Lovestruck (EDITING)

52: Simple

"Welcome to detention, where you'll be expected to clean every last piece of chewing gum off these desks before that clock hits 4." Mr Crawley announces our task in a monotone.

I glance towards Jayden a couple of desks down from me and he rolls his eyes. They shouldn't be allowed to make us scrape dirty gum off these desks. This shit should be illegal in the United States. I mean, this has to be a violation of some kind of school health code. Perhaps normal rules don't apply in detention. There are only two other kids in the classroom. One bored looking sophomore boy with dark skin, hair and eyes, and a nervous freshman girl whose freckly face and innocent blue eyes tell me she doesn't belong in here. I've only ever had a few detentions in my life for small things. Being late to class or not handing in my homework on time. That kind of stuff. So I'm thankful to be let off with a few detentions after arguing with the Dean and leaving school grounds.

Each of us are handed small scraping tools that look like they've been borrowed from the art classroom and a plastic bag each. I screw up my nose at the sight of the metal scraper I've given. It has the pink remains of chewing gum splattered all over it and appears as though it has never been cleaned.

"You all better get started. I'll be in my office, but don't think I won't be checking in on your progress regularly." Mr Crawley eyes us all suspiciously before leaving the room.

Jayden immediately stands from his desk and sits at the one beside me, holding up his scraper and plastic bag in disgust.

"This is just not right." He fakes a gag before turning his table on its side to take a look at what he's working with.

The entire outer edge of the desk is covered in various colored chewing gums, some much older looking than others. I take a deep breath before turning my own desk over and observing the same situation, but slightly worse.

"Oh my god." I gasp, cupping my hand over my mouth as I jab at the crusty chunks of blue gum left on the bottom edge of the desk.

We chip away at the chewing gum in silence for a while, but I feel the tension between us building with every expectant glance Jayden shoots my way. We have a lot we need to talk about.

"I'm breaking up with Dani." Jayden stares down at a particularly stubborn piece of gum with intense concentration as he mumbles the words I've been both dreading and longing for.

"What?" I drop the metal tool from my hand and turn my concentration solely to him. "You can't."

"Why not?" He frowns back at me.

"It's not fair. She didn't do anything wrong." I couldn't stand to be the cause of a relationship ending.

"That's not the point. It's not about her doing anything wrong. It's about how I feel about her. About how I feel about you..." Jayden's eyes drop to the ground shyly as they always do when he's being brave and I chew on the inside of my cheek.

"It's more complicated than that..." I mumble.