Chapter 1
Heath
I. Hate. My. Friends.
Well, most of them. Sutton is cool. But the rest suck. I don't even know one of their names. It's either Paxton or Jaxon. I don't care enough to know. At least I know his last name.
From a distance away, I watch as one of our left wings asks his girlfriend of two years to the November dance with a bouquet of yellow daisies, and another of our defensemen pops the same question to his crush by holding up a sign as big as the damn Eiffel Tower.
Oh, I think she said yes. That poor girl.
Sutton and I clap for Archibald when the girl (Lillian?) accepts the sign and tackles him in a hug. Meanwhile, yellow daisies girl nods and does the same tackle hug. We clap for them also. We kinda have to.
Everyone else on the team surrounds Archibald and Philips, jumping and hollering. I feel no need to join in. I don't even know what the fuck is going on. Like yeah, dances. Suits and dresses and sweaty people terribly dancing in a gym with some turquoise balloons here and there and called, "Under The Sea". What's the hype?
Unfortunately, as the star scorer of the soccer team, I'm expected to 1. Attend, but more importantly 2. Enjoy it.
Woo-fucking-hoo.
Sutton nudges me. "Should we congratulate them?"
"Depends how we're thinking. Morally? Yes. Our dignity in mind? Absolutely the fuck not."
He snickers, then turns to his locker and grabs a bag of Skittles. When he's soon distracted by a freshman that tripped and faceplanted onto an open textbook, I reach behind the locker door and snatch away the bag, all while stuffing a handful into my mouth. Sutton whips his head around and yells, "Hey, hand it over, jackass."
When I tuck them into my own locker (closing the door after), he glares. I shrug and head off to homeroom, ignoring his pleas for my lock combination.
"Morning, Donovan," I'm greeted by Perry as I take a seat in the back corner of the classroom.
"Morning," I respond, waiting for the daily question.
"Tea of the day?" Wilkerson, AKA Willy, asks.
There we go. "Bakha-cha." I raise my travel mug to Willy's nose. He takes a whiff of it and nods, so apparently he approves. I brought in Gamnip-cha, or persimmon leaf tea, last week, and he scrunched his face at it. After a few more seconds of him sniffing, I add, "It's mint, and it's wonderful."
"Carry on with your tea consuming."
"Thank you." I pull out my schedule for the second quarter that's starting today. Last quarter, I had technology first period and now I have home education first. Even though I have a few elective classes, there's still some mandatory ones. Home education would be one of them, which is fun, because I cannot cook to save my life and I hate needles.
Soon enough, the bell rings, signaling that it's time for first period. Guess it's time to learn how to make a shirt and frost some sugar cookies.
And oh, there's a seating chart.
I'm a senior, not a third grader. Why is there a fucking seating chart?
Never mind, that was naive of me. Why is there a seating chart that makes zero fucking sense? The room is tables, not desks, and there's no way to tell which table is which. They're labeled in numbers 1-9 on the whiteboard, but...the tables themselves aren't labeled.
I stare blankly at the board, sipping my tea. If the teacher wants me to take a seat then she's gonna have to give me a guided tour to my chair. It's far too early in the morning, I woke up twenty minutes late, I'm wearing the same clothes I was yesterday, and the fucking math isn't mathing.
"Yo, Donovan, table three," someone calls.
Slowly turning around, I say, "Table three can come to me, but I ain't coming to it."
The guy I now recognize as a basketball player returns, "Huh? Why?"
"Which one do I go to? The drawing doesn't have a door or windows or anything, like, this could be from any angle. The tables are square, so that doesn't tell me anything. What table are you at?"
"Uhh. Eight."
"Point to it."
When his arms remain at his sides, I nod. "Yeah, who's the genius now?"
He doesn't get a chance to reply as more people start filing into the room, and every single one looks like they don't know what the fresh hell is going on.
Then people start turning to me. That's stupid on their part. I take another swig of my tea. "I got nothin'."
"The teacher isn't even here yet, why don't we just wait?" A girl I've never met suggests.
"Because my ankle hurts and I don't wanna try my chances at tying a button standing up."
"Dude's got a point," another girl says.
Finally, the teacher comes in. "Sorry guys, I had to pick up some papers from the copier. I'm Miss Schultz, I'm your teacher for this class." She looks very put together for 8:00am, so I hate her already.
I'm kidding. Kinda.
"No problem. Where do we sit?" I ask, and I tried to make it as pleasant-sounding as possible, but I think I failed.
She glances at one of the papers she's holding."Oh I'm sorry, what's your name?"
"Heath Jeong-Donovan." I have two last names, but apparently one extra syllable is too hard for my classmates' brains, so most people just say Donovan.
"Table three, last one in that row." She points to the row behind me. I give her a thumbs up and make my way back. Then I drink more of my tea and fidget with a salt shaker on the counter next to me.
I turn back around, and that's when I realize there is now someone in the seat to my right. They look up at me. "Hello."
"Hi," I respond, confusion dripping in my tone.
"I'm Noah," he says, all too cheerfully, his face lighting up. "It's nice to meet you."
Why is he maintaining eye contact with me? "Yeah."
"What's your name?"
He doesn't know my name? Alright, so I do like him. "Heath."
"Cool. We're partners for this class."
Well that's news. "Okay."
He smiles, and I swear it's like he's glowing or some shit. Nobody should be this happy. It's honestly scaring me a bit.
Miss Schultz starts the class, and my main concern turns to trying to spell "ladle" correctly.
