Down Under

Chapter 9

Time seemed to move slowly as the closing of another year stuck in your predicament continued. There was little to speculate on, as the group had gradually reverted to their normal routine. Randy was still overly obnoxious, but sometimes managed to tone down his flippant and violent commentary around Sidney. At some points, it honestly felt like you were repeating high school all over again instead of dealing with horror movie plot lines.

Your fingers slowly raked through Tatum's hair as her head laid on your lap. Water droplets lightly dusted your sweater from behind as it ran its course in the fountain. Some managed to sprinkle the sides of Tatum's face as her face hid in your shadow. Sidney sat on your other side, chewing her sandwich slowly as she listened to Stu's complaints on his newest assignment. Each English class had a yearly assignment given to people in pairs that took up a large amount of their final grade. Apparently, Stu had finally managed to get stuck with someone with worse grades than him to the point that even he was panicking now.

"It's complete bogus! There is no reason for this dumbass to be the way he is. He literally does nothing after school... nothing!" Stu shouted, pushing against Billy's arm to emphasize his point. "I asked him when we could meet up to get the format out of the way, and the fucker rolled his eyes. That's some chick behavior, man."

"Stu, you could just ask for a partner switch or do the whole thing on your own? Honestly, the workload is not that much when you consider how much time we have."

"That's 'cause you aren't stuck with some snobby wannabe posh kid that doesn't understand that I need a C in this class to stay on the team," Stu whined, his flannel crumpling up in his hands as he contorted his body to fit his mood. "You probably got saddled up with Sidney!"

"Not Sid, Casey," Tatum shot in, lifting her head to contribute to the conversation, beating you to the correction. "You would have known if you even bothered to listen to us, doofus. It's been meeting after meeting with just those two to work on that stupid project."

"Yeah, Casey wants to get it finished before school events get in the way of her time. Have you even started yours?" you questioned.

"Don't need to. My partner already divided everything up and did their part. Now I just wait till a week for the due date to do my part," she replied, smoothing out her hair as she fully sat up and patted your shoulder. "I still sincerely doubt that you and Casey need to be meeting up that much to finish up the work. Most of it is just essays anyway."

"Why do you need to spend so much time at her place?" Billy interjected, leaning on his arms as he looked at you with an analytical gaze. He had a habit of making any look mean more than it did, but this one looked extra focused. Despite the friendly vibe that was present, his comment seemed to make everybody tense for a moment, eager for a response.

"Is it that surprising for me to make friends with somebody? We have to hang out in order to finish anything up, considering the fact that she is busy with school activities," you answered. "It's like Stu. Casey has cheerleading practice and her boyfriend to deal with outside of school, so there is a limited amount of time when our schedules do line up. That just happens to be outside of class time." Not that you had much going on in your daily life to make you mind the new routine. Your week either consisted of just school and work or both of those commitments along with meeting with Casey.

Initially, you had wanted to meet up at your place, but Casey still didn't have her license and her parents weren't willing to drive her to and from your house at just a moment's notice. You would think that with their income, some solution could be figured out, but the parents were just as stubborn as their daughter. At the end of the day, it really didn't bother you much. Her house was beautiful and a nice break from your paranoid setup. Some days were full of casual banter and gossiping, of which led to far too much information of Stu being spilled. Casey was as easy going as they could get in terms of ex-girlfriends dealing with their exes friends.