Varsity Boy and The Prep

10

I hate biology.

Okay, that was a bit harsh. Let me rephrase it:

Gabrielle being in my biology class was the most unfortunate thing that'd happened to me. And don't get me wrong, she's my best friend. But when January melted into February and I hadn't seen my guy friends in a long time, Gabrielle seemed to take notice.

"Are you ready for spring tryouts?" she asked. Gabrielle tryed to sound enthusiatic, but it was obvious that she knew nada about sports.

"I think I'm gonna stick with JV for the rest of the year."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Gabrielle rolled her heavily make-uped eyes. "I was hoping that I'd heard wrong, Emery. What's going on? If anything's-"

"Emerson and Gabrielle, please inform us of the data you've collected." our teacher asked.

Gabrielle looked down at her data table to find a blank sheet. She looked at me, horrifingly. This was her fault. We'd been working on the lab, but Gabrielle's constant filler chatter had distracted me from writing down all of the measurements.

"Um," I said, "our results were inconclusive. If you'd allow us another few minutes to re-run the experiment, I'm sure that we'd get better data this time around."

"Miss Williams, I appreciate your efforts to cover, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you haven't been working on your lab. Now, please tell me the truth."

All ten students in our class were staring at Gabrielle and I, with wide eyes, and my stomach flipped. Never in my time at this school, had I been kicked out of a class.

I'd also never kissed someone.

There were seeming to be a lot of firsts, in my junior year. Gabrielle took a deep breath,

"We-"

"Gabbie." I said, sternly.

A look of surprise took over her face. Nobody called her that, except her community at home.

I turned to our teacher. "We'll be on our way."

He gave me a respective nod as I gathered my things and gestured for Gabrielle to follow me out the door. Going here for three years had gotten me used to the small class sizes, and I have to say that I'm thankful for them. I'd never been to public school, but from what Gabrielle's friends say, it's dingy and everyone stares if you don't look like them.

The science building was more like a long hallway, so we made it to the doors in no time. They were made of glass, just like the other doors at this school, and pushed open easily.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Gabrielle asked. "Because if something wasn't up, you would have tried to convince him into letting us stay."

Trying to ignore the comment, I pulled off the navy sweater that was a part of our uniform. Underneath was a white dress shirt; the standard for all students.

"Emery, what the hell are you doing?"

I let out an loud exhale.

Because I was rebelling.

We were supposed to wear our uniforms until after classes, and I was taking mine off. I wasn't earning the grade I deserved in biology, or training for spring tryouts, or even sitting down to sort out my feelings. And it felt good. Because, I am not the type of person to speak out. I'm that person that follows all of the rules, and stays quiet, and lives life as I'm told. Holding my sweater when there were three more hours of classes, felt good.