He Doesn't Look A Thing Like Jesus; But He Talks Like A Gentleman

“Ok, that’s it for today! Great practice girls,” Chase mustered as much enthusiasm as she could. The first day of school had not exactly panned out as she thought it would have, and instead of looking forward to the school year, she was looking forward to crawling into her bed and sleeping as soon as possible.
The cheerleaders dispersed in every direction of the gym, and Kelli, Kerri, and a new girl on the squad lingered waiting for Chase. Taking as long as possible hoping they would get the hint and leave, Chase took her time. She took her ponytail down and let the loose waves of her long hair fall naturally, quickly brushing her fingers through it. She reached into her drawstring Nike bag and pulled out her sweatpants pulling them over her shorts, and threw her water bottle, cell phone, iPod and iPod portable deck into the bag, and then placed that bag inside of her oversized designer bag.
Turning around she was disappointed to see the three girls were still standing awkwardly watching her. The new girl on the squad spoke first. “Hi Chase! I just wanted to say thank you for letting me on the squad!” she said excitedly.
Chase smiled, “You earned the spot…Hun.” She temporarily forgot her name. Kara, Terri,…
“Tara, just invite her already!” Kelli encouraged with a tone of irritability.
Tara! That was it! Wait ask me where?
“What?” Chase asked confused.
“Well,” Tara said turning a shade of pink. “I’m having a back to school party tomorrow. First Friday of the school year. I was wondering if you wanted to come.”
Chase opened her mouth to respond, but Kerri spoke first.
“We told her that it was probably a waste, since you never ever come to parties. But she still wanted to give it a try.”
“Well, we’ll see,” Chase was polite to Tara but wanted to send a dagger into Kerri’s eye.
“Ok,” Tara seemed excited, and Chase wondered if she’d be disappointed when she realized Chase wasn’t there the next night. “Bye guys,” she said sending a small wave and sprinting out of the gym.
“So,” Kelli said as soon as Tara sprinted out of the gym. “What did Alex have to say about his trip to the office this afternoon?” The way she talked so excitedly always implied there was more to the story.
Chase crinkled her brow in confusion. “His trip to the office?”
+++

Not at all surprisingly, when Chase got to her car’s parking place, Alex was standing there leaning against the driver’s side door.
“You punched Jasyn Barakat?” She asked with a smile and in a mocking tone. Kelli was a gossip queen who lived by the rumor mill, and Chase knew that that had been a far out exaggeration to the true story. However she found it amusing nonetheless and chose to greet her cousin with it.
“Ha-Ha,” he responded walking around to the other side of the car, getting into the passenger’s seat when she unlocked the doors. “And metaphorically, yes.”
“What!” Chase asked in a laughing voice turning to grab her seatbelt and buckling it up.
“Well, she was in my class after lunch, and we got into it, sent to the office. Higgins let me off instantly,” he spoke of their principle.
His small cousin rolled her eyes, “Obviously.” She agreed.
“I think that he called her mother though,” he laughed.
Chase was slightly satisfied with the fact that the girl who could made her blood boil got what was coming to her.
Looking at the clock, Chase cursed. “Looks like I don’t have time to go change,” she sighed. The Gaskarth family was very close and tight-knit. Every Thursday, they met at their usual restaurant as a family; Chase, her overachieving, trophy-wife mother Grace, and her overbearing father, Bob. Bob’s brother, who was also Alex’s father, Jim and his wife Elizabeth, Alex of course, and his older sister who lived on her own, Dawn. Last but not least, Alex and Chase’s grandparents Isabelle and Joseph Gaskarth.
“Guess not,” Alex concurred as he realized they were already late.
“Mom’s going to love my sweats and tank top, let alone the fact that we’re late.” Chase sighed pressing down on the gas pedal more, as the lever on the speedometer went up.
+++

“Sorry we’re late,” Chase announced as she walked into the back room of Pendergast, that her family reserved weekly, first.
“It’s fine sweetheart so long as you and Alex are here now,” Isabelle said sweetly taking Chase into her loving embrace first, and then Alex. Chase greeted everyone around the table and took a seat next to her mother onto the comfortable antique wooden chair, with the red velvet cushion. Instantly she realized her mother had that smile on her face. The fake one that said she could possibly snap at any moment.
Leaning in closer to her daughter’s ear she began to scold her.
“You’re over twenty minutes late.”
“Sorry. Practice ran over,” Chase said trying to lean over away from the woman that’d given birth to her.
Grace Gaskarth not so nicely pulled her daughter back closer to her.
“How does that happen when you’re the captain? You run those practices. You should have kept an eye on the time. And what is that outfit that you’re wearing? This is a public restaurant you could have at least changed. You need to start being more responsible, you are almost an ad-,”
“How was your day Aunt Grace?” Alex asked sweetly as he took his seat between his sister and Chase, saving her from the lecture he’d known his strict aunt would be giving her.
“Fine Alex. How about you?” she asked back politely.
“Well,” he said gaining everyone’s attention and interest. “My first day as a senior was uneventful. Besides being sent to Higgins’s office,” he scoffed gaining a hearty laugh from the rest of his family.
“For what?” His father scowled the only one at the table not finding the situation amusing.
“Well I got into a bit of a verbal spat.” He admitted with a half smile and a shrug.
“With who? You know I don’t like you fighting in school dear,” Elizabeth warned.
“Jasyn Barakat.”
The room became enveloped in a heavy silence, and Chase could swear she even saw her grandfather’s jaw clench.
No one knew what to say to add to the conversation, or even to change it.
Luckily soon, the waitress came in with the alcohol menu and soon everything settled.
+++

