wake up call

Chapter Three
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From the minute that Flynn left Mindy and I alone, I knew that she hated me. The tension in the air was thick, even though I hadn’t even done anything to her yet.

The bell rang and we both got our books out of our lockers and I followed her to class. She was obviously trying to ditch me, because she was moving at top speed and weaving her way in between people having conversations. Lucky for me she was the only one wearing that much pink and it was hard for me to lose her.

Our first class was English and was always my favorite. I was lucky to have Flynn in this class, otherwise I wouldn’t know anyone. But when I walked into the classroom, Mindy and Flynn were already sitting around their own groups of friends, so there was nowhere for me to sit that was near to them. I decided to sit towards the middle of the classroom with no one sitting in front, behind or on either side of me.

I thought I would be sitting alone, but a boy came into the classroom at the last minute and sat down next to me. He was a tall, muscular guy with blonde spiky hair and sky blue eyes. He looked at me and smiled. “I’ve never seen you around here… are you new?”

I nodded at him. “My name’s Reid. It’s my first day.”

He stuck out his hand for me to shake. “Jake.”

The bell rang and a petite woman walked to the front of the room with a stack of papers. She had a name tag on that said ‘Mrs. McIntyre’. “Partner up. We have a group project today.”

A few people groaned as they tried to choose which friend to partner up with. “Do you want to work together maybe?” Jake asked.

I smiled and nodded. “I’m usually the awkward kid that no one wants to be partnered up with. It’s nice to not have to join a group of three.”

Jake laughed. “Trust me, I’ve been there before.”

For the rest of the period, we worked on creating funny compound/complex sentences and laughed the whole time. It was the fastest forty-five minutes of my life.

When the bell rang, Jake and I packed up our stuff and headed for the door.

“What class do you have next?” he asked me.

I glanced at my schedule before answering. “I have geometry.”

He grinned at me. “I do too!”

Flynn came up to us just at that moment. “I see you’ve met Jake.”

I nodded. “He has geometry with me so I don’t have to worry about Mindy.”

Flynn looked at Jake suspiciously and Jake suddenly seemed to tense up. I don’t know what the deal was with these two, but I wasn’t about to ask.

“Can I talk to you privately for a second?” Flynn asked, turning to me. I was about to object, but Jake was already starting to turn away.

“You go ahead,” he said. “The geometry room is just three doors away.”

Flynn pulled me off to the side where no one else was. “What are you doing?” he asked; his eyes wide open.

“Making friends?”

Flynn sighed. “You don’t want to be friends with someone like that. Trust me.”

Before I could ask any more questions, Flynn walked away; leaving me alone. I didn’t know what was going on and I was curious, but it looked like a sensitive topic. I wasn’t going to let Flynn choose my friends for me though. I was going to keep hanging out with Jake no matter what he said about it.