Loving The Jerk Who Might Have Feelings

Sunday Morning

“I heard they have special tanks for frogs here”

I roll my eyes at Joy’s randomness.

My first impression of Lincoln Preparatory Academy is wow. Keep in mind that it’s an elementary, a middle school, and a high school in one big place. They have security up front like if it’s the white house. As you enter you meet the front building which as Mom told me has the registration office, the hospital wing, and the teacher’s sleeping quarters. It’s rather big and fancy, vaguely reminding me of a castle with the purple(ish), rough, black bricks and colorful windows.

We park up front and walk in. Immediately a stern-looking woman greets us. “Hello, you must be the Nights”

Funny thing, when Mom and dad married, dad took mom’s surname as his own, he used to be Evans and before that Grace. Finally he settled for Night and he changed Joy’s last name to that too. Now instead of being Joy Violet Rainbow, she’s Joy Violet-Rainbow Night. Which is weird since my full name is Athena Violet-Love Night.

Mom and dad shake hands with the woman as she smiles grimly; she has brown hair pinned in a severe-looking bun, with big black-rimmed glasses and a violet suit on; scary.
“I’d like to welcome you to our prestigious school; Lincoln Preparatory Academy. I’m Headmistress Morgana”

Mom smiles in a way that shows her awkwardness; I can tell she’s feeling inappropriate. I mean next to this professional woman Mom looks shabby with her black tee and blue skinny jeans. I told her but did she listen? No.

“Mommy, laaadddyyy has big poo on head,” Dear Masie yells. I don’t even know why we take her anywhere public, but Mom insists on showing off her weirdness so there you go.
Mase is talking about the Headmistress’s rather lumpy bun… Or maybe she isn’t? You never really know what Mase is talking about.

“Masie!” my Mom reprimands the four years old, “What kind of language is that? Big girls don’t speak that way! Apologize”

Mase looks tearful, “Shnorry, Mishes Bottoms”

I just shake my head; this family is a national disgrace.

But the Headmistress acts like the toddler didn’t just call her a butt, she looked at me and Joy “Ah, girls, the girl’s dorm room is to your left” she poised out the great big building a long way behind the building to the left. “You’ll find that all is in order” she handed Joy and me a stack of papers, “Room number, locker number, and class schedule. I’ve read you’re reports and am highly proud to have both of you in our AP program, I hope you will prove worthy of this type of honor”

I can hear Nate snickering in the back.

“Nathaniel is it?” then she hands him his papers without any words of wisdom and points to the boys dormitory which is a long way away from the girls. Ha.

“You two better go settle in, take Mase, I’ll come find you in a while; we have to talk to Ms. Morgana” Mom says to us in hush tones.

Dad gives each of us a hug and a pat on the head, “Stay away from boys, will you?” he tells Joy and me with a grimace.

“Ta-ta, father” I merely say, picking up Mase and heading away.

“BAD, BAD CAT!! PUT MASE DOWN!!” Mase yells plunking me on the head. She is awfully cute with her hazel brown eyes, honey brown hair, rosy cheeks and dimples, but only when she’s asleep.

“Mase calm down or I’m going to tell Mr. Mimble that you’ve been naughty” Joy says. Automatically, Mase quiets down and snuggles into my shoulder. Honestly.

It was an okay walk from the main building to our dormitory, there were a lot of plants and trees; I wonder who does the gardening around here?

As we enter the building my defenses quickly came up. I put Mase down and give her to Joy; I don’t want people to see what kind of creatures I have as family. The common room is, wow. Couches everywhere surrounding a non-lit fire and the lights were dimmed. It was real homey. But hardly anybody’s here?

I shake my head and proceed to the doors at the opposite wall. They lead to a complete party zone. Whoa; snack bar and TV area! A lot of girls are here, chilling, and some boys, too; hmm, interesting.

They look like normal teens like in my old school without the uniform on! I felt euphoric; oh my, what if AJ’s here?

I look around; nope, that made my spirits sink slightly. A random girl comes up to us.

“Well aren’t you the cutest” the girl says to Mase whom is currently in Joy’s arms. She has long, I mean LONG, blonde hair cascading in beautiful locks well past her waist. Her gorgeous green eyes peerat Mase with general warmth and her slim body was in a casual posture.

Mase blinks at the pretty girl and makes a farting noise with her mouth, “Mase eat you! MUNCH, MUNCH!”

I roll my eyes, “I’m sorry, she can be a bit obscene” I say to the girl who looks quite taken-aback, “She was raised by a pack of gum”

The girl laughs, “Cool, I’m Stacie Honors”

“Joy Rainbow Night” Joy nods, “This is Mase; she’s our little sister”

“And I’m Athena Night” I smile widely.

“What year are you all in?” Stacie asks.

“We’re juniors; Mase is going to start Pre-Kinder”

“That’s nice” Stacie smiles; I can tell she’s one of those friends-with-all types of popular girl who never really bother to get to know anyone in particular, “Would you like me to show you to your rooms?”

Joy nods before I can decline politely.

She leads us past everybody and waves and smiles as they greether, introducing us. They look at us with curiosity, but more so me; because I’m obviously the most beautiful.

