Should I Write Myself Out of the History Books?

Jack kind of loved history.

Well, he wasn’t sure if he actually like the subject of history or just the class and the fact that Mrs. Winson’s third period history class had the hottest teacher’s assistant in--most likely--the history of TAs. Jack liked to tell his mother it was the former.

See, Jack was passing three classes: PE (because who doesn’t pass PE), French (because, in all honesty, he was rather good at French; and, Rian was in that class, so he let Jack copy off his work all the time), and History. Jack had this thing about hot people: even if they were assholes, or entirely unattainable (like he was certain Winson’s TA was), he wanted to impress them. It made perfect sense to him, and, because of this, he studied far more often than he used to when it came to tests and quizzes, simply because the TA graded them. He just didn’t want to embarrass himself.

It was about halfway through the school year when his mother brought it up at the dinner table.

“So I was looking at your grades last night,” his mother began, making Jack tense up on his way to shovel meatloaf into his mouth. “And I noticed something kind of...odd.” She was spinning her fork on one of the tines, peering at him with mild interest. Jack made an affirmative noise as he took a slow bite of mashed potatoes.

“You’re passing history,” His father interrupted, and there was this weird sort of shift of emotions at the table as Jack let out a sigh of relief. He wasn't getting yelled at tonight. His father was a surgeon but had minored in history and was, therefore, disappointed that his son didn’t show the same interest he did. But now Jack was studying, which, to his father, translated as caring. “So you’re liking history now?” He asked. Jack shrugged.

“Uh, I dunno, the class is just really easy.” He lied. It was probably one of his hardest classes, just because Winson was a serious bitch who seriously had it out for him, no matter what Zack told him. Either way, Jack still studied, hoping not to make a fool of himself to the painfully attractive TA.

After that, his parents didn’t really bring up his God-sent History grade.

*

A few days later, Zack and Rian were holed up in Jack’s bedroom, the three of them engaged in a particularly raucous game of Mario Kart.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Rian yelped as Jack crossed the final finish line. Rian was three spots behind them, Zack in dead last. “This is so unfair! You own the game. You’ve had time to practice.” He seethed.

“Stop being such a little bitch, Rian.” Zack sighed dramatically. Rian punched him in the arm, making the other boys laugh.
“Fine, whatever, but we’re not fucking playing Mario Kart again.” He huffed, and Jack shrugged.

“Oh!” Zack exclaimed, peering at Jack expectantly. “We got our midterms back today! What’d you get?” Jack looked at him blankly. “In History...?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh...” Jack knew he’d gotten a good grade, just couldn’t remember exactly what it was. Zack one upped him in almost everything: he was stronger than him, did better than him in almost all subjects (even though he was a goddamn stoner, he still tried, the fucker), and was even better than him at guitar, which, yeah, peeved him pretty bad. Therefore, he wanted to rub his grade in Zack’s face, proof and all. He reached behind him, hoisting his backup up from where it was wedged between the bed they were sitting on and the bedside table. He rifled through a few papers before pulling it out victoriously. “Aha!” He said, and thrusted it in his face.

“Ninety-seven?!” He exclaimed, and now both Rian and Zack were pouting at him. Rian’s eyes widened, snatching the paper.

“Wait, dude, what’s this?” He asked, pointing right beside the score where a smiley face was carefully drawn in blue ink.

“A smiley face?” He said in confusion. “All my papers have them.” Zack’s eyebrows bunched together. “Don’t yours?” He shook his head.

“Dude, I get A’s all the time--maybe not ninety-sevens--but I’ve never had a smiley face drawn on mine.” He stated, eyebrows raised.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing!” Jack defended, snatching his paper back from Rian.

*

The next day, Winson passed back the quizzes they had taken the day before. At the head of his paper, right next to the TA’s neatly written ‘100%’ was a smiley face, just like always, this time in what looked like sparkly green gel pen. Jack peered to left of him, at Zack’s paper. Zack also had a 100%, but no smiley face. Zack’s eyebrows rose suggestively; Jack rolled his eyes at him and looked at the girl’s paper to his right. Another neatly written ‘100%’, but no smiley face. By now, Jack was blushing a little, trying to get a look at the papers of the people in front of him--two ‘96%’s, one ‘100%’, and one ‘84%’. No fucking smiley faces. Jack could feel his face redden in confusion.

“You okay?” Zack asked out of habit.

“What?”

“You’re, like, red.” He stated bluntly.

“Uh. Yeah. Uh, just excited about the perfect score.” He babbled with a little smile. The TA was taking an effort to notice him, Jack realized. Since the second month of school, he had been getting smiley faces drawn on his paper. Just his, apparently, not everyone in the class’, like he had thought. Jack couldn’t comprehend it. He just blushed harder. He heard Zack laughing quietly besides him.

