Heartbeat

Thirty-Five

JORDAN

D-Day.

Everything seemed almost normal today. Normal in the way it hadn’t been for a while.

I woke up. I showered. I dressed. I ate breakfast. I took Jessie to school.

I parked in my usual bay at school. I met Sam in the court. I said hello to the random people that greeted me. I ignored the stares that Abigail Somers was shooting me. I went to all my morning classes. I ate lunch surrounded by my friends. I thought about hockey practice. I thought about the hockey game.

I thought about Emma.

“Jordan? Hey, hello? Are you even listening?” I saw a hand wave in front of me, startling me so much that I almost fell backwards from the chair. Zoe watched me with a frown. “I asked if you were prepared.”

Zoe had stayed with me until midnight and made sure that the project was a hundred per cent perfect; anything less than perfection was not going to be shown and she’d made me learn all my points so that I couldn’t mess it up. If I wasn’t prepared after all the badgering Zoe had done, then I never would be.

I nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I answered just as the bell for next period rang.

Zoe hugged me and wished me luck, as did Sam. I was half expecting Holly to ignore me, but to my surprise, even she embraced me. She mumbled an awkward good luck to me before she and Sam headed to their classes.

Zoe walked with me, although she didn’t say much. I could tell she was nervous for me and she had a lot riding on this as well. She saw herself as my personal love-life fixer and if today were to backfire on me, then it would backfire on her too. When we reached to the door for class Zoe double checked that Emma was here and then she hugged me one last time.

“Go get her,” she laughed quietly in my ear.

Everyone had arrived for Peer Class by the time I walked in, and Mrs. Waite was stood at the front of the class. I bee-lined straight for the teacher and asked if there was any chance that I could be the last student to do the presentation today. Naturally, Mrs. Waite looked at me like I were an alien but she nodded anyway and smiled bemusedly as I took my usual seat.

Keri Bell went first and did a presentation about her partner Toby Emery. There was nothing sentimental about the presentation and I don’t think we learnt anything about Toby that we didn’t already know. It was as if they sat down for a thirty minute Q&A and that was that.

David did a pretty amusing presentation about Hayley Salanger, and by the end I felt like I knew Hayley that little bit better. The same went for Charlie Steadman and Lauren Granger. They did a joint presentation and called it Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. They were the complete opposites but somehow they’d managed to carve out a friendship over the weeks. Mrs. Waite looked surprised when Lauren leaned in to give Charlie a hug but proud that she had managed to help forge that friendship.

Abigail Somers did a pretty mean presentation about Travis Rhett that was fitting for her character, but even I knew that everything she said about Travis was bull. Travis is the drummer for a death metal band that is actually quite popular, and even I know they’re called Blood Sucking Banshees. Surely if Abigail had actually sat down with him she would know that tiny detail. Travis might be on the gothic side and had way too many tattoos and piercings, and those weird stretchers in his ears, but the guy was harmless.