New Faces

Jessie lives life in her own little world. But when Devin steps in, Jessie gets the chance to see life from a brighter point of view. At least until he's gone.

New Faces

There was a new boy at the bus stop that October morning. The wind was strong enough to blow even his short curls around, and make my hair look like Halloween had come early.

I noticed the boy had a guitar case in his hand, and a black backpack strung casually over one shoulder. Why was he bringing a guitar to school? Our music program had collapsed years ago. Surely he had known that when he moved here. There weren’t enough funds to support it, and apparently math and science came first.

“Who are you?” I asked, just loud enough for the boy to hear. I didn’t look over at him, but stared straight ahead over the road to where the woods met the pavement. A little chipmunk was sprinting along the trees, likely looking for its next meal.

“Devin, Devin Rowland.” The boy who thought he was James bond said. He stuck out his hand towards me with an eyebrow raised.

“I’m Jessie.  My last name’s Walter,” I paused for a sec, and took a few steps toward him to shake his hand, “I live right down the street in that red house.”

“Besides mine it’s the only house within walking distance of here. So, obviously, that would be yours.” He grinned, and I narrowed my eyes. He had some nerve. God, talk about bad first impressions.

“Yes, I know that. I just wasn’t sure if you did,” I said, edge creeping into my voice.

“Is it just me or did it get very cold suddenly?” He grinned, and laughed a little. I rolled my eyes. He was just another one of those people who never knew when to shut up, and just thought life was a walk in the park. I thought there was enough of that type in my school.  Apparently not. In what world was this fair? Why couldn’t someone with actual personality move onto my street?

“It’s the middle of October, we live in Montana, what do you expect?”

“A warmer welcome,”

“Because I am definitely the one with the problem here,” sarcasm wasn’t unusual for me.  In fact, my friends joked that it was my second language. I never argued that.

Just as he was about to speak, the big yellow pit of doom swerved around the corner and stopped in front of me. The bus driver opened the door, and we both got in.

He went right to the back of the bus-no shock there- while I took my usual spot in seat seven. Just like every other day this year, and every day I had spent traveling on this torture ride during high school. Only two-technically two and a half- more years and I was out of here. Out of this stupid town, out of this stupid school. Sophomore year was turning out to be worse than freshman year already, and I wasn’t looking forward to seeing how much worse it could get.

I turned around to see what Devin was doing. I watched him speak, and the ego-filled idiots in the back started cracking up. I rolled my eyes again, and slumped down in my seat.  I shoved the buds of my I-Pod into my ears and started listening to one of my favorite songs: Who We Are by Lighthouse. It was one of the only bands I listened to. Screw those stupid populars and their ‘Top 40 Hits’. Lifehouse crushed Britney Spears any day of the year.

Before long, we arrived at school.  At one point it was a warehouse, or something of that nature. It must have been; the whole place was a total wreck and it looked ready to collapse at any moment. It was just one big rectangular building made entirely of bricks. There were perfect rectangular windows, twelve on each floor of the longer side of the building. There were only six on the shorter side.

There were about one hundred in my graduating class; and for us that was pretty big. And the only reason was because a teacher made me find out last September because I wasn’t paying attention in class.  There were only about three hundred and eighty total in our school.  The school I went to combined a bunch of towns in our area, all in Phillips County.

In all the originality, it’s been named Phillips County High. Everyone just calls it PCH, though; well, either that or ‘this crap hole’.  It varied depending on your view on life. It was sort of a half-empty-half-full thing; I was in the middle. To me it was just school. So, for the glass analogy, I guess I was just half. I knew what Devin would be. Half full, no doubt, and he’d probably be enough of an idiot to point out that the glass thing was just a metaphor, and not a simile, as if I didn’t know that already. 

The bus pulled up in front of our school and our bus driver, true to character, wished every single one of us a good day as we climbed out of the frying pan and into the fire.

“Hey there,” An annoyingly cheery voice sounded in my ear. I reached into my pocket and pointedly turned up the volume on my I-Pod. He reached over and pulled the bud out of my ear, “Hey there.” He tried again, saying each word slowly like I was deaf.

“When I turned up my I-Pod that was your cue to shut up,” I gave him a cold glare and an eye roll. Any normal person would have gone away. Not Devin. He stepped right in front of me, and I was forced to stop walking.

“Come on, I know we got off to a bad start. Can we try again?” He opened up his arms to the side, that same plastic grin plastered on his face like he expected me to hug him.

“Why do you even care? Just leave me alone.” I tried to step around him, but he just moved to block me.  I wasn’t going to win this war by avoiding him.

“Because, you’re like the only neighbor I have. Trick or treating is going to suck if-“

“Trick or treating?” I couldn’t believe my ears, “How old are you?” The shock of his logic kept me frozen in my place.

