The Rocker and the Realist

Chapter Three

I managed to get back to school just in time for my last and favorite class of the day: creative writing. I’d always loved writing and just about anything book related but this class had become my escape. It was a smaller class of about fifteen people and we had adopted each other as family. What happens in creative writing, stays in creative writing.

I needed that escape today more than anything. By the time I got back from my lunch with Colton everyone knew what had happened. The great Colton Raymer had showed up just to go out to lunch with me. And I had been gone for almost two hours. Rumors were already spreading, most of them bat crap crazy. I was his latest hookup, I was tutoring him because he was failing a class, we had been secret lovers and he wanted to say goodbye because his band was leaving for Greece (They weren’t.).

Dex glanced up as I walked in and took my seat in between him and Lettie. Dex was one of my closest friends and was equally as passionate about writing as I was. He was talented too, he had been in communication with a big publishing house for the past couple months.

Lettie was also a close friend. She wasn’t as passionate about creative writing as I was but she definitely liked being able to express herself. Her stories always were quieter and softer but everything about them spoke volumes about her. The only time you got a glance into my quite friend was when she chose to let you in and she had chosen to let this class in. Today her nose was buried deep in a book but she smiled at me as I sat down then returned to her reading.

Dex’s blonde hair hung over his forehead as he poked me in the arm with his pen, “So I hear you are screwing a rock star now.”

I snorted, “Actually I’m moving to France with him.”

He grinned and took off his glasses to clean them, revealing his chocolate eyes. “No, it’s Greece.”

I shrugged, “Close enough.”

He nudged my arm again, “So what’s really happening?”

I pulled out my notebook and began lazily flipping through it. “Jess dragged me to Endless Escape’s concert last weekend and I met him back stage. I guess I interest him because he showed up to take me out to lunch saying he wants to get to know me.”

He snickered and the red head next to him shot him a look. He lowered his voice and said, “Yeah, I’m sure I know exactly which parts of you he wants to get to know.”

I punched him in the arm just as Mrs. Holiday stood up in the middle of the circle. The theory was sitting in a circle would help the creativity flow between us, which was pretty new agey for my conservative stuck up school.

“Today, my dears, I want to focus on interpretation.” She used her hands in pointless gestures as she talked. “I can say something and every single one of you will put your own spin on it in your head. Today the prompt is: A girl standing alone in the woods. You have fifteen minutes to write and then we will share. I want the creativity to really flow. Go crazy with this.”

She took her seat at her desk to start grading our last assignment. Within seconds every pencil in the room was making a mad dash across paper. I took the adventure edge and transformed the girl into a strong heroine who was waiting to face down with her evil foe. Dex made it a horror story and covered the girl in blood and turned the forest into a demonic trap. The red head next to him made it a pathetic love story about a girl waiting for her lost love. The red head was my least favorite person in the class.

When the bell rang Mrs. Holiday wished us a good weekend and then we were out the door and out into the hallways swimming with activity. Pushing through the crowds, I hurried to the safety of my locker and began pulling out everything I would need. Dex opened his locker, which happened to be next to mine, and traded his school blazer for a hooded sweatshirt.