seat 16 ; j.g

3; middle school

..

"hey, guys!" my teacher, mrs. franklin says, holding onto my shoulders gently. "this is blaire, your new classmate!" she says, overly enthused, because who would be this happy about getting another student in their class of 30 students.

i blush, looking down at the floor quickly, dreading the words that were soon to come from her mouth.

"why don't you tell the class three things about yourself?" she says, letting go of my shoulders and clapping.

' why don't you sit down and shut up? why don't you tell me three things about yourself? ' ran through my head as i sighed, biting my lip.

"well, i'm from arkansas," i say, looking at the ground. "this is my first time leaving the state of arkansas," i say avoiding eye contact with everyone. "and i miss arkansas." i say, sighing a sigh of relief.

"cmon, blaire! those aren't fun facts!" mrs franklin groans, standing in front of me. "do you play any sports? have any siblings? any family down here?" she asks, with her hot breath in my face."

"no." i say, praying to myself that she would've give me my assigned seat and leave me alone.

"hmm! well, you sound pretty boring, maybe you'll find something that interests you while you're living here." mrs franklin says, grabbing my hand and leading me to my seat.

i roll my eyes, sitting down and quickly setting my eyes on the paper in front of me.

"i don't think you're boring." i small voice whispered from behind me.

i turned around, smiling at the boy who said that, the boy who's name i would soon find out to be 'jack gilinsky.'

i giggled, turning back around in my seat.
..

for the next three months,

gilinsky and i were very close. he'd come over after school, we'd eat a snack and watch 'ned's declassified school survival guide' all while talking about how we thought our lives would be when we were older.

jack always said he wanted to be some sort of comedian, part time singer.

i never really understood the comedian part because his jokes were drier than my knees, but the singer part, i completely understood that. in my eyes, jack was the equivalent of a male beyoncé.

he would say that he wanted a big house on a lake, he wanted to get married and have three kids, all named after people from the bible.

my life goals at the time were pretty far fetched.

i wanted to be 'blaire taylor gilinsky'

in other words, i wanted to marry jack..

he was my best friend at the time, he was cute as hell, and he knew me better than anyone else, plus, the little gold digger part of me knew he was gonna get famous, and i wasn't meant to live the broke life,

i was intended to be carrying micheal kors and wearing versace.

anyways,

i soon got over my little jack gilinsky crush in 8th grade.

i remember it so well, probably because it was honestly the worst day of my life.

my father had just lost his job and all of his motivation to do anything anymore, so it was now my mother's job to provide for jordan, tana and i.

we were practically broke and the other person i could confide in about this was jack. i told him everything and he played the good reassuring best friend role, told me he would be there for me whenever..

he lied.

monday morning i came into school, and went to language arts, my first class, and sat in my seat.

our teacher started the class of by telling us that we were each being assigned a 'christmas angel,' basically someone who couldn't afford anything or was homeless.

it all was going well until the families voice of sara black says

"jack told me about your little situation, blaire," she giggles, looking at me, "so, mrs jackson, would it be okay if blaire was my christmas angel? since her family is on the verge of homelessness." she says.

my face instantly turns red and i feel tears welling in my eyes.

"t-that's not true." i quietly said, looking at the classroom floor.

"are you sure? jack said you even had to sign up for those little grocery bags of food the school sends home to students like you on friday!" sara says, looking around at everyone's faces.

"i trusted you.." i say, tears close to falling down my cheeks as i look at jack.

jack replied with a simple 'whoops,' not even trying to stop the brutal torture i was going through.

that was when my hate for jack began.