“Fifteen, but I’ll be sixteen in January,” His answer was a little too proud. I was done with this boy.

“Grow up! We’re in high school. We don’t go trick or treating! Some people go to parties, but…” I stopped for a minute to collect my thoughts, “High schoolers don’t trick or treat!”

He put an innocent grin on his face, “Someone seems a little grumpy today-” I lost it.  I punched him in the face. He staggered back, gripping his nose as it began to bleed. “What the hell?” He asked me.

“I told you to leave me alone,” I said, adjusting the strap of my backpack on my shoulder.  Without another look back I walked towards the door to hell, shoving my headphones back in my ears. Maybe he’d leave me alone now.

I made my way to my locker, counting slowly to myself. See how long it would be before I was called down to the office. No doubt Mr. Sunshine would be more than happy to have me sent to another works week of detention for punching him in the face. If he got blood on that new-looking, preppy t-shirt, it might just be worth it.

The announcement never came. By the time I got to my homeroom class, (two minutes late, unfailingly), I was beginning to wonder. And just then, who would swagger in the door, but Mr. Sunshine himself.  I resisted the urge to bang my face on the desk in front of me. At PCH, you were in the same homeroom, with the same people, all four years of your high school career. It was supposed to help you build a relationship with a teacher. Really all it did was give you a reason not to pick a fight with like fifteen or twenty other people.

“You must be Devin,” Mrs. Achill stood up and shook his hand.  I tried not to notice the empty desk next to me. We were in rows, with two desks side by side and six rows of desks.  I tried to pretend my desk wasn’t the only one in the room besides the empty back row, where she never let anyone sit, that wasn’t already assigned. “You can sit wherever you want.” I heard her inform him.

And the boy made the first smart move I had ever seen him make. He picked a back row desk on the opposite side of the room from where I sat. Maybe I had taught him something. I made a mental note on my techniques effectiveness, and stashed the knowledge away for later use.

The teacher stood up and began to ramble off the day’s news. Our school’s funding sucked, so our loudspeakers didn’t work half the time and the television sets had no sound. Most of the time, our teachers just ended up reading off whatever stuff the office thought was important for us to know.  And I was lucky enough to have a teacher that would usually share some story about the life she thought she had outside of school.

I returned to my usual habit of staring at the clock on the wall, seeing how long I could hold my breath. Forty seconds. Fifty two seconds.  A minute. I spent so much time doing this I probably could have done it competitively, if there was such a thing. Competitive breath holding. There’s a thought.

Five minutes and thirty three seconds later, the bell rang, and everyone got up like being on time for their next class was going to determine whether they lived or died. I stayed in my seat another thirty seconds, and then got up.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” I heard as soon as I walked out the door.

“Maybe I wasn’t going to.” I responded coldly, not even looking to see who it was. I knew the voice, but I didn’t care. “You know me better than that, Lyss.”

“I know.” She gave me a once over, then it a mockingly depressed voice asked, “You okay J?” Intentional rhyme had to be among my biggest pet peeves in the world.  Lyss did it as often as possible just to annoy the hell out of me.

“New kid on my street,” I said, as if that explained everything. It might as well. She knew I hated change.

“Was that the guy who you beat up earlier? I saw you punch some kid and I didn’t recognize him. Last time I checked you don’t go around punching random kids you don’t know.” She needed to check her facts then.

“I didn’t beat him up. Just a quick punch in the face,” I put my fist to my hand to assist in my explanation, “over and done with.”

“Try explaining that to Mr. Bruckheimer,” Lyss rolled her eyes.

“Looks like I won’t have to. He didn’t rat me out. Either he didn’t remember what my name was, or knew what was good for him.”

“I wonder what kind of lie he told.” Lyss’ green eyes wandered, as they often did when she was thinking. Her red hair bounced in her ponytail, giving her a rather perky appearance which didn’t exactly contrast her personality.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not in trouble and he’s still alive. Everyone’s happy, for now.” I stifled a small grin. Lyss saw this, and rolled her eyes.

“Like, for now, until he pisses you off again and you decide to bring out the big guns.” She made little guns with her hands, pretended to blow the smoke off one and then put it in her pocket.

“Exactly,”

Author's Note

Tell me what you think.

Reviews

[Aleyah]

this is awesome!! This is like, the second "book" I've reviewed on here, but I love this one. Although set in high school, it's unique enough to grab attention. Really great job... :)

[Krystal Nicole]

Great first chapter!! I cant wai to see how Jordan is gong to adapted to her new neighbor!!!

[Daydreamer54]

I think it's a good start! i love jessie's personality already! can't wait for more! ^^
PS- send me a msg when u have the 1st chapter up! ^^