Chapter Twenty One - The Beginning of High School Life

The car curved round the roundabout and it took all of my strength not to sway against the door. “What kind of favour?” I asked.

The air around us seemed unusually tense. It was that or the smell of cologne that was making me really uncomfortable.

“I know I’ve made a mistake, but I’m trying to fix things,” he began. I recalled the series of events that I’d witnessed at the Sawyer estate. Had the girl left him? “It’s over with the girl, and I’ve been meaning to reconcile with Lainie and Archer, but Archer hasn’t spoken to me. I waited for him outside the school this afternoon and he just walked away. Please talk to him for me.”

I felt my fist clenching as I tensed my jaw. I would never forget the one time I saw tears manage to escape Archer’s eyes, and the way Peter left. Now this man was asking me to convince Archer to take him back. If it were up to me, I’d never acknowledge his existence again, but I wasn’t going to say that.

“I’ll tell him about what you’ve said, but I won’t convince or persuade him to do anything. You hurt Archer. A lot. And it’s up to him now, whether or not he’ll see you.”

The car stopped at my house and I got out, shutting the door behind me. I watched the black car disappear into the distance before getting into the house.

I thought about what I was going to say to Archer the next day. I’d just tell him exactly what his dad had said; my job wasn’t to do any persuading. Being involved in someone else’s personal affairs was weird, but I was Archer’s friend. Weren’t friends supposed to do these sorts of things?

The next morning I hurried to school, making sure I was at least fifteen minutes to catch Archer arriving. The schoolyard was fairly empty. I rocked back and forth on my heels, my breath coming out in white puffs of smoke-like air.

Some of the juniors arrived and I kept my head down, trying not to seem creepy, inspecting every new arrival as they entered.  I watched the cars pull up and leave. Then I spotted the sleek black sedan. The door swung open and as expected, Archer got out of the car, one strap of his bag slung loosely over his shoulder.

Still having the careless guy image. “Archer,” I said. He looked up.

“Hey,” he replied. “You’re early.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“It sounds really serious,” he chuckled. “Let’s walk and talk.” He waited for me to go through the gate before he followed.

My heart pounded. What exactly was I supposed to say? I just needed to get it over and done with, and so, I just started talking. “Yesterday, your dad talked to me…”

He stopped walking and turned to face me. “And?”

“He wants to fix things.”

“Now that the little gold digger left him he’s looking to fix things?” Archer scoffed. “He’s trying to gather the shreds of his dignity?”

“I’m just telling you what he said,” I added quickly, in case he misunderstood anything. “He wants to talk to you.”

“ I don’t want to talk to him. If he talks to you again, tell him that I’m personally telling him to piss off.”

It was as though a grey cloud had moved in. Archer’s forehead showed creases, his eyebrows furrowing downwards as he glowered and walked. I’d single handedly ruined his day. Maybe I should have waited until the afternoon.

I walked in front of him and stopped him. I reached upwards and poked him in the cheek. “Smile,” I said. He stepped back and raised his eyebrows, looking at me strangely.

What the hell did I just do? Since when were we in a kind of friendship where I could shamelessly touch his face? My face was heating up again. I quickly turned around. Bloody Hunter; I swear this was his fault. After being around him so much I’d become used to these weird things.

“Sorry,” I muttered quickly,.

“What is this? What is this?” He laughed. “Have you been dying to touch my face all your life?”

“No!” I quickly exclaimed. “What are you on about?”

“No need to deny it,” he grinned, swinging an arm over my shoulder. He leaned down, his face ever nearing mine. I pulled backwards. “Touch to your heart’s content.”

“When did I ever want to touch your face!?”

He stood up straight again, his arm still around my shoulder, laughing. His hair was as messy as ever and his laugh still as attractive as ever. Beneath all his problems, he was still the same old Archer. The warmth that radiated from his arm felt familiar – my mind was sent reeling back to the shed scandal.

People were staring, and if there were teachers on duty, we would definitely get told off. Luckily, there were no teachers, and despite the unwanted public attention, I let him keep his arm there. In these times, it was my responsibility to help him.

Sure enough, Ella had seen everything, and as soon as we had a moment alone at the lockers, she began firing the questions away. “Hey, you have a thing with Archer?” She asked, wiggling her eyebrows excitedly.

“No, no thing,” I replied, shutting my locker.

“What’s with the contact thing then huh? You don’t just randomly walk around like that with guys.”

“I talked to his dad yesterday, and I just passed on a message.”

“And exactly what does that have to do with the whole arm thing?”

“It was kind of a distressing situation. I was being really awkward. He sort of fixed the awkwardness.”

“If only the guys I liked fixed awkwardness like that,” she sighed. “Well, look over there,” she said. I followed her gaze to where Carla, Ace and Hunter were entering.

Ace was saying something and Hunter agreed frantically, with Carla slapping Ace on the arm. Ace jerked backwards and exclaimed something. The other two continued laughing.

I turned away quickly. “You’ve been acting completely weird, c’mon spill,” Ella said, nudging me.