Stacie opens one of the doors and it leads to a staircase, “So what’s you girls’ room numbers?”

I look down at the stack of papers, “Er, 375”

“313”

Me and Joy look at each other, so we aren’t sharing the same room??

Stacie leads us up and stops at the fourth floor, it wasn’t much climbing so I’m grateful.
We step down into the wide hallway which is very long, I could tell. We walked past a couple of doors and then we found 313. Stacie knocks on it.

Another girl comes out. Oh, it’s Arrow Lockhart; she used to be my best friend back in elementary. Looking at her now I remember she used to be big and her hair bushy, and now she’s extremely thin and well groomed.

“Hi” I say to her. She smiles brightly at me. Arrow is insanely smart; she used to help me with my homework all the time.

Unexpectedly, Peter Pez comes out and stands next to Arrow giving her a small but passionate kiss on her lips; then he turns to look at us, “Joy! Athena! Long time no see!”
Peter hadn’t changed much; he was just taller and a bit more muscular with longer hair but it was still spiky like I remembered. But, my god, I’d never guess he would’ve gone out with Arrow Lockhart.

“Is Nate around?” he asks. I can tell he missed his childhood best friend. They were quite inseparable, back in second grade. Nate hadn’t mentioned Peter even once but I had a feeling he’d been keeping in touch with him.

“He’s at the boy’s dorm, I think, or maybe in Narnia, who knows” Joy shrugs happily.

Peter and Arrow give a chuckle as Mase pulls on my hand; I look down, “Yeah?” I say quietly as Peter, Arrow, Joy, and even Stacie start talking.

“MASE WANT TO GO POO!” She yells causing everybody to stare at us.

They all burst out laughing as I grimace.

“Who’s this?” Peter asks.

“Mase, she’s our little sister”

He chuckles, “Ah, yeah, I see the resemblance.”

I roll my eyes, and Arrow asks Joy and me “What’re you doing here?”

“Well this is my new dorm room!” Joy exclaims.

“Is it yours too, Athena?” Arrow asks me excitedly, but I shake my head.

“I better go, I need to go meet my roommate” I say tiredly, “And maybe take a nap”

Stacie follows saying goodbye to everyone. The last thing I hear before the door closes is—“MASE MADE POO”

Stacie chuckles, “Your family seems very interesting”

I give a small laugh, “You don’t know the half of it” I reply as she leads me back up the stairs, “So how is school here?”

“It’s great!” she says brightly, “I’m the captain of the cheerleading team; you should stop by at one of our practices. We’re having try outs again; one of our members broke her collar bone”

My eyes widen, “Oh, wow, that’s too bad, but maybe I will”

She nods and stops at door 375. She knocks. We wait a while but it won’t open. I grimace at the door and take out the key the headmistress gave me, “I guess no one’s in”

I unlock the door and turn the doorknob, pushing it open.

The scene in front of me shocks me into place. There’s a boy and a girl on a bed. The girl is on top of the boy breathing heavily as she takes of her shirt and—

“Hey!!” I exclaim.

The girl falls off the boy with a scream of surprise.

The guy sits up and glares at me, “We were a little BUSY” he says impatiently, whisking his dark hair from his eyes.

I gasp in shock. It’s him! The boy from the mall, Alex or whatever! I recognize him by the ice-blue of his eyes. What the hell?

And apparently he recognizes me, too, “Aw, no, it’s you again, why am I not surprised?”

I grimace at him, “Thanks for the warm greeting, now get out of my room, will you? Go have sex somewhere else; I don’t need this kind of crap right now”

He stares at me for a moment, obviously taken aback by my rather obscene vocabulary, but then shrugs, “Whatever”

The jackass picks up his shirt from the floor and walks past me, purposely hitting my shoulder with his as he exits without a word to the shell-shocked girl on the floor.

“Er, well I’m going to go, if you need anything, just call” Stacie gives me a smile then leaves, closing the door behind her, forgetting she hadn’t gotten my phone number.

I walk over to the bed opposite of the girl’s and sit down hesitantly, “Er, I’m sorry for bursting in on you guys”

She sits up and from what I can see, she’s extremely pissed off. “What the fuck?” she screams at me from her place on the floor. She struggles to get her shirt back on (backwards) and stands up in front of me, “God, you couldn’t have knocked? That was Alex Winters! He’s the hottest guy in school and you interrupted us?!”

I stare at her with a grimace, “Um, I’m new, so—“

She rolls her brown eyes, and flips back her choppy, ill-treated, black hair, “Whatever. Just stay out of my way” and she exits with a dramatic slam of the door.

I stare at the door for a long while until my phone rings, shaking me out of my trance-like state. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me, mom, I sorted everything out with the Headmistress. Classes start tomorrow, you and Joy need to get your luggage from the car”

I whine, “Can’t you send Nate to bring me it?”

“Fine but don’t get mad when he throws all your underwear at you in front of your friends”. “Never mind then” I reply, hanging up. Then I straighten my pink Hollister shirt, adjust my short plaid hot pink skirt, and head out like nothing happened.