04 | Luke Hemmings

01 | Madison

I walked through the moderately busy halls, trying to get to my chemistry class. I stopped at my locker, quickly getting the text book and note pad I needed before carrying on down the halls and towards the stairs. I approached the final corner before Mr Jones' room and felt my body collide with someone else's. I fell back onto the floor and looked to see the boy I collided with on the floor too.

"Sorry, I-" I said as we both stood up, brushing ourselves off. I picked up my books and faced the other senior.

"Weren't watching where you were going?" He cut me off. "Save it, Carter. Go run off to your little posse" With that the blonde turned around and began to walk with his friends. He turned back around to look at me and mouthed a 'sorry' to which I smiled and nodded, letting him know it was fine. He smiled back discreetly and carried on with his friends, or team mates I should say. I walked into the chemistry class and then began to wonder why he was going the other way. He was in this class. He sat a row in front of me with two of his friends.

The boy? Hemmings. Luke Hemmings. Captain of the football team and without a doubt the most popular guy in school. Also, my best friend. I know what you're thinking, what a fucked up relationship they've got. Well, you could call it that.

For as long as anyone can remember there's been an almost unspoken feud between the jocks AKA the football team and the bitches AKA the cheerleaders. It all started when a captain of the football team and a head cheerleader were dating. He had had enough of her and dumped her. Apparently, she was a bitch which explains the name which has been given to us, because trust me, we're not. She got mad and then he got mad and a feud started. Now, we don't mix, socialise, whatever you want to call it, with the jocks and vice versa.

For me, this causes problems. I'm not the main person in the squad but I'm known pretty well around the school. I'm popular, even if I do say it myself. I know I sound stuck up and a bitch but I don't know how else to put it. Anyway, Luke's the captain of the football team, like I mentioned before. This is where the problems begin. In each handbook provided to cheerleaders and football players it states, and I quote, 'Members of the Cedar High Panthers football team MUST NOT in anyway interact with the Cedar High cheerleaders. Failure of agreeing to this rule may result in being dropped from the team/squad.' Extreme, right? Back to my point. Luke and I 'interact' outside of school. It's way to risky in school, we'd both be kicked out immediately. But outside of school, no ones knows. Or so we hope.

I met Luke at Lincoln Middle School. We were the only two who went onto Cedar High so no one knows we used to be friends. Luke's the best friend I could have. We've both gone through phases of wanting to be more than friends but that was short lived after remembering the rule/feud. That's why in the hall, he said sorry. He always does. I've known him to walk into me on purpose, telling his friends it's to annoy me whilst later telling me he just wanted to talk to me. We both hate the feud. It means that we barely talk because between studying, cheer/football practice, school and sleep we've barely got any time to see one another.

We normally spend our weekends together, especially after the football games when we can sneak off without anyone seeing and go back to his and stuff our faces with pizza. Luke rarely goes out to celebrate with his team, telling them that he's too tired or doesn't feel like it. Of course they believe him, he's the captain. They'll trust his every word. They act like he's the king. Luke says he would prefer to celebrate winning, which they normally do, with me. I don't even know what he see's in me as a friend because I'm pretty boring.

Luke's popular, as I previously mentioned, meaning he has swarms of girls following him around on a daily basis and trying to get sat at the 'ever so cool' jocks table. It doesn't bother me. At one point it did but then I realised that Luke's captain and probably one of the hottest guys in school. People are going to love him and cherish him.

Oh, and this school law and feud. Don't think it's some joke. It's very serious. Samantha Way. She was on the squad two years ago and fell for the so amazing Harry Boyle, quarterback for the Cedar High Panthers. It didn't end well, everyone found out because they didn't exactly keep it on the low as neither of them thought this petty rule was anything to be scared of. Turns out it was. Harry was axed from the team and Sam kicked off the squad. Neither of them have been seen since. Yeah, it's that serious.

I heard the opening of a door and looked up from the text book we were reading to see Luke walk in with Josh and Kyle following. Mr Jones rolled his eyes and told them to take a seat and read Chapter 4, part 3 on ionic bonding. I heard Luke silently groan. Truth is, Luke's an excellent student. He gets A's in maths, English, all the sciences, everything. He's probably already read this book five times. He flunks all of the crappy papers that don't mean anything and then aces the mid terms and the finals. It's a perk of being friends with him. Of course he has to maintain the jock demeanour. He makes out he gets C's and the occasional D to all his team mates whilst he's racking up straight A's.

I looked at the clock, waiting for the lunch bell to ring. I closed my books and picked it up as it rang and left the class, going to my locker. I dumped the books and grabbed my phone seeing I had a text.

From Luke:

Game's off from the rain. Come over tonight? xx

I smiled and text him back, telling him I'd be over at six. He replied with a smiley face and I put my phone back in my backpack and strung it over my shoulder after shoving the note pad and physics books I needed for my free period I had last.