Trust Your Instincts

-5- Jack

The two had almost reached their first class when a figure dashed up to them and grabbed onto Isaac's shoulder, yanking him around 180 degrees. Mark stopped mid sentence to see what Isaac had turned for. When he turned, he saw a smaller young man, he was incredibly slender, with the bluest eyes Mark had seen, and a tuft of green hair on his head. Normally, Mark doesn't like dyed hair, but he had to admit that this did suit the smaller man. He wore a plain red hoodie, and a pair of dark skinny jeans. He did not look pleased at all. His expression was angry and he looked betrayed, but most of all he looked hurt... upset. He glanced quickly at Mark, but soon returned his gaze to Isaac.

"What the hell man?" He spat at Isaac, rage evident in his face, which was reddening. Mark found himself smirking at the thick Irish accent. Jack looked over and glared at Mark. He thought Mark was mocking him, just like the majority of the school.

Isaac's face dropped, the cheery man Mark was getting used to was disappearing, the facial expression changing drastically. Isaac looked pained, guilty of something. "Jack! I'm so sorry," He said, "I completely forgot that you asked. I was busy, I-I was showing Mark around school." Isaac looked to Mark and his face fell again. "Shoot! Mark, this is my friend Jack, Jack this is Mark. It's his first day and I know practically nothing about him yet."

Jack glared at Mark again, "Yeah, nice to meet you." he growled and stalked off, alone, ignoring Isaac's shouts to get him to stop. Mark finally retracted the hand he had held out to greet Jack, now feeling a pang of embarrassment after noticing that a few of the students had noticed him with his hand outstretched. Mark felt less cheery after that interaction. Jack's words felt insincere, and Mark knew he thought he was being mocked. Already, someone didn't like him, and he's only met two people, unless he was to include Marie, that'd make it three. Jack was long gone by the time Mark had plucked up enough courage to say something. He'd apologise later.

Mark followed Isaac into the classroom, and sat down next to him in a seat near the back. He hoped Isaac was good at math, because Mark sure as hell wasn't!

"Don't pay him much attention," Isaac said, placing a hand on Mark's shoulder. He had obviously noticed Mark's change in attitude after speaking to Jack, or, rather, not speaking to him at all. "He's always like this, he doesn't have many friends, he gets bullied big time around here. Most of his free time is spent in the music practice rooms. He's amazing at the piano, but he's too shy to play in front of anyone he's not comfortable with. We try our best to talk to him, Josh, Felix and I. It sucks having nobody, and Jack's a really sweet guy once you get to know him, it's just hard to gain his trust to start with." Isaac explained in a hushed voice as the last of the class piled into whatever empty seats were left. Their conversation was ended by the teacher's booming voice, ordering the class to pipe down and open their textbooks to page 22.

After math, Isaac showed Mark to his history classroom, which he enjoyed slightly less, as he didn't know anybody there. I wish Isaac wasn't only in my math class, he thought to himself, but he tried to see it as an opportunity to get to know different people. He attempted to strike a conversation with the boy sitting next to him, but he looked to Mark like one of the popular guys at school. He seemed nice enough though, and after the initial awkwardness had been overcome, he and Mark whispered behind the teacher's back until the bell rang. His name was Will, and Mark was right about him being popular. He was captain of the football team. This made Mark smile slightly. Maybe he'd be one of the popular guys in school for once!

It was two more uneventful periods before lunchtime came around, and Mark was just grateful that everyone was being so nice to him. He beamed like an idiot as he headed to the lunch hall, smiling from ear to ear. He'd been offered to sit with Will and his friends at lunch, but he politely declined, he'd already promised Isaac that he'd meet his friends, Josh and Felix, and so he sat at a table with them. Josh was dark skinned and about Mark's height, he had a low voice, and wore a shirt that Mark had decided belonged to a local ice hockey team. Mark could tell straight away that Felix was originally Swedish from his accent. He too was blond, but not as blond as Isaac, and not as tall. He was obviously the comedy relief of the group, cracking one liners at every opportunity he got, and making puns that made Mark want to dig his eardrums out with a rusty spoon. Both were very good looking, and Mark couldn't have hoped for a better first day at school. He felt like he'd known the other three for years. He felt appreciated. Comfortable. Happy.