“Shut up.” Jack mumbled, sinking lowly into his chair.

“Okay, everyone pass up your homework.” Mrs. Winson announced. Jack groaned. He had done his homework, yeah, but he bullshitted it, really. His teacher had assigned a bunch of weird graphs and all these stupidly worded comprehension questions. He had even asked his dad for help, but he was still pretty sure it was all wrong. He was just praying to God that Winson was going to grade the homework instead of the TA, whose name he should really figure out, because Jack was getting really tired of referring to the kid as “the TA”.

Alas, Jack streak of bad luck continued as the TA piled the class’ homework in his arms and sauntered off to his corner to grade it. Jack sighed, turning his attention to Winson who was beginning yet another terribly boring lecture. After about thirty minutes and half a worksheet later, as well as the instructions to work quietly, that no one followed at all, the TA was handing the homework back.

Jack was kind of taken aback with how stupidly gorgeous the kid was: he was tall and his body actually looked proportionate, unlike Jack’s lanky frame. He had this flippy light brown hair that just barely fell into his eyes that were only a few shades darker. That, and he wore these jeans that looked way too tight to be comfortable, but made his ass look way too good to be legal, so Jack was pretty okay with it. Jack tore his eyes away from the TA’s ass just in time for the other boy to drop his homework on his desk, not making eye contact.

Jack’s heart sunk when he looked at his paper. At the top there was a “72%” scribbled, along with a sad face and a hastily written ‘I know you can do better!’. All of the sudden, he was put into a bad mood that not even the TA’s ass could get him out of. Jack groaned, dropping his head to the desk, sticking to the paper. Zack poked him hard.

“What?” Jack hissed, lifting his head up. Zack looked like he was about to say something but abruptly broke off and started laughing, looking at his forehead. “What?” Jack repeated, perplexed.

“Your forehead.” He breathed. “The ink wasn’t dry,” he pointed at Jack’s homework where the TA’s neat handwriting was smudged.

“Fuck.” He said, dropping his head back to the table.

*

Jack was pretty sure Mrs. Winson had something out for her third period. He knew for a fact, via Rian, who was in her first period class, and his friend Danny, who was in her second period class, that they didn’t have to take a quiz today.

“She hates us!” Jack exclaimed to Zack as they walked out of the classroom. Zack just rolled his eyes, completely exhausted with Jack’s moaning. “I swear, there’s probably some law against that, y’know? She’s giving different curriculum to us even though we’re in the same class as Rian and Danny, right? There’s something fishy about that.”

“Whatever, Jack. You’re just pissed because you weren’t able to study and impress that TA.” Zack said with yet another eye roll.

“Dude, no! I’m just upset because of the injustice! I’m all about equality, you know? Like, men and woman are equal and all that shit. This is the same thing.”

“I think your cause is a little less of a...pressing matter.” Jack shoved him gently.

“Whatever, dude.” Jack said, slinging his backpack onto his other shoulder. “Shit,” he sighed. Zack looked at him expectantly. “I left my binder in there.” He said, jabbing a finger in the direction of the History building.

“'Kay,” He said, grabbing Jack’s elbow and steering him in the direction of their previous class. The arrived to the building and Zack reached for the door, pulling hard; it didn’t open. “Fuck, dude, History building has first lunch. She must’ve left already.”

“Oh god, I have my English project in there!” The darker haired boy exclaimed. “I have, like, a C in that class. I cannot afford another zero. My parents’ll kill me.” He sighed in defeat.

Suddenly, the door besides them shook and opened from the inside. The pair had fully expected Mrs. Winson, but out popped the TA, backpack slung on his left shoulder and Jack’s binder in his other hand.

“Oh!” The boy exclaimed in surprise, the door slamming behind him, locking shut. “This is yours, right? It was under your desk so, uh, here.” He said, slowly extending his arm to Jack. Jack was a little preoccupied with the fact that this absolutely gorgeous human being was speaking to him, however, and watched as Zack grabbed the scuffed red binder from his hand.

“Thanks,” Zack said, smiling, and grabbing Jack’s elbow again.

“No problem,” He said, flashing a smile and dropping his hand. Jack was a little enamored with his front teeth. The were larger than normal, giving him a slightly buck-toothed appearance, barely noticeable at first. It made his face seem a lot less...perfect. Jack liked that.

“‘Kay, we need to go; we’ll be late.” Zack said, dragging him away from the TA.

“Uh, thanks, bye!” Jack exclaimed as he was man-handled away. As they headed back in the direction of their English class, Jack found himself blushing furiously, barely noticing when Zack slapped him on the back of his head.