Waiting It Out - Benny Rodriguez - Book 1

First Day of Finals

"Can everyone please be quite." our homeroom teacher complains. "We're going start sorting who's doing what for field day and if you're not patient, you're going to sit in here doing worksheets while everyone else is having field day. Understood?"

We nod, not wanting to piss her off even more.

"I'm going to go around the room and call out your names. When your name is called, give me two activites you want to do for field day." she explains.

She looks over a paper which I assume has our names on. The entire class is silent.

"Bertram Weeks." she calls.

"Tug of war and... egg balance race." he tells her.

"Alright." she mutters. "There will only be 10 avalible spots for tug of war. Sorry to all of you who don't get it."

Don't think she means that.

Some kid sitting in the second row raises his hand.

"Yes?" she asks slightly annoyed.

"How are you gonna decide who gets the tug of war spots?" he asks.

"Over the course of the year, I've made a tally list of all of your names on it. Each time one of you were distrupive to your classmates or myself, I put a tally mark under your name. The 10 of you with the least amount of tallies under their name will be chosen for tug of war and compete against the other 3 homeroom classes." she explains. "Jordan Phillips."

"Tug of war and three legged race." he says.

"Who's your partner?" she asks him. "They don't have to chose the three legged race as one of their two activities but they must accept your offer."

"Yn?"

I turn back to look at him with furrowed brows and wide eyes, not trying to hide my confusion and disgust.

I look to Benny who isn't confused but even more pissed then I am.

"Do you accept his offer, Ms. Yln?" the teacher asks.

"No, ma'am." I tell her with no hesitation.

I look over to Ivy who sits on the oppisite side of the classroom and give her a look that says 'the hell was that?'. She responds with a 'that was nasty'.

"Very well. You'll have to chose someone else, Mr. Phillips." she says.

He doesn't speak for a few seconds.

"I'll be your partner, Jordan!" Evenlyn practically yells.

Haven't really heard from her since the first day of the school year.

"Yeah, fine." he quietly accepts.

"Very well." the teacher says. "For you, Ms. Yln?"

I forgot to think about it. Fuck.

"Tug of war and... uh... volleyball." I answer.

"100 yard dash?" Benny whispers in my ear from behind me.

I subtly shake my head and he's called next.

"Benjiman Rodriguez."

"Tug of war and 100 yard dash." he says.

"Mrs, can I change my answer?" Phillips asks suddenly.

"Which one?" she asks, putting a small mark on a piece of paper next to her.

"Three legged race to 100 yard dash." he tells her.

What?

"Why?" she asks him.

"I forgot it was an option." he fake explains.

I think she knew it was a lie but didn't care enough to challenge it or ask why.

"Kenneth DeNunez."

"Tug of war and target practice." he tells her.

"Shocker." I mutter for Benny to hear and he chuckles from behind me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Why didn't you go for the dash?" Benny asks me as he grabs my free hand.

"I did it last year. Thought volleyball would be fun." I respond as we walk out of our math classroom.

"You been thinking about it?" he asks.

"No. Spur of the moment desicion." I answer.

"I don't know why they'd wait to have us take it til they afternoon." Bertram says as we all meet up at my locker. "I'm not complaining that I'm able to skip math class but they have to know they're just making us more stressed."

They'll have an entire grade take the test in the highschool cafeteria. We all miss our last class two classes becasue of it.

"Maybe that's the point." I stur the pot unnecessarily.

"Oh my god." Bertram says offended.

"We have to go to the bathroom." Ivy says walking up to us.

She grabed my forearm and dragged me towards the girl's bathroom.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god." she rushes out as we walk in.

"What?" I ask.

"I kid you not, Jordan Phillips has a crush on you." she tells me.

"Your vile, you know that." I say.

"You don't believe me?!" she asks. "Do you remeber the 100 yard dash exchange in homeroom?!"

"So?" I ask, not thinking that had anything to do with me. "He was being an ass. It's not like I haven't seen it before."

"What about him asking you to be his three legged race partner?"

"That doesn't mean he's got the hots for me."

I can actually see it going there but the meer thought of it is enough to make me run into one of the stalls and pray to the porcelain god.

"Yeah it does." she disagrees. "He asked you to be his three-legged race partner so he could be in close proximity to you. He is essentially challenging Benny, your boyfriend, to see which one of them is faster. Probably to try and impress you. That covers at least 2 tropes."

"Yada, yada, yada. It's not like he's tried to do anything else. This all happend today."

"New Years."

"Fair enough."

"What're you gonna do?"

"Nothing. It's not a problem. I'm taken and even if he did have a crush on me it's not like he gets anything. I won't go out of my way to give him attention." I tell her. "That's what he would be looking for and I won't give it to him unless it's absolutely necessary."