Back In The Game

Chapter 20

Aspen's POV

"This girl..." I mumble. The stupid alarm had been ringing for a good 15 minutes and she's still not up. "Marie, I know if you don't get up!" I yelled at her yanking the sheets off her.

"I'm up!" She says. She sits up and turns the alarm off.

"I told you to get up last night didn't I!?" I ask her rhetorically. She doesn't say anything, but flips me off and walks into the bathroom.

I get dressed in my black joggers and a t-shirt. I make my bed, I put my hair up afterwards, finishing by the time she was ready to go.

"I'm meeting Jacob in front of Starbucks today, hurry up." I tell her.

"Good. I need some caffeine anyway," She says and we make our way down to the coffee shop.

"Hey Aspen, Marie," Jacob greets us as we walk up. He's sitting at one of the metal picnic tables outside, slurping on a espresso.

"Sup Jake," Marie says back. She's always giving out nicknames. While she goes inside to order our drinks, I take a seat across from Jacob.

"So, you like our Medical Science class?" I ask him.

"Yeah, it's cool I guess. I could barely wake up this morning for it though. That party must've messed me up a little," He says laughing.

"Drinking wasn't the best idea, but it's whatever. I just hope the professor doesn't assign anything anytime soon." I say as Marie comes back out with our drinks.

"I'm, uhh, going to meet Dax. I'll see you in class," She tells me.

"Okay." I shrug and she walks around the corner towards the main building.

"So you know Dax?" Jacob asked me.

"I've seen him. I guess Marie knows him from that party."

"Ohh, well he's kinda... I don't know. Just tell Marie to be careful around him."

"Is he crazy or something? What do you mean?"

"No, not exactly. He's just been known to do some crazy things. But I wouldn't worry. He kinda got shut down last year, she should be fine."

"Okay... well I'll let her know anyway," I say and check the time on my phone. "We should probably get going I guess. Class starts in five minutes." We get up and dispose of our cups and make our way towords the main building where our class is held. When we walked in we saw Dax and Marie laughing.

"Well I'll see ya later," I hear Dax say as we walk up. I wait until he is around the corner to ask my question.

"What was so funny?" I asked.

"Nothing, just something on Instagram." She says turns to go to class.

We follow her up the stairs and sit in the very back of classroom. I sit in the middle of Jacob and Marie and wait for class to begin. I look over to see Marie texting and Jacob resting his head on his hand, eyes closed.

"Alright class. Today we will begin with chemical reactions." Professor Aiko says and the class begins.

I let out a quiet groan and listened to what the professor had to say. But luckily, the hour goes by fast and we're out in no time.

"I'm gunna go meet Dax by his classroom. See you guys later?" Marie says, walking the opposite way of us.

"Wait," I tell her. I wanted to tell her what Jacob told me. I took her to the side and whispered, "Be careful around him. Jacob told me he does crazy stuff so..."

"Okay, girl! I'll be fine!" She says and hurries off.

"Whatever," I shrug at her. "Well I hope he doesn't try anything " I tell Jacob as we walk towards Chick-Fil-A off campus.

"Yeah, me neither," He says, but doesn't sound too worried.

He walks closer to me and I smile. We get into the restaurant and my eyes immediately go to two boys sitting in the corner by the door. I know one goes by the name Lijah because I was right behind him when he checked in but I've never seen the other one before. They we're laughing about something and I swore I heard Marie's name.

"What do you want?" Jacob asked interrupting my thoughts.

"Just some fries," I told him. I turned back around to see that Lijah and his friend were getting up to leave.

"Welcome to Chick-Fil-A. How may I take your order?" The cashier asked. Jacob orders for both of us and we sit in the corner farthest from the door.

"You know them?" Jacob asked me biting into his sandwich.

"Oh, I don't know..." I shrugged.

"You were staring at them pretty hard..." Jacob trails.

"I heard Marie's name is all."

Jacob 'ooh'ed and I watched as the two guys got up and left.

LaShawn's POV

"I didn't follow her here, if that's what you're thinking," I say to Lijah as we leave Chic-Fil-A and head back to our room. "It honestly is the only school that accepted me and I dont even know how that happened.

"Well you sound like a stalker to me but that's none of my business though." Lijah said to me laughing.

We had an hour and a half until our next class so we just chilled in our room until it was time for our Human Anatomy class. As we made our way across campus, I thought I heard someone call my name but when I turned around, nobody was there. We kept walking and right as we were about to enter the building I heard my name again. When I turned around this time, i saw someone running up to me. As the person got closer I could tell who was running. It was Marie.

"LaShawn Malik Price. What the hell are you doing here?!" She questioned as she jumped into my arms and wrapped herself around me. At first I didn't asnwer her. I just held her, letting all the worry and emptyness leak right out of me. I finally put her down and introduced her to Lijah.

"Nice to finally meet you. I swear, this dude here hasn't shut his mouth about you yet," Lijah explains to Marie.

"Well it's nice to meet you, too," She says back.

"Well, I'll catch you after class then bro. Seems like you have a lot of catching up to do," Lijah says and heads inside.

"I can't believe you're here," She says, her voice exasperated.

"It's the only school that would accept me," I tell her, hugging her again.

"I've missed you so much Shawn," She says, through my shirt.

"I know baby. But look my class is about to start but catch me after ok," I say standing up. Before I go inside, I peck her cheek and hurry to class.