ɴᴏᴡ ᴏʀ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ⇢ ᴊᴇʀᴏᴍᴇ ᴄʟᴀʀᴋᴇ

five

PATRICIA AND JOY WANT to help their best friend; that much is obvious. After the night before, they were adamant on completing Operation Jarissa, idea courtesy to them, of course.

The only issue, however: Marissa hates the boy who's name is included in the ship.

Marissa wants to be with, who Patricia and Joy believe is, a toerag, Brandon Samuels. That cannot happen.

In conclusion, Patricia and Joy believe some digging around is in order.

They start off in school: asking anyone and everyone they can find what they think of the infamous Brandon Samuels. All they found out was that he transferred to Amun a year ago, he doesn't live in a school-organized house, and that he is very good looking. They got that answer from about 20 different girls.

They were close to giving up at this point, but they knew that if they did, then Jerome would do something stupid and mess the whole thing up.

They couldn't risk that, not after all the first date planning they've already took the initiative to do.

Knowing Jerome, he would take Marissa to a joke shop or something. The girsl shudder at the thought.

-

"Hey, Patricia?" Marissa asks when she walks into Chemistry that day. The girl called looks up, chewing on a granola bar. "Can I ask you something?"

Patricia froze, forcefully swallowing her bite, "Of course, bestie, what's up?" She chuckles awkwardly, discreetly looking around the room for Joy.

"Why have three people come up to me in the past hour asking if the information they gave you could be anonymous?" Marissa asks, raising her eyebrow in genuine curiosity, taking a seat next to her friend.

Patricia is glad she swallowed her food. "Well, you see," she starts, chuckling awkwardly in hopes to buy herself time to think of something. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Jerome walking into the classroom, watching the two. Patricia mentally screamed. "I'm starting up a survey!" She ends up spitting out.

Marissa didn't expect that answer, "A survey?" She asks. Patricia nods frantically. "On what?"

The girl was silent for a moment, racking her brain for absolutely anything she can say. How much milk do they drink in a day? No. Cats or dogs? No. "Whether they like Mr. Sweet or Ms. Andrews!" She says, a little too excitedly, she almost screamed. Patrica cringed when everyone in the class looked at her.

Marissa chuckled, seemingly believing her friend's lie. "Alright, then. See you after class," she smiled, getting up and making her way to her assigned seat beside Brandon (who she just so happens to sit next to in every single class).

"What was that about?" Joy asks Patricia when she finally walks into the room.

Patricia hits her shoulder, "Where have you been?"

"Um, first of all, ow!" Joy complains, rubbing her shoulder. "Second of all, I was spying on Brandon,"

He walks in.

"Speak of the devil," Patrica said lowly.

"Anyways," Joy started again, "I think we need to have a private talk later with Marissa, I heard some things that I think you all should know." She says, looking nervous.

Patrica nods and swivels in her chair to look to where Jerome was sitting with Alfie. The girl gave him a look when he turned to face in their direction. The look that he figured out to be 'we need to talk'. Completely opposite to Marissa's look.

He nods and turns back to listen to what Alfie was saying.

Marissa noticed the exchange and made sure to make a mental note to ask her friend's why they were associating with the enemy.

-

As she was walking out of her last class of the day, she felt a harsh pull on her arm. With no balance, Marissa was pretty much dragged by the unknown person, to an unknown place. She was too tired to scream.

"Can you let go now?" Marissa tiredly asks after a few minutes of being dragged around. The person stops, and the girl turns around.

Of course, Jerome just has to be the person involved.

Marissa rolls her eyes and automatically moves to exit the classroom she found herself in, but Patricia and Joy walk in at that moment, closing the door behind them.

"What's going on?" The girl asks, confused as to why her two best friends would even let her be in the same room with the one persons she hates the most.

Patrica is the one that answers, "We need to tell you something."

"Way to be vague," Marissa scoffs. "Why the hell is he here?" She asks, pointing at Jerome, who looked up when he felt the girl's gaze on him.

"He's here to help explain?" Joy says, but her statement came out as more of a question.

"Explain what?" Marissa demanded, losing her patience rather quickly.

"It's about Brandon."

"Oh come on."

Maybe Jerome shouldn't have been the one to introduce the subject of this conversation.

"I'm leaving," Marissa stated, moving to the door, but Jerome caught her arm, stopping her.

"Just listen, please," he begs. Marissa froze, was Jerome Clarke being sincere?

Wanting to hear how this ends, Marissa reluctantly nods, and moves to one of the desks deeper in the classroom, and hops on one of them, ready to listen.

She sat still, multiple emotions going through her head at once. Fear, confusion, eagerness, even. To her, Brandon Samuels was an amazing guy, but if the only people on Earth she knows she can trust with her own life - and Jerome - think that something is a little off about him, then maybe...

Marissa shook those thoughts out of her head. Maybe everything will be okay, maybe Brandon isn't a bad guy.

"We heard him talking about your mom's death. I think he knows how it happended."

Oh, isn't that just perfect?