Unshed Tears

Pushing through the hall, she was clueless to her surroundings. She could hear the catcalls and the not so whispered verbal slaps meant for her, but she was lost in her own head. Walking right to her locker, she slammed into a body.

“My bad. My bad!” she shouted, thinking it was one of the many jocks that she didn't want to have a confrontation with this morning.

When he chuckled, she was surprised. Turning her soft eyes up to see the boy’s face she was shocked. This kid could not go to her school. He had shoulder length black hair, with bangs that covered on light brown eye. His pale skin was a great contrast to the black shirt he wore, and she could just make out the thin smudge of eyeliner. He was tall and lanky, but in a fit, healthy way. A backpack was slung over one shoulder, bulky and appearing to be packed with books. In his left hand he had a fold piece of paper.

“Oh it’s probably my fault. I’m Jake Andrew. I’m sort of new here,” he said breaking her inspection. Jake’s voice was deep for a freshman, and she assumed he was a freshman since the schools lockers where separated that way.

“I-I’m May.” Someone bumped into her shoulder, pushing her frail but large body into his chest, again. She mumbled another pathetic apology and blushed.

She was trying to walk away, but her girly side won the internal argument. “So, Jake, what’s your first class?”

He unfolded the paper in his hand. She snatched it from his hand, their fingers just passing each other’s. “Hum,” she said studying the paper.

“What? Is it bad, am I going to die? Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said jokingly.

May walked past him, resisting looking over her shoulder. Over the obnoxious chatter, she heard loud, quick, steps. Before long, Jake stood next to her shortening his pace to keep even with her shorter strides.

“Well, it must be bad,” Jake said taking his schedule back.

“How does one end up in every one of my classes?” she asked. She took the stairs slowly, hoping to avoid falling again. She did not want to walk around with torn jeans again. They looked cool on some people, but it was not her style. Also, she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of this new boy, a potential new friend, maybe more.

Jake paused and then jumped the last two steps. She shook her head and entered the bottom level of the building.

“So I get to have you show me around?” he sounded pretty confidant, but at least he phrased it like a question.

Swinging open the class door and she raised an eyebrow. She waved to the teacher and tossed her stuff into a chair. Jake fallowed her lead and placed his things on the desk beside hers before sliding into the seat. She sat on a desk, her converses resting in the seat.

“What makes you think I’m that nice?” she began pulling out her ipod. She wasn’t much of a people person. Not that she wanted to be alone constantly, and she didn't hate anyone right away. It just took her a while to make friends and to open up which normally left her isolated from the world of sociable individuals. Jace had been a lucky break in middle school. He had been annoying and talked far too much, but he gave her the time to decided she didn’t hate him and could tell him, with all her snark and blunt rudeness, just what she thought. Maybe Jake would be a breath of fresh air too.

People: That was both the reason Jace and she had been friends and why they weren’t to close any more. She sighed, thinking about last night. Between Jace admitting to fucking up and then her mind taking what had happened between them and throwing that dream at her, she had a hard time concentrating on how bad things had been before. Still, she knew that Jace wasn’t a guaranteed friend, and here was someone knew who didn’t seem to be corrupted by the expectations of his fellow students.

Pulling herself from thought before she became lost, and completely ignore this new boy, she faced Jake Andrew; he had one ear bud in, a black ipod resting on his desk.

“Well,” he said meeting her eyes, “you did apologize for walking into me, and,” Jake flicked his bangs aside revealing another gleaming brown eye, “you showed me to my first class.”

With a huff, she put an ear bud in and pressed play. “I just wanted to jack your schedule.” she stuck out her tongue and laughed. It would be nice to have a friend, even if he came so late into the school year. She tried not to get her hopes up too high, but she already felt like she liked him to some small degree, and he hadn’t gone running from her or insulted her so that was a sign she would take to mean he might like her too.

“Liar,” he coughed.

“Smooth, real smooth,”she said, grinning.

He smiled, showing off his white teeth. Slouching down in his seat, Jake tossed his head trying to remove hair from his eyes once again.

She jumped from her seat, “Crap!” The teacher didn’t even look up. “I forgot about the damn essay.” Hoping over desks, she flipped on a computer which sat against one of the room's walls. She tapped her fingers impatiently. “Hey, get my pencil case,” she ordered over her shoulder. When she heard no movement, she looked over at Jake.

He stood, his head tilted to the right, staring at her. His eyes slowly moved to her things and then back to her. Mentally she gave him marks for courtesy. Maybe it was because he had a handsome face or piercingly strong eyes, but May was now feeling a slight skip in her chest that resonated faintly of a crush.

Jace had been a long developing crush, one that came from getting to know someone over months of talking, but Jake was cute and so far nice and she liked him, May admitted to herself halfheartedly.

Right then the monitor flickered to life. She typed in her screen name and password and then bounded back to her desk. Snatching up her lime green flash drive, she walked back to the computer, smiling at Jake.

”What’s the freak out for?” his deep voice rumbled in the quiet class.

Practically no one showed up to her first period, there was no point. The few people who did where doing homework they had put off and had their ipods up to loud to think. Normally she was in the same position, but today she had Jake to talk to as she worked frantically.

“I was supposed to type a paper last night so I could work out a project with…my partner,”she said in one breath. She thought for a second and came to the wonderful conclusion that Jake didn’t know Jace. This was a good shot at a friend, or potentially a boyfriend (though she didn’t want to get her hopes up too high). He wasn’t being influenced by them, the "cool" crowd. They might not even like him because he was different. She slipped a look up at him and found another smile on her lips. Different was good. Her eyes scanned over his lean form, the shape of his long legs and slight outline of muscle in his thin arms. Others would think he was too pale or too dark, but she thought different was good.

Even if he didn’t like her as anything more than a friend, May would be happy. Her little crush could fade into happy friendship. A small part of her mind reminded her that just the other night she had been dreaming about Jace Anderson, but that had been a building crush she couldn’t shake. There were no rules about liking someone else, especially when the second person was much more possible to potentially date.

She pushed the flash drive into the open slot and mumbled, “Come on, work.”