After lunch Mark began to head to his next class, Physics. It wasn't until he got halfway down a corridor, though, that he realised he had no idea how to get there, and Isaac must have forgotten his duty of being Mark's personal tour guide for the day, as he was nowhere to be seen. Mark's heart began to beat slightly faster, as he walked around the giant school aimlessly.

When he reached his classroom 10 minutes later, after receiving help from one of the janitors out to clean up the mess made at lunch time, he was the only person still out in the halls, and so he was late to class. The teacher had already started the lesson, and motioned him to come quickly into the classroom, clearly disgruntled. Mark's face reddened as he scanned the class, every pair of eyes on him. There was only one seat left vacant, so he hurried toward the very back corner of the class, avoiding eye contact with everyone, his gaze instead fixed on his feet.

He sat down in his seat and got out his notebook and pen, a little less uncomfortable now that the attention had returned to the teacher. He looked to his left, sensing that someone was still staring at him. The first thing he noticed was the green hair. It took a moment to pinpoint where he had seen it before, but he eventually recognised him to be Jack, the shy boy from the start of school. When the two made eye contact, however, Jack swiftly looked back to his notebook, obviously pretending that he hadn't just been staring at Mark. Mark realised before he looked away that it was more of a glare, like Jack was looking at him through eyes filled with hate. He didn't understand, but at least now he was able to apologise for finding Jack's accent amusing.

Half an hour of silence had passed before Mark had gathered up the courage to speak to Jack.

"Hey... I'm sorry for laughing at your accent this morning, it just took me by surprise is all." Mark whispered, his eyes locked on the side of Jack's face.

Jack didn't look up from his notebook, he didn't smile or give any indication that he had heard Mark's apology, so Mark moved to tap Jack on the shoulder. When he had come into contact with the bony shoulder, however, Jack leapt back in fright, and glanced at Mark furiously.

"Sorry! I never meant to scare you... I... I was just-" Mark started before looking at the green haired boy's notebook. It was filled with sketches of dogs and realistic portraits of video game characters and actors. Mark had obviously stared at the book too long, because before he could compliment the drawings, Jack slammed it shut.

"It's ok." Jack said flatly, not making any eye contact with Mark at all. He lay his head on the desk, shielding his face from Mark's gaze. and they didn't speak again for the rest of the period. Mark was filled with a sadness he had managed not to feel the whole day, that was twice in one day that it looked like he was mocking Jack. He didn't know why he cared so much, he was good friends with Isaac, Josh and Felix already. Even Will. He didn't need to be best friends with everyone, and he had gathered that Jack wasn't the most popular anyway. He tried his best to take notes for the rest of the period. It felt awkward, Jack hadn't looked up once. He hadn't taken a single note. Just before the bell rang, the professor had gave them a piece of homework, the first that Mark had received today.

  "This will be a large project," the professor stated, "so I'd like you to pair up with the person you're sitting next to. You'll have two weeks to prepare a presentation for your assigned topics." Mark's heart sank when he heard they'd be working in pairs. He looked over at Jack whose head was off the desk, looking disbelievingly at the professor, clearly enraged at the concept of working together with Mark. Mark felt bad for him for some reason, but he didn't know why. Jack hadn't been terribly nice to him at all since they met, why should he worry about how Jack was feeling?

They'd do the presentation together and that would be that.

There was no conversation on how or when they'd meet up to do the project. As soon as the bell rang, Jack out of his seat and heading for the door. For the first time that day, Mark felt upset. He felt a sinking feeling.

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A/N Hey there! So Jack's in the story now! Woooooo!

As for the other new characters, the only one I really based on a real life person is Felix, the others (Will and Josh) are open to your interpretation ;)

I hope that wasn't a boring chapter, and Jack won't always hate Mark, he's just stubborn now, their relationship will most likely fluctuate very regularly lol.

Anyway thank you for reading to this point, and I hope you decide to keep going! Until then!!