Almost at a Break

 

I woke up suddenly, closing my eyes again quickly because of the bright light shining into the room. I opened them, slowly this time, and got up to shut my curtains. As soon as I realized how high the sun must have been, I looked directly to my clock. It was a few minutes past nine ‘o clock and the numbers were flashing, signaling that my alarm had already gone off long before. I looked to Brent’s bed and saw that he wasn’t there. He must have already gone to school. Why didn’t he wake me up then?

I rushed to take a shower, not spending too much time washing my hair and such correctly. I just had to get to school, and I ended up brushing my teeth as I put on my clothes and shoes. It was a task I managed to do and I ran back into my room to get my keys and phone. On the outside screen I saw the notification box that covered the screen. I opened it and I saw that I had two text messages and three missed calls. Two calls were from Brent, and one was from Rachel. The rest of the text messages were from Rachel as well, wondering where I was before school, and then wondering why I wasn’t at Government class. I had gotten ready to walk out the door about fifteen minutes after I woke up, and had my phone in my hand. I began texting her as I ran to my car sitting outside in the back of the driveway.

As I got inside my car I put the key into the ignition. I turned it, and heard a sputter come from the engine. I tried again, but it still stalled. I kicked the floor of the driver’s seat, angry that my car was doing this now. This had never happened with it, and of course the only time I need to really get somewhere, it does this. I couldn’t believe that the most reliable thing I had didn’t even make a sputter.

“C’mon, you stupid piece of junk,” I tried again, hoping the third time was a charm. It was, and the car began to vibrate under me as it was running. I pulled out of my driveway, and sped to get to school, hearing the tires screech behind me.

On my way, I returned to texting Rachel, letting her know I was on my way. After I sent that message I texted Brent asking why he left, and why didn’t he wake me up. By the time I arrived to school, he replied telling me that he did wake me. I then remembered that he had done so around six, and I was up. I had gotten some breakfast before I went upstairs to lie on my bed, which is when I must have fallen asleep. I was too tired from studying for my chemistry test the night before. 

That’s why I hated having to catch up on things, and that today was the only day the teacher could be there. I’ve been studying for the past week, waiting for the teacher to stop postponing the test, and knew I would finally relax as soon as it was over this afternoon. This has happened way too many times with me. I would wake up late and rush my way to school. It’s never been this late, though. I normally would make it a few minutes before the bell rang. Sometimes I would walk into my class the same exact time it did ring. It was strange for me to sleep in three extra hours this morning. I must have been more worn out than I thought I would be.

I walked into the school and went to the attendance window right next to the principal’s office. As I looked at the clock to know what time I needed to sign it for, I found out it was 9:37. I missed my first class entirely and made it a couple of minutes after academic lab started. The attendance woman gave me an unexcused absence pass to go to my study hall room. 

I reached the science room that our Ac Lab was put in. As I reached to the doorknob to open the door, I looked in onto the classroom through the door’s window. Brent was sitting in the row closes to the door, three chairs back. His eyes were intensely watching his notebook that was in front of him. He looked frustrated, scratching out different things that he was writing out. Since he normally did his math homework in Ac Lab, I figured that he must be frustrated with that.

I entered through the doorway and gave the pass to the teacher. I then headed towards my seat, sort of hoping he wouldn’t really check to see where I’ve been.

“You’re just getting here?” Mr. Robertson asked, seeing the white hall pass in front of him. He actually did check to see what it had said this time.

“Yeah,” I waked back to his desk to continue the conversation, looking down to the objects at his desk. It was slightly embarrassing to be talking about it in front of the class, since it was because I slept in instead of me being another rebel.

“Did you seriously miss fifth block?” I nodded and he chuckled. He shook his head smiling and said, “Jack, what are we going to do with you? Brent?” Brent looked up to the one who called him.

“You need to keep this boy in line,” he joked to my brother. Brent smiled to me, and I went back to sit down by the mirror image of myself. He had smooth golden hair, when I knew mine was probably teased and tangled from rushing this morning. We were both 5’ 8”, and besides most personality traits, there were just a few differences between us. He was clean shaven, while I had let my facial hair grow out. We both had tattoos, but on different arms. Mine had the first Chinese symbol of brothers, and he had the second so when put together it had spelt it out. Other than that, you couldn’t tell us apart.

