Jade Awakening

Monday Morning

On Monday morning, I was yet again the first person in Mr. Gradstein's classroom. This time, as I sat in the back of the room, I was silently hoping that whoever came next into the room would be anybody but Ryder. I couldn't quite play out in my head how that scenario could have possibly gone. Would he have been angry with me for ignoring his messages? Would he have been beaming with pride for the scandalous weekend we had? Would he have been nonchalant and behave as if everything was perfectly ordinary?

I looked down at the script in my hand that I had printed before I left for school, scowling at his name inked onto the paper. He didn't deserve this. For all of the effort that I put into this assignment, I knew that it should get an A -- I should get an A.

I heard footsteps approaching the room. Afraid to make eye-contact with who it might be, I pretended to be infatuated with the doodles in my notebook. However, as the clacking sound of each step drew closer, it became obvious that it was somebody in heels. Relief washed over me when I realized that it must be Cat.

In a sing-song voice she said, "Hi, Jade!"

"Hey Cat," I smiled. "Did they get the beads out of you?"

"Ahaha! Yeah, there were six of them. Look -- it was these dangly ones!"

She held her wrist up to me to show me the charm bracelet she was wearing. I was sure that all the pieces must have been thoroughly sterilized, but I still cautioned by pushing her arm away from my face.

"That's... great Cat. Did you do anything else over the weekend?"

"We went to Freezy Queens to get some ice cream after I 'passed' the beads-" she said with finger quotations, "- but then my brother had a 'breakdown' when they didn't have any Funky Nut Blast flavor. I got strawberry though!"

Sometimes it's impossible to find the right way to respond to her stories.

"Did you do anything this weekend? Ooh! And did I miss anything Friday?"

At this point, a couple other students started filing in. I definitely was not about to tell Cat about what happened with Ryder this weekend -- at the very least, not in front of other people. I evaded her question about my weekend, but I flipped through the pages of my notebook looking for Friday's lecture.

"Uh, here; you can copy my notes. Class was boring. And we had to write a short script for homework that follows these '3 C's.' It was a partner assignment."

She took pictures of my notes with her phone to copy down later.

"Oh boo! I guess I'll have to make that up by myself. Who were you partnered with?"

"Ryder." Even just his name now left a bitter taste on my tongue. But Cat seemed intrigued.

"Ooooh. He's pretty, how did working together go?"

"Uh, yeah. I'll tell you about that later."

"Ooooh," she repeated.

"No, don't get any funny ideas just yet," I warned. I glanced past her to make sure he hadn't arrived yet. And then an idea came to mind.

"Cat, you wouldn't happen to have any white-out, do you?"

"Umm, no. But I do have white paint!"

Of course she does. She pulled out a tube of white acrylic paint from her floral backpack and handed it to me. I didn't even bother to ask why she even had it with her in the first place.

"What do you need it for?"

"I'm just killing two birds with one stone," I say as I carefully squeeze a drop on my finger and wipe over Ryder's name on the script.

"Birds?"

"It's an expression, Cat."

"Oh. Why are you whiting out Ryder?"

"So I can write your name over it instead."

The paint dried quickly and I wrote Cat's name in place of Ryder's in black pen.

"There. Now you won't have to make up this assignment. You're welcome."

Cat looked, understandably, perplexed.

"Well, thanks Jade! But I still don't know why you took out his name."

I noticed now that several more students, as well as Mr. Gradstein, had come in at this point. I reasoned again that I wouldn't and shouldn't fill Cat in with any details just yet. Ryder then just entered the room. He looked right at me with a smile, cocked up his left eyebrow and took one of the last available seats. My face felt red from the simple exchange -- partially from embarrassment and resentment. When I looked back over to Cat, who also saw Ryder's unspoken communication to me, her face was practically begging for some details.

"Not now. I'll tell you at lunch."

"Kay kay!"

Right on cue, the five strikes of the bell commenced another boring day of screenwriting class. 

I am going to attempt to be better at updating this fic!  I am sometimes crazy busy with school work, but I don't want to be one of those authors that abandons their story halfway through.  Let me know your thoughts on this so far!  I have lots of ideas for where this story will go which will be motivation enough, but of course, feedback from readers is great motivation, too!