Breaking Free

Two.

After Josephine had given me the first good news that I've gotten since I moved there, I decided that I would stay a little longer to talk to my employers. Within minutes, Mr. Jareau seems to have had a change of heart about me. It seems to me that the grumpy man I met when I walked through the doors has disappeared, therefore talking to him and his family was a piece of cake. As it turns out, the family business has been open for several decades now. Mr. Jareau inherited the business from his father and it's been a main attraction in the town ever since. Also, it was true that my father was the reason I'm getting this job. My father provides the bakery with supplies for free and Mr. Jareau gives him free pastries in return. It's nice to know that my dear ol' dad has done some good in this town. We spend the next half hour talking and getting to know one another, I warm up to the small family rather quickly and it feels as though they've been close family friends my whole life. It's clear that the man and wife have taken a great liking to me, or at least it appears that way, and they express excitement in finally having some help around the bakery. Mrs. Jareau tells me about her husband's stubbornness and it very much explained why he has avoided trying to get help on staff. Josephine managed to sit still and quietly throughout the whole meeting, but I did learn that we were going into senior year together. One thing that I am most grateful for is my starting date: a week after school starts. So basically, I have two weeks to get my life together in this town and then I am a working man.

Finally, I say my goodbyes and thank them for the opportunity I've been handed. With that, I'm out the door and looking around the area. I put the accessories that Josephine gave me in the back of my car, it's not something I need to worry about right this second. I start walking down the strips of stores that followed the bakery, they all seemed to be family owned, I guess it shows how small this town really is. As I'm peering into a men's clothing store, I hear footsteps running up behind me, followed by the calling of my name. I whip around to see who was chasing after me and nearly crash into my new coworker, Josephine. When she finally caught up to me, she appeared to be out of breath, as though she had just ran a football field, when in reality we were only 500 feet away from the bakery. Once she catches her breath, she springs back up and gives me another large grin, "how about we go somewhere worth your while?" she asks. While this could be a very innocent question, my mind decides otherwise. I think that the girl notices because she lightly shoves my shoulder, "get your mind out of the gutter!" she says, shaking her head, "I want to take you to the hangout."

I'm going to admit it, I don't know if I should take her up on this offer. I mean, after all, I barely know this girl. On top of that, she could already be on her way to sabotaging me. And maybe I would say no, but at the back of my head I can already hear my mom yelling at me to live a little. So, instead I say, "yeah, I guess I have some time for that."

"You'll always have time, you live in the small town of Marshfield," Josephine says, "let's go to your car, you're driving."

"Okay, mom," I say sarcastically as I take the lead up to my car. We get in quickly and Josephine gives me the directions. This hangout is apparently a few miles out of town, which probably won't take long considering this town is smaller than a tiny house. My father would probably kill me if he knew that I was heading out of town without even knowing the area yet, but oh well, I'm not scared of him. The drive ends up only taking us about fifteenth minutes, Josephine and I didn't really talk much, it was kind of awkward. The only time Josephine spoke throughout the ride was to give me directions or to tell me what something was. We both are sitting fine in this awkwardness though, as if we expect no more than that.

Once we're parked, I realize that she has led me to a burger joint. She's right, this place is the hangout. As I look around, all I can see is a bunch of teenagers enjoying themselves. There's barely any adults around, and those that are here don't seem to care about the crowd of teens around them. A smile grows on my face and I look over at Josephine, "looks like this place isn't a complete shithole," I say, as I then open the door and step out of the vehicle. I walk around to meet with Josephine and she looks around, as though she were looking for something or someone specifically.
"Okay, listen, Johnny," she says slowly and quietly, "I'm not going to hide the fact that I'm a decently popular girl at our school, and so you hanging out with me will be great for you. Plus, you're from California so everyone will already want to be friends with you."
"Oh, well, I never had much problems with becoming friends with people, I was pretty well known back at home," I say with a light shrug. Back at home I would've never admitted that I was popular, but looking back on it, I think I could say that I was.
"I'm going to introduce you to some of my friends, it'll get you off to a good start," as she speaks the sentence, Josephine grabs my hand and interlocks our fingers. While it surprises me, I don't object and just follow her lead. Josephine then leads me inside the joint and we walk over to a decently sized booth with a small group of three people. They all seem to be enjoying themselves, but as soon as we walk over, they stop. Each of them wear a shocked expression on their face, and they're looking at our hands, but then they look at Josephine— searching for answers.
"Guys," she says, finally breaking the silence, "this is my friend, Johnny. He just moved here from Beverly Hills and he's going into the same grade as us!"
"Well, hello Johnny," a pretty brunette says, "name's Maeve." It's quite evident that this girl cannot stand me and it hasn't even been a whole minute. She seemed very annoyed in the way she spoke, but I brushed it off. I went to say more but I was interrupted by the blonde friend, she seemed much more high spirited, "I'm Alexandra," she says with a huge grin upon her face, "have you ever met any celebrities? it would be sooo cool if you met Johnny Depp. oh, or Patrick Swayze! I know that all the famous people li-," this girl could  kept talking forever, but she's interrupted by the third and final person. This time, he's a guy and he's sitting directly in between the two girls. He looks me up and down and I can immediately tell that he's probably a hot shot at school, I'm not threatened by him or anything, I've dealt with plenty of his kind. Finally, however, he says something, "the name's Antonio, welcome to town," he forces a smile on his face and I can immediately tell that his whole image is an act. While this is something I am going to tackle, it's a problem for the future and I ignore it. "Well hi everyone," I say, finally being given the chance to speak, "it's really nice to meet you all, I haven't been able to see anybody living out on the farm and all."
"Oh, you live on a farm now?" Maeve asks, "who's your daddy?"
I open my mouth to answer, but Josephine beats me to it, "Mr. Matthews!"
As though it were immediate, the faces of the three teens before me change and appear to lighten up a bit, "Mr. Matthews?" Antonio asks, but I don't think he's searching for an answer, "we love him! He's honestly the town dad."
I keep the smile on my face and just nod along, I avoid shaming my father. He seems to have been great to everyone else, must be why he didn't miss me a bit when he moved away. My father was just too busy being everybody else's dad, why am I even upset? In my mind, I push the problem away and slowly let go of Josephine's hand. "Why don't we take a seat?" I ask, looking over at her with a smile, "of course, if that's okay with the three of you." As soon as I get the first nod of approval, I wait for Josephine to slide into the booth and sit right next to her.

