Jake woke to the annoying beeping of his alarm and flipping over, grabbing his phone and turning off the alarm. With a sigh, he tumbled out of bed and hopped into some jeans, trying not to trip as he pulls them on. He decides to leave the shirt that he slept in on, after all it's not like he wore it outside so it can't really be that dirty, right? Crouching down, he slides his feet into some socks and his Nikes before getting to his feet. He walks out of his room and looks around the kitchen, smiling when he finds a box of croissants from the local bakery, his mom must have bought them yesterday on her drive home from work. Even though he has a Southern accent like his mom and all of those around him, there are some words that he has his father's accent on. Croissant is one of these words, same with schedule, water, vitamin, darling, and luv. Jake opens the lid and grabs the top one, taking a bite and moaning at the delicious flavor as it floods his mouth. When he finishes it up, he heads to his bathroom and brushes his teeth. As he spits into the sink, he sees that his light brown hair is sticking up every which way on top of his head. Letting out a low groan, he takes his fingers and combs through his soft hair, pulling the tangles loose and smoothing down the cowlicks. After a few seconds, he's satisfied and he rustles it lightly so it doesn't look like he worked too hard on it. Satisfied, he checks his phone for the time, 6:54, his bus would be here any minute. He grabs his bag from his desk and heads back out to the kitchen where his mom is finishing up with his lunch.
"Here's your lunch, Jake. Remember we have the big dinner with everyone tonight so don't snack too much when you get home. I love you, have a great day, sweetie!"
"You too. Love you, Mom," he replies, smiling at her rushed speech. Grabbing his lunch, he heads to walk out the doors but is stopped when strong hands are placed on his shoulders. He turns around to see his dad standing there.
"Hey, Jake. I thought I'd say good morning since I was up before you left," he says with a grin on his face. Tom lets out a whistle and Jake sees an old grey dog limping towards him and smiles. Tessa is seventeen now, quite old for a dog and especially for her breed which is supposed to live eleven to twelve. She has stiff joints and the occasional accident will occur, but overall she is pretty healthy besides normal dilemmas that come with old age like hearing and sight loss and body aches. Jake crouches down to reach her face, her pink tongue giving him a bath. He laughs as he rubs her ears and scratches her all over, being gentle as to not hurt her already fragile frame.
"Thanks, Dad. Love you too," he responds with a grin. "And yes, Tessa. I love you too, girl," he says as he looks down at her, her tail wagging behind her. A grin plastered to his face, he waves to Hannah through the blinds and jogs to the bus stop, climbing up the steps to meet with his friends in the back. They chat the whole way to school about a bunch of random things; football, movies, how to escape from and how to be a good murderer, and a bunch of other topics that left them light-headed from laughing. When they finally reach the school, they hop out of the bus and pad up to the school and walk inside.
Wow, Mason isn't here to mock me for once, Jake thinks to himself happily as he walks into his homeroom. His classes fly by quickly and before he knows it, it's lunch time. He heads to the cafeteria and slides beside Evan on the bench, Mark soon joining him on the other side. They chat as they pull out their lunches and start eating, but are disturbed by Jake falling forwards into the table.
"Yo, what's the deal?" he asks as he turns around to see who bumped into him, but his confidence drains out of him as quickly as the color in his face.
"What did you just say to me?" Mason exclaims, his hazel eyes flaming in rage as he looks beside him to his friends.
"Nothing," Jake mutters, looking down at the table to avoid eye contact.
"Look at me when you speak to me," he growls at him, roughly grabbing Jake by the jaw and pulling his head up to face him, forcing him to look up at his angular nose and dark brown, almost black, hair.
"Don't you dare put your filthy hands on me," Jake shouts as he gets to his feet and shoves Mason back. All he gets back is a light chuckle from him as he smiles at his friends.
"You really want to do this?" Mason asks, his eyebrows raised at the smaller junior. Jake responds with an even more ferocious push than the first one, causing the Mason to stumble backwards into his friends. "I'll take that as a yes," he says with a smirk as he pulls back his arm to aim for a punch. Jake is too quick and dodges out of the way, grabbing his wrist and yanking his arm in a circle. Mason yells out in pain but pulls his arm back, twisting himself free and kicking his foot out, landing a blow in Jake's gut. He grunts and stumbles back, but quickly regains his balance and aims for a punch on his throat, but Mason jerks out of the way and he lands one on his shoulder instead. The punch only angered Mason more and he pulled back his fist, hitting Jake square in the eye. He crouches down, holding his eye as he tries to regain himself, but he feels a sharp spike of pain on his exposed back and crumples to the ground in a heap as his vision in his other eye becomes as dark as in his closed one.
When he slowly blinks his eyes open, he sees an unfamiliar white tile ceiling and feels a soft cushion beneath him. When his eyes focus, he looks around to see he's in the school nurse's office. His left eye is swollen shut and his gut and back are sore, there is an ice pack on each of these points, though which helps ease the pain a bit. With a grunt of pain he pushes himself up into a sitting position. He hears frantic footsteps behind him and turns around to see a young man, probably early twenties, and an elder lady, probably in her sixties, heading over to him.
"Dear, you probably should lay back down," the lady tells him. She is pretty short with a round face that is framed by blonde white hair that is just past her chin in a bob. Jake sighs and lays back down.
"What time is it?" he asks, his voice weak from not talking.
"A little past noon. You've only been out for fifteen minutes," the man replies. He is tall, at least six foot, with black hair and bright green eyes. He sort of looks like the adult version of Mark. "We want you to stay here for a couple more minutes. Drink some water and tell us how you feel. Ok?"
"Fine," Jake replies as he accepts the glass of water from the woman. Since she's so close, he is able to make out her name tag which reads Lisa Jones. "Thank you, Mrs. Jones," he says between sips of water. She looks confused for a second but then lets out a laugh.
"You're Mr. Observant, aren't you?" she chuckles. Jake smiles through his cup as he continues drinking until he finishes with a gulp.
"Why don't we try and sit up now Mr. Holland?" the man asks. He walks over to Jake and helps him into a sitting position, but Jake can't find his nametag anywhere. "Don't look for it," the man chuckles when he realizes what Jake is doing. "I'm an intern and I just started yesterday. They haven't printed out my name tag yet, though so I don't have one yet. My name is Tyler Wilson, but you can just call me Tyler."
Jake smiles up at him. "Ok, thanks Tyler."
"How do you feel?" Lisa asks, looking down at him concerned.
"Actually, not half bad," he replies with a grin.
"The other boy was Mason Reichard, right? He came in here with a sprained arm when you were brought in by the dean. I had to force Evan and Mark out," she said with a laugh. "Anyways, I gave him some pain medicine and he felt right as rain, but that arm will be bugging him for at least a week or two." Jake laughs as she winks at him, obviously favoring him. "But anyway, if you feel fine you should head back to class. Take it easy, Jake. I can go tell your coach that you need some time if you get on the team."
"No, I'm fine," Jake hastily says as he struggles to his feet, a spell of dizziness hitting him as he stands up, but quickly fading away. Thanking the nurses, he heads out of their office and through the hallways to the last couple of minutes of his fifth period. Finding the empty hallways oddly soothing as he looks out the windows with an unobstructed view, glad that he had survived a fight against Mason and had actually gotten a few good hits in himself.
YOU ARE READING
Just Me
Fanfiction*The sequel of Meeting You* Jake Holland is the son of none other than Tom Holland and his wife, Emma. He was the wide receiver for the football team and a sophmore and was amazing, just like he is at almost everything he tries. He loves his family...
