Gravity

Chapter 4 - September 2002

The bell rang and the trio of friends left their English class and began to walk to their final period for the day, science.

"Is that white jacket girl?" Joe asked, pointing a few meters in front of where they were walking.

"Nope, too tall," Michael sighed.

In the days since what had become known amongst them as "The pizza incident", Mike had managed to calm down a little and remember a few more details about the mystery girl.

The main one was that she had been wearing a white jacket with fur around the hood, which had led to her codename. He'd also memorised that the girls she'd been speaking to at the time were the popular girls from both his primary school and his new class at the academy. This gave a pretty good indication of her social status which, though not surprising, was extremely disheartening for young Michael.

Mike had never been anything even close to popular, and he knew that things would always stay this way. School was like an old time class system. Some were like the rich and the noble. Others were the peasants. And then you had the people in the middle who were just . . . there. Michael was a peasant of a peasant. And in these class systems, you are what you are. Can't go up; can't go down.

She was already way out of his league.

"Can we please talk about something else? Anything else," Evelyn moaned. The downside to having two male best friends was that when they started on the topic of girls, which was quite often now, it never seemed to end.

"You're just jealous that we're not talking about you," Joe teased.

"Yes. That's exactly what it is," She rolled her eyes.

"Fine, what do you want to talk about?" Mike asked. He hadn't seen white jacket girl since that day and he was starting to wonder if he'd imagined the whole thing. Maybe it was for the best he forgot about her.

"Anything! The weather, snakes, god, I'd even accept football right now!" She cried.

"Really?" The two guys asked in sync.

"Ok, I guess not. How about this, what's up with Joe's hair?"

Joe's hair had this really strange thing going on where it was torn between being long and being an afro. The end result was some bizarre combination of the two.

"Great question," Mike commented. "You look like a birds nest."

"Says you! At least mine has character. Unlike your flat top. You're like a blonde toilet roll."

"I miss white jacket girl," Evie's eyes rolled again.

"If you must know, I'm going for the Scott Stapp look. You know that Creed are the biggest band in the world right? I'm gonna look like that guy," Proudly, Joe boasted.

"You're hair disagrees," Mike laughed, knowing he was right.

"Are you guys doing anything tonight?" Evie changed the subject as soon as she spotted an opening.

 "Definitely not this fucking homework we just got. You?" Mike asked.

"I thought we could maybe catch a movie? It's been so long since the three of us hung out away from school. Sweet Home Alabama looks good."

"You are the only one that thinks that," Joe shot her down instantly. "How about we just do that thing where we get an all day ticket for the bus and get on and stay on till the end of the line and back again?"

"So imaginative," Sighed Evie.

In the end they couldn't come to any sort of agreement so the night was set to be another dull affair.

Once the final bell for the day had went, Mike bid farewell to his friends and began the walk home.

He'd gotten no more than a hundred yards when he spotted the one thing he was now spending his life looking for. A white jacket. A closer inspection told him that this was draped around his dream girl.

She was real!

Shell-shocked, he stared absentmindedly at her for what he knew was a long time this time.

She didn't spot him this time so he would have kept staring at her all day if he could. She was obviously waiting for someone as she stood leaning against the fence that decorated the school perimeter, looking through a textbook. Apparently his class weren't the only ones who'd been given homework that day.

Finally, another girl exited the building and the two greeted each other happily, thrilled to be out of school, before they walked off in the opposite direction. He briefly thought about following but then decided that that would be weird.

"What are you looking at Mikey?" A voice interrupted his viewing.

 Turning round, Mike saw the one person he didn't want to see. Ever.

Scott Garden was a boy in his class who was always winding him up. He wouldn't go as far as calling him a bully because he hadn't actually physically harmed him yet. But he was definitely a pain in the ass. Not in the least because he was the only person on earth to ever call him Mikey.

"Nothing. Just waiting for someone," He lied.

"Who?"

"Joe."

"Fat 'fro Joe?"

 "Yup."

"Cool. I thought you were staring at Stacy and Steph," Scott eyed him suspiciously.

"Who?" Mike asked, his heart racing, though it was because he may actually have a name for his crush now and not because of Scott's questioning.

"Stacy Sinclair and Steph Ferguson. The two girls that were over there. That just walked away. I wouldn't blame you like. Their asses are amazing," He laughed.

"Oh. No, I don't know them. Which one is which? And how do you know them?"

"They went to my primary. Steph is the blonde one and Stacy is the short brunette one. You fancy one of them?"

"No! Don't be daft!" Mike replied, struggling to contain his excitement.

White jacket girl was no more. Stacy Sinclair. God, even her name was cute.

"You know it's normal to fancy a girl, right?" Scott scoffed, even more suspicious of Michael now. "Unless you fancy guys?"

"Pffft. No!" Mike Balked. "I just don't like talking about that sort of stuff." He left out the "With you" part.

"You are a weird cunt. Do you know that?"

"Yep. I gotta go. Bye!" Michael spun on his heels and marched away from his tormentor, happy in the knowledge that he could put a name to that beautiful face.

Stacy Sinclair.

He didn't want to be a sap, but he knew he was going to write her name in his school diary so that he could never ever forget.

________________________________________________________________________________________

More flashbacks!

I've got to say I'm enjoying writing these scenes way more than I was expecting too. Definitely want to write a nostalgic teen story at some point now!

But for now, what did we think of this chapter? I know they are kinda hard to judge because they aren't part of the main chain of events but they sure are fun. They are designed to give more insight into the characters that I otherwise wouldn't be able to convey without lengthy boring explanation paragraphs.

As we get further into the story, the flashbacks will become more detailed and cover more characters until you finally see what I hope you see!

Anyway, that's enough from me! As always, votes and comments are awesome! I'll reply to as many as I can! Thanks a bunch!