The Youngest Hawthorne

10. School

“WHAT’S GOING ON!?” I shout when I wake up to a face full of ice water. Avery and Jameson dying of laughter a few feet away answers my question. “There are better ways to wake a person up, you know,” I groan, flopping back onto my pillow.

“Sorry, I should have warned you,” Xander says, “that the penalty for oversleeping here is to be woken up via ice water. But now they have to give us scones.”

“I’ll consider forgiving you if there are blackberry ones.”

“Don’t worry. There are,” Avery says. “And you get them after you’re ready for school.”

“By the way,” Jameson adds, “you two were sleeping awfully close, weren’t you?” Avery shows us a picture she snapped on her phone of us cuddling.
“You dating now or something?”

“Yup,” I say with a smile.

“Wait, really?” Jameson asks.

“Yeah. As of 2 A.M. last night,” Xander informs them. “Hence the reason we were still asleep.”

“Well either way you two need to get ready for school,” Avery says. “Scones are in the kitchen when you’re ready for them.” We go to get ready for school, Xander in his uniform, and me in a t-shirt and leggings, since my school doesn’t have a dress code.

After scones and coffee, we get into the same unmarked SUV. The driver will drop me and Percy off, then Xander since his first block isn’t for another hour. Heights Country Day has a weird schedule, so every student has all different classes at different times every day. Don’t ask me how it works. I’ve never understood it.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you after school then,” he says. I lean over and hug him, my door already half open.

“See you later.” Getting out is difficult because of the crutches, but I manage it. Percy and I walk to the commons to wait for the first bell to ring when we can go to class.

“Are you Mr. Jackson?” Mrs. Todd, our principal, asks when she sees us walking together.

“That’s our principal,” I whisper to him.

“Yes, I am,” he says.

“If you’ll just follow me, we have a few things to finalize about your schedule,” Mrs. Todd says, walking towards the office.

“I’ll see you later,” I tell him as he follows her. I walk down the hall, and my heart falls. Elaina. Wearing a crop top that I would definitely get dress coded for, with her perfectly curled blonde hair, pulled into a perfect ponytail, is walking straight for me.

“Crutches? Really, y/n? Are you that desperate for attention?” She mocks.

“This is real. I have a doctor’s note,” I murmur.

“Yeah, right. Just like you did last time. Dismissing you from class five minutes early, so you can get around without someone accidentally pushing you over? Nobody’s buying it.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You’re not worth my time anyways.” She walks past me, and I head to the commons. I find a table and try to become invisible. Then Percy comes in, and walks over, causing people to stare. Although he isn’t doing anything necessarily wrong, people stare. And they stare even harder when they realize that he’s walking towards me.

“Got my schedule,” he says, showing me a folded piece of paper, “and my school issued device.”

“Great. What classes do you have?” He shows me his paper, and he has almost all the same classes as me, other than P.E., but that’s just because I’m in the girl’s class. P.E. is first hour, then science, literacy, social studies, math, home ec, and language arts. The bell rings, and I show him to his first class, since the boy’s locker room is right next to the girl’s. I head in, and find the coaches.