P L A N B E T A

Chapter Two

June 16th, 2042

Cullen

It's so hot in this conference room I don't know how the hell I am going to get these pants off when I get to Maia's house.

When my Agent number is called, I take three large steps downstage to align with Maia, or that's what I wanted to do, but Gwen insisted on grabbing a hold of my hand and not wanting to let go until I shook her loose.

I had people asking me questions left and right. I knew all of the answers but they were coming from so many places all at once that I didn't know who to look at or which ones were acceptable for me to answer. Do you attend public school? Do you have a girlfriend? Are you nervous about joining plan Beta? What are you looking forward to the most? I smile and nod at most of the questions until I saw someone in the middle of the crowd, a girl not too much older than me, raising her hand. I smile slightly at her and tilt my head.

"What is the importance of being left brain oriented?" she asked. I was caught off guard, that was irrelevant to Plan Beta but okay.

"Being left brain oriented means that you can identify patterns easily and learn more thoroughly. Why do you ask?" The girl looked up at me smiled, and looked down at a notebook she had in hand.

"Don't you believe in the importance of emotions?" she asked.

"I—" I am then cut off by the loud sound of the bell, meaning that the conference is over. I return to my geometric body alignment and wait or everyone to be out of the room. When I am sure there is no one besides our three families, I turn to Arabella and smile.

My eyes have been damaged by the bright fluorescent and flashing lights that have been active for around two and a half hours now, and Arabella looks like she's some sort of Candyland alien monster.

"Woah," I say. "You just look like a huge sack of green goo."

She snickers and nods. "Well isn't that essentially what we are? Just large bags of goo but we have a skeleton?" I shrug and press my lips together. She always managed to take away the fun from a joke.

We stand there in awkward silence for a few moments before Maia joins us and utters, "So have you guys thought about our freshman year? Like Homecoming and all that good stuff?" I furrow my brows, wondering why she would ask this. Was she going with someone? I understood that my chances with her were extremely slim but I liked to think that maybe in some alternate universe that had my back would put us together. However, in this universe, she was still an inch or two taller than me and I was a year younger than her, I had just skipped into her grade, despite being able to graduate this year.

"Wagner, why would Jack be thinking about Homecoming? It's three months away and I'm not even sure if he's tall enough to go," Arabella jokes. I punch her side, she groans and steps aside, I know she's faking it.

"I told you I don't like to just be called Jack, it makes me sound like a jackass—" I mumble. For some reason when I first got moved into Maia and Arabella's grade, all the girls thought that I would be some tall, dark, and handsome kid who played football and was buff, but then they just got me, a small scrawny kid who knew how to do math and science really well. They all ended up turning me away, but that was okay, I still had Maia and Arabella to keep me sane. But I think why they thought that was because of the name Jack, I never really liked that name anyway and then I got to this disappointment.

"Woah watch your mouth there Jackie—" Ara taunts and I shove her shoulder.

"It's Jack Peter or just Peter, I don't like the name Jack," I say, seriously, wanting her to stop. Ara has never really cared about me, or it seems that way, she and Maia would have their childish fights about who would marry me or whatever when we were kids, but she was tormenting me more often than not.

She knocks me over the head and roughs up my hair. I scowl at her and then slap her head and shove her hip. She returns the favor, but she doesn't know her strength. In the blink of an eye, I feel a hand grab onto my wrist and I am being pulled out of the fight by Maia, who has my hand in her hers and is gripping it, I don't object because she probably doesn't know she's doing it.

Arabella falls and then glares up at Maia, her hand is suddenly ripped away from mine. There is another awkward silence until Arabella's father, Carson, is standing behind her, tall and solid, and Maia makes Ara acknowledge his existence.

Arabella looks back at us before leaving and smiles, we both smile back. Normally we all would just go back to our homes and get ready for the next day, but the Baker-Crane's had a meeting in Boston in the morning, and my parents and the Wagners were off to Ireland early in the morning for another conference, so we decided to stay at Maia's.

I remember that Maia is standing next to me and I am brought back to reality. "So," she starts. "Have you thought about Freshman year?" I glance over at her, she's staring at one of the white walls, refusing to look at me.

"Yeah," I say. "I've thought about I shouldn't be in high school. I'm too small for this, Maia. I shouldn't even be in this amazing program," I spill. I hear a small sigh from her.

"Jack Peter, if you weren't supposed to be here than you wouldn't be. You are meant to be here and you are a crucial part of our success, you're meant to do great things, and I believe that you will." I look over at her in surprise from that statement but she still isn't looking at me, that's okay.

I gulp and then look down at my feet, I truly don't know what to say to her, but alas, I am saved by Maia's dad, James, telling us that we need to get in the car and go to Maia's.

The car ride to Maia's is nearly silent. Gwendolyn sits next Maia and is asleep, I sit in between Maia and Orren, with Maxwell on the other side of him. The car, which is actually an electric limo, is quite small for the number of people that we have to fit, but it works.

The Wagner house is large and modern. The air around it smells of lavender and pumpkin, just like the inside of their house.

Orren and I go up to his room and sit on his floor, a controller in each of our hands. "Wait, dude," he says like he's trying to sort something out. "So who do you like?"

My eyes widen the slightest bit and I lean back on his bed. I look at the huge screen in front of us, and then glance back at Orren, he was putting on his vibration panels that made the game more realistic. I started to put them on and bit my tongue. "No one," I attempted to convince but my voice cracked.

"C'mon, you can tell me, if you keep it in forever then you're just gonna suffer," he chuckled and leaned back with me.

"Uhm... someone really important to me." Would he get mad if I told him that I liked his sister? I probably shouldn't tell him.

"Obviously, you twink. But whom?"

"My-ah," I utter nervously and scratch the back of my neck. I hear the soft tap of his controller against his lap and I look over to see him with his eyes wide-open staring at me. "I'm sorry, dude. If you want me to like go sleep in the yard I will just let me know, I'm so sorry."

"No don't be sorry," he said. I felt the weight of the world get lifted off of my shoulders and I gave a relieved sigh. "I just was thoroughly convinced that you were in love with Arabella."

I smiled lightly and shook my head, continuing to put on my vibration padding. We started playing our game and having a good rest of the night until it was time for dinner.

We were all called down by Shauna and I was sat between Orren and Maia at the table, it was like this everytime. Potatoes were passed around along with chicken and salad, it was normal, but for some reason now that I actually said I liked her, it felt more official, like now I had this obligation to like her and only her, which I did anyway, but now I felt like I had to act upon it.

I kept uncontrollably looking over at her and the scolding myself every time I caught it.

After dinner, sleeping arrangements were assorted and I was but into a guest bedroom.

I stared at the ceiling for a half an hour before I finally started to get tired, and for some reason, I imagined Maia sitting cross-legged on my bed beside me as I fell asleep, but once I went under, I was gone.