Jacqueline || BWWM

Chapter Forty

Jaylin and her group are hanging around a shiny, blue Chevrolet Jeep. Whit, Isabelle and the brown haired guy from the night before sit on it's hood while Jay and the rest stand to the side and in front of it. Looking around the student parking lot and seeing only a couple other kids scattered around increases an emotion I haven't felt in a while: fear.

I'll never admit out loud why, but social situations freak me out. Something about a whole bunch of strangers staring at me, sizing me up, sends me into panic mode. The fact that I know some of the people just a few yards in front of me doesn't help in anyway. My brain is too forced on the people, the guys, I don't know to draw comfort from that thought.

The more I think about all the different ways asking Jaylin for help could go wrong, the more I start to realize walking home isn't such a bad idea. Don't get me wrong, Jaylin is an ok person at home, nice even. It's the person she turns into when a group of her friends are around that isn't.

Looking at her now wearing a huge smile with her arms around King, anyone would guess that she's in a happy mood, but I know her well enough to understand that just because she's smiling, doesn't necessarily mean she's happy.

When it comes to Jaylin, reading and then predicting what her reactions to my actions might be is never an easy thing, mostly because more times than not I'm wrong. I blame it on the fact that she isn't consist. With most people, all it takes to know what their reactions might be is reading their facial expressions and body language.

Jaylin is completely different. With her, I have to take the day it is, her mood, and the time it is just to have a fifty-fifty chance at knowing what she might do.

With all this in mind my guess is that if she's in a good mood, she'll just snap at me for interrupting, Jay's group never shuts up. It's either interrupt or don't talk, and then take me home. If she's in a bad mood, she'll snap, 'discreetly' glower at me and then make me walk home.

Since I'm already considering walking home, I figure I might as well just pick that instead of risking the chance of getting on Jay's bad side. Plus side to this plan is that I avoided the social situation I would have had to be in, down side is that home is two point eight miles away, aka, an hour walk.

I'm taking my last glance at Jay and her group when I hear a guy shouting, "HEY!"

Thinking that the shout is meant for someone else, the fact that I'd rather not plays a part too, I don't look up. Instead, I climb down the last few steps to reach the cement platform. I'm pulling up the rout home on google maps when another shout sounds out, "HUDSON'S BLACK CHICK!" I look up briefly, and accidentally meet the blazing blue eyes of the guy who's name I still don't know. His tan hands are cupped in a megaphone-like shape around his mouth. I don't need to see the sly smile he probably has to know his intentions: the quick look in his eyes said it all.
"YEA. YOU. COME OVER."

No thanks.

The thought of wasting any more time with his over confident, obnoxious alec doesn't scare me in anyway. Nauseated would be the best word to describe what I feel.

I shake my head no, and am about to turn away from the group when I hear Jay's voice.
"Don't be an ass, McCay. She's my foster sister."

I'm taken aback with so much shock that my mouth falls open.

In the whole month I've lived with her family, Jay has never once called me sister in any formation, and I never expected her too.

In the past, some kids have never got their heads wrapped around me joining their families. During the time I lived with them, they would keep their distance until it was announced that I was leaving. Then they'd pretend we were best friends until Seleya came and got me.