I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

It was just like any other day; I walked down the hallways, completely unnoticed, minding my own business. Nothing seemed to ever change here at Lockerby, except for the occasional new student, but that didn’t usually happen. There were pep rallies, lots of clubs, our sports teams always did well, that sort of thing, and nearly every girl here complained that all the new, young Sudbury Wolves players went to Sudbury High School, if they even showed up.
It’s not like it should matter to those girls anyway; they always managed to find a way to the same parties as the players, so it’s not like they were ‘missing out’.
My two best friends and I were probably the only girls who didn’t drool over Sudbury’s OHL team; I mean, come on, all those guys are looking for is some action while they’re here and then they forget about you when they go back home or get drafted. Not exactly the kind of guy I’m interested in.
Then in the middle of September, all of that changed.
That was the day when our English teacher introduced two new people to our class, and told us all to be welcoming as they weren’t from here, and played hockey with the wolves. Two guys stood up, obviously a little embarrassed, while Mr. Engle introduced them; Marcus Foligno and Jared Staal.
Whatever the hell possessed them to enroll here, I have no idea, but immediately all the other girls in my class began whispering excitedly to each other and inspecting the two boys like they were in a window display at the mall. I almost felt bad for them, until the one Mr. Engle introduced as Marcus seemed to take notice of the positive attention and soon an easy smile was on his face.
He knew he had it made here. Soon he’d be just as cocky and ignorant as every other junior league player we’d had the pleasure of meeting. On the other hand Jared seemed a little more unsure, maybe he wouldn’t be as bad.

“Ms. Falls?” I snapped my head up from my book as Mr. Engle addressed me. Paying attention isn’t always my strong suit. I’m good at school, don’t get me wrong, but I swear somedays I’ve got severe ADD.
“Yes Mr. Engle?” I asked, and heard a few people snigger. It’s not like they’d been paying attention either.
“Would you care to add to our discussion? Why does the author use this alternate world in the novel? Why not just show us Deborah’s illness from the outside?”
“Because what would be the point? Yes, it would be a sad story about a girl with Schizophrenia in the sixties, but it wouldn’t give us an insight into Deborah’s life. We wouldn’t see that she’s a real person hiding in this illness, or her struggles with Schizophrenia and trying to be a real person,” I answered, and Mr. Engle nodded, impressed with my answer before resuming lecturing the class.
“Um… you’re Kassidy, right?” I heard a voice from behind me, I nodded, and turned my head to see who asked. I was a little surprised when it was Jared Staal asking.
“Sorry, but Marc knocked my book off my desk; it’s under your chair,” he said, his cheeks heating up ever so slightly as he told me. I reached for it, and sure enough found his novel nearly under my feet.
“Thanks,” I went back to reading as soon as I’d turned back around in my seat. It was a great book, and while we were about halfway through the book as a class I was around ten pages from the end.
“All right class; good discussion. I expect you to have the next two chapters read for next class,” cue the groans from the entire class, most of which probably hadn’t opened their novels yet, let alone read anything from them.
“And we are starting our group projects tomorrow; so find yourself a partner, somebody who you can work with. If I don’t think it will work then I have every right to switch you around.”
With that the bell rang and everybody cleared out of the room, except the few of us who had to put things into our backpacks.
“Um… do you have a partner for the project?” That same deep voice asked me.
“No, not yet,” I shrugged. I was used to doing projects on my own; I’d never exactly fit in here, I wasn’t an extremely talented athlete or a super-smart student. I was into different things than most people, so if one of my friends wasn’t in my class I was used to being kind of shunned by most of the other girls. They were all tall and thin and pretty, they loved going to the mall and makeup and high heeled shoes and gossip and stuff I just didn’t see the point of. So that didn’t help.
“Would you want to be my partner? I mean, you seem to know what you’re talking about, and to be honest if I’m Marc’s partner again I’m gonna lose it,” I turned to look at him, surprised at this statement.
“Why’s that?”
“He’s more concerned with getting girls’ phone numbers than with getting any work done,” he rolled his eyes as he grabbed his books.
“Oh,” I nodded, not knowing what else to say.
“Don’t get me wrong; he’s a great guy, but school isn’t a big thing for him; he knows he’s got it made with hockey,” he rolled his eyes. Like he didn’t have it made with hockey either; he was like royalty around here. The last of the legendary Staal brothers destined for NHL greatness.
“And you don’t?”
“Not for sure, no. And besides, my parents would absolutely murder me if I failed any classes; they’d probably pull me out of hockey, if they can do that,” he chuckled, although I could tell he was being honest. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.
“Wow, didn’t expect that,”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. They’re supportive, don’t get me wrong, but they want all of us to have the doors open if hockey doesn’t work out, you know? Jordan was the only one who didn’t do well,” he chuckled to himself as he spoke, and I was racking my brains to figure out which one was Jordan.
“He plays for Pittsburgh,” Jared supplied the answer as he saw I was having trouble.
“Oh, right,” I felt my cheeks heat up a little. I enjoyed hockey; it was probably my favourite sport, but I made a point of not memorizing all of the players, because if you were a girl, once you did that you were automatically a puck. It didn’t matter if they were terrible looking and were fantastically talented, you were a puck.
“Not a hockey fan?” he asked, a cute little lopsided grin on his face as he fell into step beside me. This was different, and I could feel some of the stares following us down the hallway. Everybody at school knew Jared, and while not everybody knew me it was still unnerving.
“No, I like hockey, but I just get into the games, I’m not big on all the players and stats,” I answered. He nodded, and politely said hello to the people who greeted him in the hallway.
“Jay! There you are man, what happened to you after English?” Marcus asked, wrapping an arm around Jared’s shoulders. Jared was taller and just generally bigger than Marcus, but that didn’t seem to matter. Marcus was the outgoing, in your face one of the two friends, while Jared seemed to hang back. At least whenever I’d seen them that’s how it was; when they were apart Jared seemed to come out of his shell a little.
“Just talking to Kassidy, she’s my partner for the group project,” he answered, motioning to me. Marcus hardly even spared me a glance as he subtly directed Jared to the other side of the hall.
“What? I thought we were gonna be partners!” he complained, and Jared just shrugged.
“Thought I’d change it up, it’s not like you’ll have trouble finding a partner Marc,” he reminded his friend.
“Still… now what am I gonna do?” I began to turn down the hall towards my locker, wanting to get my lunch and meet up with my friends rather than awkwardly walk beside the two hockey players.
“Talk to you later Kassidy!” Jared called, and I nodded, turning away as my cheeks turned pink.