Blandview High Musical

45. Drawing To A Close

With Christmas over and New Year's Eve at the end of this week, I couldn't have been happier to have a guy like Shayne Topp. A regular prince charming. Of course, the one thing you can always find us doing, is having sex. I understand now why Jade sleeps around as much as she does. It's fun when the other person is really enjoying it too. Even despite school, we're still finding time to squeeze in quickies at every opportunity.

Back at school, nothing had changed as we were coming out of testing mode and being given back our benchmark scores. Everyone seemed to do relatively well, expect for Damien who failed his math exam. The one thing that was different...was that Jade and Javier pretended they never even knew each other. There was no sexual tension. No anger, no anguish, no angst...nothing at all. Every time they saw each other, they'd look right through the other, like they weren't even there. Jade wouldn't talk about it. I had asked repeatedly, but she would never give me anything.

For the spring semester, I decided I was going to try out for volleyball again and maybe see if I could make it on the team. It might've just been this newfound confidence that Shayne has given me, but I really think I might be able to do it.

"I wanted to tell all of you, I'm not going to be at school for the next couple of days." Jade said, pushing the food around on her tray. She'd been unusually quiet that day. "What's going on?" I asked. "Nothing. Just personal shit. My dad didn't tell me." Her eyes remained fixed down. I looked over at Shayne. His arm was wrapped around my waist as he looked over at me. I gave him a small frown.

After lunch was over, Jade stepped away from our group. "She's been acting really weird." I mentioned to Caylie. We were both standing at our lockers. "She has. I'm not really sure what's going on with her." Caylie said, stacking her books at the top of her locker. "Has she ever done this before?" "No, normally she just acts like it's not happening." Caylie slammed the locker shut and turned the dial. "It's just a bit concerning." "Don't think about it too much. It's probably all connected to You-Know-Who." She said, jutting her thumb in the direction of Javier's classroom. "Maybe it really is over between the two of them. I hadn't hoped that it wouldn't have been that way." Caylie just shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not really sure. Besides, I think after the new year, we really have to get serious about things. Like have you even considered where you are going to go to college at?" She asked. I nodded my head as we walked down the hallway together. "The University of New York is just calling my name. I just can't let my grandmother know that's where I want to go to school at." I said. "I'm looking at several universities on the East Coast too." Caylie said. "What about Dames?" Caylie sighed. "He won't discuss it. I think he's worried his family cannot afford it." "He can always apply for scholarships. It's basically free money." I said.

We parted ways shortly after as we came to our separate classes. Shayne was waiting for me in music class. I walked in just as the tardy bell was ringing. "You're late, Miss Demofonte." "I know, I got sidetracked looking for my book." I said. "Don't let it happen again and take your seat." He said, point to where the chair was empty next to Shayne. I walked across the room and Mr. Bannon started to talk about what we were going to do today. "We'll be going outside and sitting for a bit to listen to the 'music' of the outside world." He said. "Make sure that you bring a pencil and a pad to write down how you feel and what sounds you hear outside." Immediately, the class started to go through their bags, scuffling around for paper and pens. We all got up out of our chairs and followed Mr. Bannon out the classroom door. Shayne, myself, and Terror Billy got stuck at the back of the crowd. "Can you take this?" Billy asked, handing me his composition book and his pencil. "What gives?" I asked. "I just um—I've gotta go do something really quick." He said, moving down the opposite side of the hallway. "We're not gonna take the fall for you, bro!" Shayne shouted after him. "I'm not asking you to!" He yelled back. The heavy falls of his boot heels echoed against the tile flooring before fading with distance. "Where do you think he's going?" I asked Shayne. "Probably just dicking around." Shayne said, tugging me along.