Chit and Jake

Chit

Today SOSE sucked. A double period of nothing but listening to Mr. Lawson rave on about the importance of foot-soldiers in World War I. Greeaat. SOSE is my only class this year without my best friend, Jake. Meaning, on top of being my least favourite subject, I have to sit through the torture alone. Sighing deeply, I looked out of the window, searching for an interesting distraction but found nothing, at all. No birds in the blue sky. No sports classes on the scruffy field. No gentle breeze ruffling the browning leaves speckling dying trees. Nothing. It was dead. Lifeless. Boring. Mr. Lawson, obviously unaware that he was putting the entire class to sleep, continued to rant. At some point during the lesson, I either stopped hearing him speak or stopped comprehending what he was saying, either way, I was grateful. The quiet in my mind was calming. Although I could still hear murmurs, they seemed far off and distant. I shut my eyes and took three deep breaths.

In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.

When I opened my eyes I was surprised to see Jake standing in front of me chuckling slightly.
"What? What's so funny?" I asked with scrutiny.
"Sleeping through class again Chit?" He teased while pointing his finger at me accusingly. "'Sleeping through class is the one way to guarantee failure! Do you want to fail?'" He imitated past-me in a squeaky voice.
"Hey! I do not talk like that! And I wasn't sleeping I just got bored and zoned out," I argued as I stood up and collected my books. Jake smirked, knowing he had won.
"Shall we?" He asked poshly, changing the subject as he thrusted his arm out to me. I rolled my eyes but said, "we shall," with a smile as I pushed his arm away gently.

We walked towards the cafeteria; nobody even shot a second glance our way. Well except for the girls who were checking out Jake. Even if it was just me, they wouldn't laugh, snicker or tease. Because of Jake, they wouldn't dare. It's always been this way, except once when we were little. In third grade, Jake had been sick for a week. Brandon, a kid in our class, decided it would be hilarious to make fun of me. He harassed me for days, calling me things like 'Prissy Boy', 'Mega-nerd-a-tron' and 'The wimpy boy who can't stick up for himself', he liked to push me around too. I never said anything to Jake about it, I didn't think it mattered. Somehow, Jake found out and when he got back he beat the shit out of Brandon. After that, nobody dared to pick on me again. It's a comforting and kind of terrifying thought, that he's always there for me and that, without him, I wouldn't last a day.