughing sarcastically as they all playfully picked on him.
"Did you and Blake ride together?" Tessa asked Nate as they parked in front of her house.
"Oh, uh yeah. Her car died so she called me for a ride," he told her.
"It wouldn't even start," Blake added. "I swear its the worst car in the history of cars."
"Ok, well you two drive safe." Tessa laughed. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," she joked and winked jokingly at Blake who's face began to turn and embarrassing shade of red.
"Those two so need to hook up," Jarrett commented as they pulled away in Nate's Jetta.
"Thats what I've been trying to do all semester. But it hasn't worked very well. I'm not that good at playing match maker." She laughed as she put her arm around his waist. "You want to come in for a bit?"
He smiled and nodded. "Sure."