Chase sat staring out the window of the backseat of her parent’s expensive SUV. After dinner, Alex, who’s car was in the shop, had asked Chase to borrow her car. Reluctant with no place to be until school the following day she had relented into his request, with his promise that he would return in the morning with a fresh latte to pick her up for school, and return the keys as soon as they were parked.
Looking into her bag and shuffling things around Chase searched for her iPod. Everything else that she owned was in the bag but not that. Sighing she remembered that she’d had it in her glove box in the car Alex was currently in.
The silence was deafening, since neither of her parents spoke either and no one dared turn on the radio.
“Dad?” she asked her father in a happier voice.
“Yes sweetie?” he asked not taking his eyes off of the road.
“Guess what? Today in chemistry, my new teacher tried to tell me that I was going to be forced to be lab partners with the Barakat girl,” she laughed. Her father however did not find it as amusing as she.
“What? That is just not going to be happening,” he promised her in an angry tone, “I’ll have to send a call his way when we get home,” he promised.
+++
Alex Gaskarth sighed as he pulled his cousins car into his driveway. He’d told Chase he had some place to be but he truly just didn’t feel like enduring a twenty minute carried with them to their house. The truth was, no matter what kind of façade they put on at the weekly dinner, and even in front of their eldest child who was not living in the house, they were not getting along. Constant bickering about the stupidest things, and Alex was surprised that the two of them hadn’t gotten a divorce yet.
Although in his heart of hearts he knew that that would most likely never happen. It wasn’t for love. But money. Elizabeth came from money, money that would be cut off from her parents had she divorced her husband whom they were quite fond of. And Jim Gaskarth, although he made plenty of money himself, was not one to ever pass up money from his parents-in-law.
The moon was full, and the sky cleared up. Alex sat in Chase’s car staring up at the sky in amazement.
“Alex is that you?” he heard his mother’s small voice call out to him from the direction of the front door of their large house.
“Yeah ma,” he said collecting the things that were necessary to get through the night inside. “I’ll be right in.”
Trudging up the driveway dreading that argument he was going to be subjected to that night, he wondered what his friend’s were doing.
+++
Chase looked up hopeful as a knock came onto her bedroom door and her father’s head poked into the door. Seeing her just sitting at her vanity table painting her nails, he let himself into the room.
“Well,” Bob Gaskarth said walking into Chase’s room with an irate sounding voice and the cordless phone still in his hand. He had a tight grip on it, his knuckles so white they were nearly transparent. “That is the most ridiculous man that I’ve ever spoken to!” he cried out and Chase’s hope faded. “He refuses to switch your lab partner.”
Chase’s blank face fell even further, “But I can’t work with her!” he exclaimed.
“Under no circumstances.” He agreed, “That’s why you will have to switch classes tomorrow,” he said simply.
“Wait, Dad,” Chase protested her face flushing in frustration, “There is only one chemistry teacher at Towson.”
“I know that, and I’m sorry. But he is unreasonable. You’ll have to switch to another science course.”
“DAD!” she called out, shocking him as well as herself with her outburst, wishing she had never brought up the situation in the first place. “The only other classes I haven’t taken in that field are Physics and astronomy.” She internally groaned at the thought of astronomy. “I can’t take psychics without chemistry. And I refuse to take astronomy.”
“Take Biology or Earth Science,” he suggested.
“I already took AP Bio and AP Earth,” she reminded him trying to keep as calm as possible.
“Well then I don’t know what to tell you. Take honors, or the regular class. I’m sorry but there is nothing else you can do. Change it in the morning end of story,” he said stomping out of her white carpeted room.
Staring at the slightly dirty foot imprints he’d left on the ground, with an immense hatred she thought out her options.
Dropping Chemistry meant jeopardizing her chance at valedictorian. Staying meant dealing with her sworn enemy on a daily basis.
Sighing Chase realized it was hardly a dilemma. She was going to have to go behind her father’s back. Chase knew that losing her place in line for valedictorian would kill her. She could handle herself around Jasyn Barakat. She was going to have to.