Our Safeguard

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

~Nolan~

       Jerome pulled into the parking lot of the high school, turning off his car even though he wasn't going to be here for long. Just long enough for me to get out of the car and head into the school.

       Although, I didn't bother taking off my seat belt quite yet. I just covered my mouth with the inside of my elbow and coughed, though the cough was probably the fakest thing ever.

       Even Jerome was able to tell that it was fake. He just furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at me. "What was that?"

       "Oh, I think I'm coming down with something," I said. "I have this weird cough. It's probably contagious and I don't want to get anyone sick."

       "Yeah, right," Jerome said. "That sounds extremely legit. Not fake at all."

       "See?" I coughed again. "So sick."

       Jerome just leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Just go inside the school. You'll be fine. You did tell me that the first few days went fine, right? Today is going to be the same. Just a boring school day with nothing interesting."

       I sighed as I leaned back in the seat. "That's exactly why I don't want to go to school. It's so boring. I don't have any of the fun electives this semester. Not even art class. Do you know how much it sucks not having art class? It sucks very much."

       "Maybe if you get too bored, you can just doodle or something," Jerome said. "Pretend that you're in art class. Or at least not in a very boring class. Either way, you do need to get going."

       "Sounds good," I said before pulling Jerome in for a kiss, knowing well enough that it was one of the things I could do to distract him. Once he started kissing me, it was hard for him to stop.

       Unless the warning bell rang, which was exactly what happened. "Mmm," Jerome mumbled before pulling away from me. "Now you really need to get going. You've got five minutes to get to class."

       "Fine," I muttered, finally taking off my seat belt. 

       I opened the passenger door and right as I was about to leave, Jerome leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. "Have fun."

       "Masochist," I muttered as I got out of the car. Jerome just laughed at my pain. I closed the passenger door, waving at Jerome before heading into the school. He was right about this whole thing; school had been going well the past few days. Nothing bad quite yet. It was just boring having to go every day.

       I already had my notebooks in my backpack, so I just had to head to my first class; English. It was probably the least boring out of all the classes I had this semester, but I would still end up finding myself bored halfway through the lesson.

       Orchid and Alan were already there, so I sat in my normal spot near them. Right beside Orchid but also at the very end of the row so I didn't feel suffocated with so many people sitting near me.

       I did take Jerome's idea of doodling away whenever I got bored. I still understood what was going on. I just didn't want to listen anymore when I was certain I could do the schoolwork right now if I could.

       Soon enough, Orchid nudged my side and I realized my teacher was no longer talking. Instead, my classmates were talking amongst each other. Some were even standing up and talking to their friend on the other side of the classroom.

       "We're going to be doing a group project," Orchid said. "Mrs. Davies said it has to be a group of four. Is there anyone you're okay with having with the three of us?"

       I looked around the classroom, trying to remember exactly which classmates I had. I had only been going to this school for one and a half semesters, so nothing long enough for me to know of anyone I would be okay with working with.

       To be honest, I didn't really care since I would be with Orchid and Alan as well. If our partner was a pain in the butt, I knew Orchid would get mad and Alan would annoy them.

       So basically, it was if anyone was willing to work with us.

       I looked back at Orchid. "I'm okay with anyone."

       "Okay," Orchid said. "We'll just wait to see if someone approaches us or if Mrs. Davies tells someone to work with us. Unless Alan wants to work with someone."

       Alan was resting his head on his desk, but he must have been awake because he said, "I only want to work with Brandon, but he dumped me."

       "Okay, two things," Orchid said. "One, Brandon graduated, like, two years ago. You can't work with him on a school project. And two, I was there when the 'break up' happened. He literally told you that he just doesn't want to go to the movies with you because it was, and I quote, a boring ass movie."

       "He might as well have broken up with me," I said. "It was supposed to be a really good movie and we didn't go to it. Although, we did go back to his house and f--"

       "Please don't finish that," Orchid said. "Please. I'm bagging you."

       Alan lifted up his head and furrowed his eyebrows. "What's so bad about feeding ducks? He has a pond in his backyard and some ducks and he let me feed them. One of their names is Nugget."

       "I can't even tell if you're being serious or not," Orchid said.

       "He's one hundred percent being serious," I said. "You know how blunt he is. If he was... doing the thing you thought, he would have said that instead."

       "Fair enough," Orchid said.

       One student suddenly walked up to our desks. To be honest, I didn't know his name because I didn't pay too much attention to anyone who wasn't Jerome. "Hey," he said. "Mrs. Davies said I could join you three. I hope that's okay."

       "Of course it is," Orchid said. "We were just saying how we'll wait for someone to come to us."

       The student smiled as he sat down in the desk in front of Orchid, turning around so he could see all three of us. "Thanks."

       "You're Joel, right?" Orchid asked. "New to the school?"

       Joel nodded. "I am. Not ideal to be starting a new school in my senior year but hey, can't really argue with my parents against moving. I'm sorry, I'm not good with names. What are yours?"

       "I'm Orchid," Orchid said. "And these are my brothers Alan and Nolan. And as a warning, Alan doesn't know how to censor his mouth."

       Alan was silent for a bit, just staring at our sister before saying, "I'm not sure what you mean by that."

       Orchid patted his shoulder. "You'll figure it out eventually."

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i love how joel started off in spruceworth and know he's just jumping between series lol.

(also alan actually did go feed ducks and now nolan is jealous because he wants to feed ducks)