Tales From Another Broken Home

I had no idea why, but I was a bit excited to go to school the next day.

So excited, it seems, that the day seemed to simply fly by. Before I even knew it, it was suddenly fifth hour, and I was already standing in the middle of the gym, waiting for warm-up to start. I quickly scanned my eyes around the room, searching, wondering if the boy in black was going to be here again today. After a couple of seconds, I frowned slightly, and gave up. He wasn't here. For some reason, it disappointed me. Upon realizing this, I stopped for a second, and thought to myself.

'Oh.

'Maybe that's why I was so excited.'

'No, no, no, no,' I countered, shaking my head slightly, probably causing a few people around me to glance at me oddly, 'That can't be the reason why. Why would I actually care about seeing him of all people again? I'm probably just excited because it's a new school, and there are new things to see and do -'

I was snapped out of my mini-trance by the sound of a whistle. Monotonously, I started jogging in the ritualistic warm-up circle, running along with the rest of my class. It didn't take long for me to drift back into thought.

'But I guess he is kind of interesting,' I thought, contradicting myself again. 'Well, I guess he's not exactly interesting, necessarily, more like...he's magnetic, in a sense. Thought-provoking.'

This was probably so, because I could never see myself understanding a person like him ever, and the concept not only confused me endlessly, but it sparked my interest a tiny bit at the same time. But only a tiny bit.

--

By the time class had ended, I had pushed the thought of the messy-haired boy to the back of my head. I decided it was pointless to wonder about him, no matter tempting it may have been, because I knew I would never find answers, or satisfaction, anyway. I stripped my gym clothes relatively quickly, changed back into the skinny jeans, flats, and flowy dark purple blouse I had been wearing before, spritzed a bit of perfume on for good measure, and headed to my sixth hour.

Taking into consideration yesterday's events, this was actually my first time walking into sixth hour, and I didn't really know what to expect. It was required that all juniors take chemistry at this school, but at my old school, it was only optional. I was a bit nervous about the subject; I wasn't exactly the best at molecular sciences, but I knew I would just have to tough it out, and if I got a bad grade, my other classes would make up for it.

My teacher seemed fairly nice; she welcomed me when I introduced myself to her, and immediately found me an open seat at the two-person lab tables.

"You'll have to sit next to Jimmy, I'm sorry about that," she said with a sympathetic look. "He never comes to class, really, so you might not have a lab partner for a lot of the experiments we're doing in here."

"That's alright, I'm sure I'll be fine on my own," I said, unconcerned.

"You sure? We're doing a lab today, actually. I can put you with another table for today and you can be a group of three," she suggested.

"No, I think I'll be fine. I'd like to try taking a shot at it on my own, actually, I'm always up for a challenge," I said with a small, placid smile.

"Alright then," my teacher said, turning around to walk to the front of the class just as the bell rang. Immediately she started going into what we were doing, which I somewhat got the grasp of; it was a fairly simple concept dealing with hydrogen compounds, although the reason I probably understood it fairly easily was because we had briefly touched on the subject last year in Physical Science.

By the time I had gathered up all the required materials, it was already about twenty minutes after the start of the hour. I snapped my borrowed goggled over my face, and just as I was doing so, I heard the door squeak open, accompanied by my teacher's voice.

"Jimmy," she said slowly, her tone of voice flat, as if she expected this. She didn't even look up from the papers she was grading. "You're late."

"Hm," he grunted, obviously ignoring the teacher. He sauntered over to where I was sitting, and stopped for a moment, looking at me strangely, as if my presence had snapped him out of some sort of trance. My heart skipped a beat. Was that recognition I saw painted across his face?

He looked up at the teacher for the first time, and asked, much to my relief, "Who's this?"

"She's a new student that just moved here from Oakland - she's your new lab partner, or at least for today. Be nice to her," the teacher replied back, half jokingly. Jimmy must have been satisfied with this answer, because he unceremoniously dropped his backpack on the floor next to his seat and practically threw himself on the high stool beside me.

I was a bit surprised at the irony - I could see through my slightly foggy lab goggles that from his dark, messy hair to his tight, black jeans and the white headphones hanging from the collar of his shirt, he looked suspiciously familiar.

Actually, more like conspicuously familiar.

He obviously didn't recognize me, though, because eyes didn't even linger for a moment as he glanced at me, turning away to let out a huge, discourteous yawn.

"So what are we doing?" he asked, ruffling his hair.

"We're working with hydrogen compounds," I started to explain, telling him what each of the elements in front of us were.

I had the feeling he wasn't even paying attention from the start, because he started fiddling with the various objects in front of us, taking the caps off and sniffing them, examining the test tray, and eventually, pouring things into the different slots of it. I stopped talking for a moment watching him, wondering what he was doing.

"Uh," I began hesitantly, "What are you...?"

I looked up and saw a slightly amused grin on his face, and something about his expression troubled me. No, it wasn't the boyish grin he had plastered on his face, but eyes. They were sparkling with a devilish deviance that I had never really seen before I anyone but him. It actually got my genuinely worried.

"Hey, uh," I tried to interject, but he interrupted me, muttering underneath his breath, "I wonder what happens when you mix them ALL together."

"Uhm. I don't think that's in the instructions," I said, a hint of panic in my voice this time. "Jimmy, I don't think that's a good idea."

He ignored me, as to be expected, and continued dropping gratuitous of chemicals into the test tray. I could see it changing various colors before my eyes, then it started fizzing dramatically. I let out a small noise of alarm in the back of my throat as it started overflowing over the clear plastic. Jimmy's eyes opened wide in excitement, and he grinned hugely, obviously more entertained with his version of the lab rather than the one we were supposed to be doing.

"Oh, shit!" he said with a small laugh in his voice. He grabbed the tray and tossed it into the sink next to him, possibly trying to get rid of the evidence of what he just did. Chuckling to himself, he grabbed his bag and stood up quickly.

"Have fun with your chemistry," he snickered, taunting me. He turned to walk out the door and almost passed me but stopped, looking straight into my eyes. He cocked his head, a slight smirk playing on his pink-tinged lips, and smirked.

"Oh," he added, "And I'm glad to see your nose is looking better." He laughed unrestrained, and with a sneer, turned on his heel and walked straight out the door, ignoring my teacher's shouts after him.