            “You were right,” I said. Not wanting to admit the truth.

            “Well, whatever do you mean?” I almost began to ramble, until I caught his sarcasm. He definitely knew what I meant, and I could tell by his ‘innocent’ smile. Instead of rambling I just stated what happened.

            “You woke me up…” I told him, looking down to my desk.

            “I know I did bro.” He playfully punched me in the shoulder, and I followed his example listening to music.

The travel bell rung to signal we could visit other teachers' classes. There was nowhere neither of us needed to go, and no leftover homework to keep ourselves busy with. After a few people came into Mr. Robertson’s room, and none of them wanted the computer, we decided to use them. We logged on, and accessed a game site that hadn't been blocked by the school's internet system.

"So why did you not wake up when I told you to?" Brent brought up, scrolling through games for us to both play. I faced the screen as well as he decided.

"I guess I was just tired. I don't really know." He snickered, and I shoved him over a little with my side. "It's not my fault I had to study!"

"Maybe you should have been there for the test, instead of pretending to be sick."

"You know I was really sick. I was coughing all over the place, and had a freaking fever," I said, proving my absence to him.

"I was just messing with you, man," he smiled to me.

"Yeah, of course you are," I said disgruntled.

"I am!"

"Whatever," I said dismissing him. I waited for his reaction as soon as I rolled my eyes.

"It was just a joke, jeez...My bad, I guess." He sounded sorry at the end, and then I smiled back to him. He gave me a quizzical look.

"I'm just messing with you...man." I laughed at his belief that I was angry, and as he pushed me from his disappointment that he fell for my trick.

"It was just a joke," I repeated what he said. I smiled at him, and he couldn't help but smile slightly back to me. He returned to the screen, and found an army game to play multiplayer in.

"So, are you excited for break or what?"

"You serious? Of course! I'm pumped for the next few days. No lectures, no homework, no bothersome..." he had to strive to find a word. "No bothersome teachers."

"We're really lucky to get this break," I commented.

"Yeah, we are. What was it for again?" I wasn't quite sure myself. There were different things kids were saying in the hallways. "I think Monday was some government holiday, maybe Columbus Day? I know Friday was for Professional Development Day.” I didn’t understand why teachers had a day of meetings and catching up on grades for students if the grades were due the few days before. It was an extra day of no school, so I guess I couldn’t really complain.

“Are you and Rachel doing anything special this weekend?” He nudged my side, indicating an underlining meaning and he added an over exaggerated wink.

“We’re going out to lunch on Sunday.”

“Ooh… What are you guys going to do there?” He added the second meaning tone again, and I derailed it.

“Probably eat, and talk. You know natural human order of things. Probably stuff you’ve never experienced before.”

“You guys are too boring for me to want to experience that.” I laughed at his disinterest, and then his “Hey!” from the comment I had made about him earlier.

“Took you long enough. You’re so slow.”

“I’m not slow… I’m just special.” He smiled to me, playing around with the keyboard.

“That’s why mom always said that to you when we were younger.” He let out another hey, and I promised I was done with those jokes. For now at least, until he would make one about me again.

“What about you? Are you planning anything special with someone this weekend?”

“Nah.”

“How come?” He only told me of a few girls he was interested in, but he never had a vast amount of choices set aside by him.

“There’s no one in this school who’s what I’m looking for. A lot of the girls here are just in it for the action, and those who aren’t are already dating someone.”

“I know what you mean. It’s cool,” I comforted him. Most of the girls here were just plainly s***s. Some only befriended you for the “special” benefits. “So there’s no one that’s special to you?”

“Nope. Not really.” His disinterest in the topic really showed, and I was unsure if I should have taken it as true carelessness for other girls here or if he just didn’t want to talk about it at all.

“You don’t have to keep looking at this school. You’ll find someone.”