“Okay, it’s kind of been bugging me,” I began, “I’m not sure why,” I added quickly, “but, you know the afternoon after cross country? I accidentally saw Carla and Ace, uh, hugging each other.” I had spat it out – all my weird immature concerns.

“Is it jealousy?” She teased, wiggling her eyebrows at me.

“No!” I snapped, way too quickly for comfort, feeling the heat rushing to my cheeks. “It’s just the awkwardness of contact.”

“Ah, the whole, ‘I can’t deal with intimacy thing’,” she sighed.

“That counts as intimacy?” I asked quickly.

“So it is jealousy?” She smirked – reminding me of the stupid way that the punks would every now and then.

“Shut up, shut up,” I hissed as the three approached. I turned quickly into my locker, pretending to rummage though I was obviously not looking for anything at all.

They walked past, still laughing, no one saying a word. Usually, at least Hunter would say something at least a little stupid. I watched as they walked down the hallway. 

“Ooh, miss them now do ya?” Ella teased, yet again. She was getting into the whole teasing business – it was actually quite bothersome, for some reason; it’d hardly bothered me before.

As per usual, my old seat was occupied in chemistry by Carla so I sulked the whole way to my new seat. There were so many heads in the way I could hardly see the white board.

Carla, Hunter and Ace spent the entire class giggling, and little did I realise, I had forgotten to take down half the notes before the bell rang.

“Hey Archer, can I take your notebook home?” I asked.

“Uh…” he replied, flicking his page back and forth. There were little pencil scrawls here and there and some illegible handwriting, but nothing that could be even remotely discerned as chemistry.

“Yeah that’s great. Thanks,” I said sarcastically.

“Hey, don’t sass me,” he grinned. “At least I have notes.”

The day finished rather pathetically with me wasting most of my time, leaving piles of homework to be done. Ella and Dean were guffawing about something as they finally made their way out of the science building. 

“Friday?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. Carla’s place?” Ella replied.

He nodded. “I’ll text you the address. Cathy, you going?”

“Going where?” I mumbled, already feeling awkward enough from not knowing what on earth they were talking about.

“Carla’s party on Friday. It’s been spreading like wildfire, you haven’t heard?”

“Uh. No.”

“So you coming?”

“Yeah, you coming?” Hunter grinned, springing up from behind me. I would’ve jumped up in surprise had I not become accustomed to his strangeness. “I told you, I would definitely take you to a party one day. Life is not all about studying y’know.”

“Clearly, life is not all about studying to you.”

“You’re really mean,” he wailed. “But c’mon. Go!”

“Yeah, I’m going. Might as well, right?” Ella encouraged, grabbing my arm, swinging it back and forth.

“Fine,” I agreed.

“Yes!” Hunter hollered triumphantly.

Carla and Ace also finally appeared. “I think it’s gonna be a full house then,” Carla said.

“Ooh, Cathy’s partying hey?” Ace teased. “That’ll be a first.”

“And probably the last at this rate,” I muttered. “I’m going. Ella, walk me to the gate,” I whined.

I caught a glimpse of Archer’s car, but it drove off before I could see who was in it. Would Archer meet up with his dad?

“This is the beginning of our high school life!” Ella chortled. “After six years? Is it six years? Yeah, after six years we’re finally going to a party that has more than four people!”

“You’re pretty pumped. What’s going on with you and Dean hey?”

“Nothing. What’s with you and Hunter?”

“Hunter what? You’re saying that a lot.”

“You’ve been acting weird. I’ve noticed. I have a sixth sense.”

“Uh huh.”

“Spill. Spill.”

“Nothing.”

“You’re acting weird, and that’s probably because you feel weird. Am I right?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t really like Carla you know? Like the vibes she gives off? I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t like extremely sociable people?”

“Nah. It’s cause you’re jealous.”

“She’s pretty, but man, if I felt bad about those things, I really wouldn’t hang out with you.”

“You like him.”

“Who?”

“Ace?”

“What? I don’t…I think. I mean, I feel weird around him, but I feel weird around Hunter too. And around all guys. I feel weird around guys okay? In case you haven’t noticed, the only person I’m around all day is you, and then it’s my parents. I don’t talk to boys, so it’s just weird.”

“Woah. Defensive,” she sang. “We’ll see. Whose name do you find yourself calling when you’re in trouble?”

“I think my first instinct is to scream ‘help’.”

Maybe on the off chance Ella was right – the slim chance she was right – what was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to know if this was some fleeting weird feeling of finding someone attractive or if I actually genuinely liked them?

I get nervous around them, but then again, I get nervous around all guys. Even the weird guy who sat next to me in English at one point.

This crap was just way too confusing. What if I made a bad decision? A wrong decision? There was no going back.

For the time being, I was just going to continue rolling with the certainties in my life. F=ma all the way. 

~*~

This chapter is dedicated to all my loser friends, who clearly have a subpar high school life.

On a side note, never forget, F=eq, youngsters. 

On another side note, this chapter was not edited, and it is highly unlikely that I'll ever edit unless I'm feeling particularly bored :)