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"I must say Jay, I'm very disappointed." Mr. Mortimer gazed at me sternly over his glasses. "Honestly, this is part of a bigger pattern of you not properly applying yourself. You're very smart, and if you worked slightly harder, you'd be getting perfect grades in this class. Physics is one subject in high school where there are objectively correct answers."
"Yes, sir." I didn't have to pretend to feel guilty. Mr. M had always been incredibly earnest, and letting him down actually made me feel pretty bad. "I could still try and do the equation on the board?"
"No, none of that." He grinned. "I'm on to you - Karl says you never do the maths questions and then just wing them on the morning. We know your tricks."
I laughed nervously. Mr. Farrier had an annoying habit of going off on tangents in maths classes, and then only giving us the homework assignment in the last five minutes, so skipping questions and doing them on the fly was my little subtle rebellion. I hadn't realised that he'd known about that, though.
"On a more serious note, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time. You usually do my homework, at least. But please find that book - and try to organise your life more efficiently. You'll be graduating in a couple of years, and you need to start taking these things seriously."
"Yes, sir." I nodded enthusiastically, relief flooding through me. It didn't look like I was going to get written up for this.
"Okay, go sit down." He waved over to my desk. "Caitlyn, can you please do question five on the board, once Sue finishes question three."
"Yes, Mr. Mortimer!" Caitlyn gave him a sweet smile, which shifted into a dark glare as I made my way past her to sit down. I sighed and ignored it. She'd never liked me, but having to go to the board to do the question I was supposed to be doing probably wasn't helping.
Looking up, I saw that Marc was trying to make eye contact. I looked up at him and frowned. I wondered what he wanted to talk about. He waited for Mr. M to turn his back, and then held up a sheet of paper with huge letters on it, traced over and over so that they were very visible.
SORRY
I grinned, and had to stifle a chuckle. He'd probably done that while I was getting my lecture at the front of the class. I shrugged and rolled my eyes, and the concerned look on his face gave way to a huge smile. Even if I'd gotten written up, I was more likely to be mad at Mr. M than I was to be at Marc.
Marc had been so worried that morning when he told me he'd forgotten my book at home, and it had kind of got me a bit nervous that he was going to feel too guilty to talk to me afterwards. Luckily, it looked like we'd be fine. We spent the rest of the lesson giving each other grins across the classroom, and on my way out, he was waiting for me.
"Hey." He still had a slightly guilty look on his face. "So... You didn't get in trouble."
"Yeah, Mr. M's nice." I shrugged. "I knew it'd be fine."
"What do you have now?" he asked as we started making our way down the hall together.
"Ugh. Accounting."
"That sucks. I've got Design. I'm still not sure what I'm doing for my year project though. Maybe a video game thing."
"That sounds fun." I sighed. "I'll be crunching numbers."
He laughed. "Well, at least you get to hang out with Sue."
I just rolled my eyes at him. He'd gotten this weird idea that I liked Sue, and that I took any opportunity to hang out with her. The truth was that she and I just had all the same classes, and were ranked second and third in the grade averages at school. We did projects together all the time, but that was just so that neither of us ended up in a group with someone who wouldn't pull their weight.
I hadn't dated anyone since Mila. And that had been... weird. I was fourteen and she was thirteen back then, so we hadn't done much more than walk around holding hands - pretty spicy, by puritanical Elohim High standards. But then her family had moved across the country, and we'd just calmly said our goodbyes. I think I was supposed to be heartbroken, but the whole thing had happened so fast. We hadn't even kissed. It felt like I'd barely even noticed we were together.
Plus, I didn't exactly get the point of dating. People seemed to like the kissing part, so I wondered if that was what I was missing from it. But holding a girl's hand wasn't exactly thrilling. Mostly, it was inconvenient, if you had to make your way through a doorway or something. And hanging out with Mila was okay, but I honestly had a better time with most other people. I never even got excited to see her like I'd sometimes get when I was going to hang out with my guy friends - like Marc.
"Hey, what are you doing this weekend, by the way?" He asked.
I grimaced. "We're going away. My aunt's having a birthday thing."
"Ah, okay." He nodded. "I was wondering if you wanted to sleep over for a couple of days and play games and go to movies and stuff. But it's fine, we can do that later."
"Sounds good." I smiled.
"Derek wanted me to do something this weekend anyway. Some weird thing on the beach, with his Life Saving Club buddies."
I felt a sharp pang of annoyance, and struggled to keep the smile on my face. Fucking Derek. I know it was weird to be territorial over a friend like this, but I'd just never liked Derek. What was probably worrying me was the idea that if they got too close, the three of us would have to hang out together more. I really preferred it when it was just me and Marc.
Marc shrugged. "Yeah, not sure I'm up for it. But I guess I can see."
"Cool." I tried to keep my tone even. I wondered if I could get out of the weekend's plans. But my mom would probably kill me for even trying.
"Yeah. Anyway, Design class is this way. Chat to you later, dude."
"Bye." I stood there for a few seconds watching his retreating back, not exactly feeling great.
I shook myself out of it. Marc and I could hang out on other weekends, and he'd told me a few times that he was better friends with me than he was with Derek. I was still his first choice, and that was what mattered.
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