“I know.” We continued on, talking about things like homework to finish for tomorrow and sleeping in on Friday. We were more distracted from talking than we were from the game, so both of us were doing poorly. We eventually got kicked off the computer anyways since a Chemistry student from Robertson’s class had left their information on this one. We returned to our seats wasting more time with music and doodling until the no travel bell rung. When it did, we packed up ready to head straight to lunch.

“Thank God we have first lunch, I’m starved.” I stared up at the clock watching the seconds tick by slowly. My foot was tapping quickly, my body ready to eat something so I wouldn’t feel the need to pass out. Brent nodded in agreement while staring at the time going by as well.

I walked out with all the other kids bustling in the hallway. Brent and I went towards the main stairwell just outside our back doorway of the classroom. We both walked at a brisk pace since neither of us wanted to wait half the lunch period just to get our food.

We walked down the stairs and entered the commons, the wide school entry room where we ate. There was a tiled walkway along the edges of the whole place, with different hallways leading to the different departments. Keeping an enclosed space for the lunch area were ledges, leading along the other rectangular arena.

From the lunch line, there was the top level, where you could sit on the ledges to eat. The level right below the top ledge was the middle ground, and going even further down was the lowest level, where we normally ate on B-days. If we kept going from where we were, we would go down the stairs to the lowest level, but we headed towards the lunch line by going around the edges, not going through the crowded mess down there.

After grabbing pizzas for my lunch, not really desiring for anything else like Brent was, I headed back towards the main stairway. I kept going on past the stairs and vending machines, and went through the business department hallway. The group was sitting down in front of the doors into the Family and Consumer Sciences Department, like we always have for A-day lunches this semester.

I guess we were forced out by the freshmen this year, and even though first lunches are always packed, they didn’t help. We had the biggest class of freshman come in this time, and I heard that they had to create four eight grade teams to split up the children enough by each grouping to satisfy the amount. Normally there were a hundred or so to a team, so there were probably four hundred freshmen in the school. That seemed insane to me.

“He’s a pretty cool teacher. If you decide to take guitar next year, you’ll really like him. Right Brent?” I sat on the ground next to Brent, who was diligently eating his food. Brent didn’t really look up at them but he gave a small nod. “Jack, you like him right?”

“Yeah, he’s cool with me.” I said, flashing a smile to them. 

“See. They agree too, so there’s nothing to worry about…” Sarah continued her conversation with Zoe, not observant enough to see Brent’s quietness. I looked to Brent who was more into his food than what was going on around him, and I wasn’t sure what it could be. He had the same face on as earlier, but it must have been something he was thinking about instead of it being math as the problem.

“You okay?” I whispered to him, the others were caught up in their conversation to hear me. Brent nodded to me, still silent. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He removed his food from his lap, and looked towards his feet. I didn’t believe him, and I knew very easily when he was bothered. He wasn’t quite an open book, but around me he was a bit more expressive. He felt freer around me since he knew I would be there if he wanted the assistance.

“You let me know okay?” I tapped his leg, and looked to him. He exchanged a brief glance to me and then changed his direction of vision again.

“Sure,” he told me. It wasn’t a firm one, but it wasn’t another monotonous agreement. It seemed more of a real, live one from his quivering voice.

After me questioning him, he had participated a bit more in the conversation. He still didn’t touch his food, but he was doing something besides sitting there, staring blankly off into space. He was talking again, laughing at the jokes we spread.

“You want to grab something from the snack line really quick with me?” I asked him, ready to walk around again.

“Okay,” he said, still smiling from the laughter he had recently partaken in. We got up, bringing our things with us, unsure of when lunch ended. When we got to the line we just chatted some more, waiting for us to get closer to more food. I didn’t bother him any more about what I had before, in case he could easily fall out of his newfound happiness. I could wait to ask him about it till it showed up again later. At least if it had showed up again. If it didn’t then that would be even better for him and his well being.

The bell rang as soon as he got some chips and I got my drink. We headed towards Guitar class together, and I was ready to walk in and relax again from the sound of music. It would be healthy for Brent as well, since he was greatly into musical instruments, including the use of voice.