Senioritis

Trespassing

"Should all people be vegetarians?"

Tyler stood at the front of the classroom, reading out a debate topic from his laptop screen. He was president, and probably the most passionate member. Apart from going to parties and dating girls, Tyler had something else to his name - running the debate club and running it pretty well.

Peter sat at one of the desks towards the back, watching as everyone on the team lead a discussion.

He thought about all the relationships he still had in his life and the people that cared about him. Ned was out of the picture. Maya had been sending him texts for the past three days, begging for him to come to her house to spend more time with her. MJ had been 'sick' and hadn't shown up to school for the past week; Peter had sent her several messages and called her several times but she hadn't answered. He couldn't quite work out why she was so upset that night at her house, why she felt the need to be absent all the time, and why she wouldn't talk to him.

At least something was different about the way people treated him now. He actually wasn't invisible anymore. He thought how ridiculous it was that the only way to get people's attention these days was by going around sleeping with people.

Maybe Ned was right. Maybe Peter did really only care about his reputation. After all, he couldn't really figure out what got into him that night he had sex with Maya. Maybe he was just tired of never having an experience everyone else was talking about. Maybe he just wanted to know what it was like. Either way, he still couldn't believe that he was now no longer a virgin.

"Peter?" Tyler narrowed his eyes at him from the front of the classroom. "What do you think?"

"Um." Peter stammered snapping out of his thoughts once again. "My aunt was vegetarian for a whole year and concluded that she kind of hated the whole experience, so..."

Tyler nodded at Peter and continued to write stuff down on his laptop. Peter examined him and wondered how a person could be so different from debate club and basically any other social setting. He was wearing a checkered shirt and slacks, which made him look like a teacher.

"We've got a competition at Boston this weekend." Tyler continued, folding his arms and leaning against the front desk in true teacher style. "We're gonna be the opposition on the topic which isn't actually that hard because you know...free will and all that shit."

A few people started to laugh but Peter didn't find anything Tyler was saying particularly funny. In fact, all he could think about was how much he wanted to talk to MJ.

"I've divided the team into pairs, so you guys can write your speeches. The best three will speak at the competition. I need you guys to actually make this good because Westriver High are our biggest rivals and they're gonna be against us."

Peter never really enjoyed debate meets because of how competitive the atmosphere always got. He knew that this trip might just be another one from hell.

"Peter...you're with MJ, so I guess you need to sort out what you're doing outside of class." Tyler said, beginning to read out the list of pairs.

What? Peter thought.

Why had Tyler put him with MJ? He couldn't decide if he was happy to have an excuse to talk to her and find out what the hell was going on with her, or if he was anxious that he had to write a speech with her and present it to the entire debate team.

As Tyler finished reading out the list of names, the door opened and Flash walked in, followed by Maya. Peter was surprised and disappointed at the same time to see her. He could also smell her perfume strongly on her as she wrapped her arms around him, kissed him quickly on the cheek and took her seat on the desk right beside him.