Polar Opposites

Chapter 1 

February-Senior Year

“What do you have there?”

Naturally, I clutched my notebook to my chest as my head snapped up. It was Jake Brooks, the senior football star, and a waste of oxygen. “Nothing.” I replied quickly.

“Oooo. A diary perhaps? I wouldn’t bring something that precious to class. You wouldn’t want it falling into the wrong hands.” He flexed his fingers as if to say it would most likely be found in his hands.

“It’s not a diary. It's just writing, and it's none of your business.” I stated coldly.

“You seem to be doing that a lot lately. You really should let people read it. From what I’ve heard, you’re pretty good.”

I narrowed my eyes and wondered where he was "hearing things" about me. 

“What are you doing here, Jake? Don’t you usually make yourself at home in the back? I thought the front of the classroom was uncharted territory for you."

“I thought I’d change it up a bit today.” He said shrugging, but leaned in close enough for my nose to be bombarded with enough Axe spray to kill an elephant and whispered, “Plus I need to suck up to Mr. Trumann so I can talk to him about that C+ that’s killing my GPA.” He gestured to the seat on my left. “Is anyone sitting here?”

I shrugged. “Not that I know of.”

“Cool. Thanks." He said sliding into the seat.

I rolled my eyes. I could care less about what he does and he should know that. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of my best friends, Hazel Hudson, slide into the seat next to me. Hazel was the art geek, and the other art geeks that were on our school’s art team in the drawing category trembled with fear about who would be booted off the team when she tried out Sophomore year. She was a writer also, writing mostly poems, and sometimes short stories. The latter, she seemed to never finish, and they were never short. Despite her interest for writing, her passion was art. She’d procrastinate so much on her art projects, then stay up until four in the morning to finish them and have them look like she had spent hours on every detail. Today she nearly had a heart attack at what she saw. I watched her discreetly as she scribbled frantically on a piece of notebook paper and chucked it at my head even though we were only 3 feet away from each other. Not having the best reflexes, the paper collided with my ear. I quickly plucked it off my desk and unfolded it just enough to read the message.

‘What’s Mr. Hotty McHotness sitting in the front for?’

‘Trying to take my place as teacher’s pet.’ I scribbled back.

‘Don’t be crabby. You’ve got the best seat in the house.’

‘You want to sit by him?’ Her eyes widened as she read it, and she nodded at me violently, giving me back the note.

I scribbled one last thing and threw it at her. ‘Too bad, I’m not moving.’ I drew a big smiley face at the bottom of the paper. I decided to sit this one out and see how it went. As long as he wasn’t too distracting, I planned on keeping my spot.

Then I heard what was probably the most annoying voice cut through the air. “Ohhhh. Jakey, why are we sitting up here by…” She looked at Hazel and me distastefully. “Them,” she finished. It was Courtney Scott, the stereotypical bleach blonde cheerleader. She sat on the left side of Jake, and he barely took notice of her, which was weird, because it was hard for anyone not to. Hazel and I had made a prediction at the start of Freshmen year that by the time Courtney was 30, she would be married to a doctor, and be going in for her third nose job.

I turned to Hazel, and made vomiting motions by puffing out my cheeks, and she struggled to suppress her giggles as Mr. Truman walked into the room.