KISS: Casablanca High School

Ch 3: School Starts In How Many Days? (Paul)

"Paul you're honestly stupid. We've had this assignment for how long? Three months?"

"I know, I know!" I groaned, thumbing through the pages, eyes scanning the words without my brain actually processing them. "Help me out man, what did...uh...no, why did the marriage proposal fall apart?"

Peter only laughed, taking another bite of pizza. "I don't know, you tell me."

"Come on Paul, you're smart enough to test up into AP English but you can't read a book?" Gene shouted from the kitchen.

"You shoulda stayed with me in regular English, curly!" Ace called, popping his head out of the kitchen.

I rolled my eyes, slamming the book shut. "Whatever. I'll finish it later."

"Later as in on Monday?" Gene asked, walking out with a tray of milkshakes. I nodded, leaning back in the chair. "Exactly, my frozen friend. That gives me four days."

Ace grinned, taking a shake and throwing himself onto the couch. "One and a half. It's Saturday."

I'll admit, it hurt to have to sit down the hall in Gene's room and slog through all 487 pages while the three of them got to have their end of summer party.

"This is ridiculous," I muttered, doodling aimlessly on the page. As I looked around the cramped room, Gene's laptop caught my eye. A grin spread across my face and I pulled it open.

Didn't even have to try and guess the password. The big doofus had stuffed his answers, already printed for me, in between the keyboard and the screen. "Thank youuu, Gene," I whispered, pulling out my phone and taking a few quick pictures.

I ran down the hall, vaulting over the couch and dropping next to Peter. "Watch the furniture man, my mom's gonna kill me if anything's damaged!" Gene hissed, taking his eyes off the screen long enough for Ace to knock him off the platform.

He muttered a curse that was barely audible over Ace's cackling laughter and threw the controller at me. "Ah, forget this. I don't need this kind of disrespect in my own home."

We sat in a warm silence broken only by the sound of the game until Gene dropped his phone and leaned back against the sofa with a massive sigh.

"Aw, did another girl break up with you?" I asked.

"I wish. We got a new student, and McGee decided that he should follow me around for a few weeks until he gets used to the school."

"Why the hell would anyone want to follow you around?" Peter snickered.

I tried to stifle my laughter as Gene's ears went scarlet. He was just so easy to tease. "Aw come on Pete, respect your host. McGee probably gave the new kid to Gene so Gene would have a chance to make a friend!"

The pillow that soared across the room to smack me in the face only made us laugh harder.

"It's because we played the same sport, shut up."

Yawning, I pulled out my phone. "Looks like being Mr. Top Student has come back to bite you."

"Y'all are just jealous because I have my own parking spot," he grumbled.

By the time 3 am rolled around, Ace and Peter had passed out on the sofa, ignorant of the movie playing in the background.

"Senior year, man. College time," I whispered.

Gene nodded, staring at the screen.

"Are you ready for applications and all that?"

He was silent for a moment, chewing on his lip. "Yeah I don't... I don't know if I'm going to go to college."

"What?!" I shouted, before clapping a hand over my mouth as he shot me a dirty look. Ace stirred in his sleep, burrowing deeper into his nest of blankets and mumbling something about horses.

Wincing, I moved to sit next to Gene. "What do you mean, you might not go to college? You've been working your tail off to be top of your classes, and you've been filling your schedule with hard classes and sports and clubs and like three jobs! How could you not go?" I hissed.

His teeth sunk deeper into his lip and he stared harder at the screen. "It's just expensive, and my mom is worried we won't be able to afford it. She's been trying to help by working late and I've added another job but I don't know man, I just feel bad," he choked, drawing his knees to his chest.

My heart hung like a weight in my chest as I stared at him. "But what about...about like scholarships and all that?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't want to talk about it right now."

The silence was definitely awkward now as we sat staring at the TV, watching as Jack Nicholson stalked his way through the hallways of the hotel, dragging his ax along with him. Finally he rose to his feet, tossing me the remote.

"I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow," he said. I watched him move down the hall, stopping just before he ducked into his room. "You got your homework finished, right?"

I nodded, giving him a thin smile.

"You got enough room an' blankets?"

"If I need to, I'll kick one of these two vagabonds off the couch. 'Night man."

He vanished into his room, door closing behind him. Shaking my head, I clicked off the TV and laid back on the sofa, pulling a blanket up to my chin. My parents could've paid both of our tuitions and we both knew it. He was close enough to family that they probably would have, too. But he was too stubborn to ever allow that to happen.

I slumped back against the pillow and tried to fall asleep, waiting for the smell of breakfast to hit me in the morning.