For at least the next hour, I easily become closer to Josephine and her group of friends. They're all really nice people, but it's clear to see that they act almost like minions. Whenever got the chance, they would praise Josephine and talk about how perfect of a person she was. Their loyalty is incredible, but it's clear to me that Josephine is Heather Chandler. It seems to me as though Jo is the life of the party and a spoiled princess, although I would never say it aloud. Truly though, she is a sweet girl and even in this short amount of time, I know that I've found myself a good group of friends to begin my year with. After we spend our time getting to know each other, the Heathers decide that they want to move their party elsewhere. They're getting ready to hit a college party and invite me to join them, I've been to plenty and decide to skip out. I don't know the waters out in the south and I don't know if I'm quite ready to jump into the ocean. So as they all do, this good thing has come to an end. I watch them walk away and decide that I should probably order some food, realizing that my breakfast is wearing off.

As I lift my hand to check my watch, I realized that it slipped my mind to even put it on this morning. "12:16," a female voice says, causing me to snap my head up and look towards the sound. As I match the voice to the face, I can quickly tell that she's not from the South either. "Thank you," I say with a smile and she takes it as an invitation to sit in the booth with me. I don't object though, she's probably doing me a favor. This booth is way too big for just one person, it makes me look like a loser. I just look at the menu, though, I have no clue what to say. "What?" she asks, "you're hanging out with the popular kids, so that makes you too cool to talk to me now, huh?" Once again, I pop my head up towards this girl, she's a little crazy but I don't say that. Simply, I shake my head, "no, I didn't mean to give you that impression. I was just trying to decide what I wanted to eat, it's my first time being here, I didn't mean to offe-," I'm instantly cut off by the laughter coming from this girl which only adds to my 'she's crazy' theory.
"I'm sorry?" I say questionably, "I'm not quite sure what's going on right now."
"You were definitely a pushover wherever you're from," she says, "there's no way you thought I was actually hurt."
"I'm just not trying to get on anyone's bad side," I say truthfully, usually I wouldn't be so gullible, "I feel like an outcast here."
The girl then nods, "that's how I felt when I moved here from New York," she then turned around and seemed to be looking for someone, "that was until I met my best friend here."
"I'm hoping to find people that will take me in for the last year of high school, Josie and her friends were really nice to me," I said, sounding almost like a minion already.
"I can do you one better," the girl says, "oh, I'm Vera, by the way, but honestly, you can call me anytime," as Vera said that, she slipped me a small piece of paper that evidently had her number on it. I took the paper and hid it away in my pocket, the line was quite smooth.
"Vera, pleasure to meet you, name's Johnny," I say with a polite smile and stretch my hand out to shake hers. But instead of shaking my hand, Vera takes my hand and practically yanks me from the booth and starts running towards a girl, someone who I assume would be the best friend she just told me about. The girl must've heard Vera and I running up behind her (we sounded like a couple of elephants, honestly), so she whipped around quickly with a bit annoyed look on her very pretty face.
"Oh my god, girl, I just found this kid who moved here from California," Vera said, I have no clue how she knew that, but she was probably eavesdropping earlier, I simply didn't say anything to that though, "his name is-,"
Vera's friend interrupts her, but only to finish her sentence, "Johnny?!"
With one closer look at the girl's face, I know exactly who it is, "oh my god, Noémie."