Should I Write Myself Out of the History Books?

The next day, a Saturday, to his relief, found Jack in a position similar to the one he had been in in the past few days. Zack had taken it upon himself to explain every fucking thing that happened during the pair's run in with the TA to Rian, who had taken it upon himself to make fun of him at every second.

Currently, the trio were sat on Jack's bed listening to some shitty CDs they picked up from the 'local bands' section of the record store they frequented. the only difference was Rian's mocking voice buzzing in his ears.

"You could have a 9-5 job and come home to your picket fence house and he'd be there, aw, with your two little adopted kids, how precious." He oozed. Jack gave him an unimpressed look.

"Hey Rian? Can you shut the fuck up?" He deadlines, only making Rian laugh harder.

"Nah, come on Jack, it's cute." Zack said slowly, giving Jack an odd look.

"What?"

"Like, uh," he began, running a hand through his newly dyed, dark hair. The pair had decided to dye hair black together a few says ago, and Jack wasn't sure about how much he liked it. "Y'know. It's okay if you like him, if you're into guys and all."

"Oh." Jack responded, shifting awkwardly. Behind the blood rushing in his ears, Jack could hear the low croon of some female voice, layered atop thrashing guitars. He concluded that he kind of hated this album.

"Yeah." Rian agreed softly besides him. Jack wasn't sure how or why the atmosphere in the room dropped so quickly, but he wasn't all that thrilled about it.

"I mean...I never really thought about it. I, uh, girls aren't super appealing?" Zack nodded, as if to say "I understand what you mean, but also you're fucking crazy."

"Okay!" Rian exclaimed, clapping his hands together.  "Let's turn this shit off and play some Mario Kart."

Jack smiled gratefully and, in less than five minutes, Jack was beating the shit out of the other two at Mario Kart.

*
“So you think you’re ever going to try to talk to the kid?” Rian asked a few hours later. The three of them had just inhaled two or three boxes of pizza rolls and were now spread out on the floor of Jack’s room. Jack sighed. His friends had been pestering all night about the subject and, frankly, he was pretty embarrassed about the whole endeavor.

“Yeah, Jackalope, I can’t just swoop in and save you every time he tries to talk to you.” He said in mock horror. Jack just rolled his eyes and shoved Zack, who promptly fell into Rian’s lap, making the pair laugh.

“It would be cool,” Rian said thoughtfully as he pushed Zack off of him. “You know? To see you gettin’ all cozy with some guy.” Jack stared at him.

“What?” He deadpanned.

“You’re a junior, dude, and you’ve never had a crush on someone or dated anyone or--”

“Dude! Holly! We dated for, like, three weeks.” Jack reminded him. Riand and Zack rolled their eyes in unison.

“Literally, man, that was seventh grade. I hardly think that counts, considering you’re as gay as my uncle after he has a few drinks.” Jack groaned, flopping onto his floor in defeat.

“I am super confident with staying in my bubble of never speaking to him ever, okay?” Jack said, glaring at Rian who just laughed.

“Alright, man, but don’t come crawling to us when we’re both dating some super hot girls and you and that TA kid are still pining after each other.”

*

Sunday night and Jack's mother had kicked Rian and Zack out under the pretense that "Jack needs to do his homework." It was true, honestly, but he probably wasn't going to do most of it. His tactics included a lot of wallowing in pity and then copying half of his work from Zack and Rian and scribbling in the rest of it. Not counting his History work, of course.

He shifted around a little on his bed, getting comfortable, before opening his binder. They had another packet, which he was extraordinary grateful for because packets were all one word answers and circling shit. He finished the first page in record time, flipping the the second one automatically.

When he saw it, he froze.

Scrawled next to the seventh question was the TA's neat handwriting. "hope you're having a good day!" it read, and Jack could practically hear the cheekiness. For the hundredth time this week, Jack could feel heat rising to his cheeks.

He sat there for a few moments, just looking at the page before opting to ignore the message and continue on. There was just something not right about this. Things like this--cute TA's noticing Jack--just don't happen to him. He sighed loudly and set to work on the fifth question.

*

That night, Jack's mind was still on the note. The 'why it was there' part of it, to be exact.

The next morning, he was still thinking about the note.

First period: the note.

Second period: the note.

During third period, Jack was too busy boring holes into the back of the TA's head to really, truly worry about the note.

Mrs Winson walked to the front of the class, asked for the homework, then sat down to lecture. Just like usual. Jack kind of panicked then, not exactly sure what to do about his homework. He didn't want the TA to think he hadn't seen the note, or, worse, he was just ignoring it (which he kind of was, really). The TA was walking leisurely down the aisle, collecting the packets; Jack made a split second decision,  scribbling a little smiley face right below the other boy' scrawl. He scrabbled to toss his packet on top of the pile, blushing a little when the TA grinned at him in amusement.

And that was that.

Jack continued to stare at the back of his head, only stopping once he looked up and gave him a smirk. Jack blushed in response. The TA's eyebrow raised and then he looked down at the paper he was grading, writing furiously. After that, Jack tried to divert his attention back to his teacher. It worked pretty well for the most part, if it hadn’t been for Zack’s constant poking whenever the TA so much as shifted in Jack’s direction.

And then the TA was passing out worksheets. He placed four or so at the head of each row of desks, only placing three at Jack’s table, despite there being four students. Jack’s had a suspicion as to why. He shoved Zack a little and the boy turned to look at him.

“I didn’t get a worksheet.” He whispered.

“So? Ask the kid.”

“No way!” He exclaimed in horror. “You do it!” Zack groaned. “Please?” He rolled his eyes.

“Fine.” He coughed a little. “Uh, hey, dude,” He said in the boy’s direction. “Jack still needs a worksheet.” The boy stood up.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Here you go.” He said, leaning over the girl’s desk who was situated in front of Jack’s and handing him a worksheet. Jack couldn’t help but notice he had pulled it from the bottom of the stack. When he looked down, he saw exactly what he had expected: pink thin-tipped marker was spilt across the page spelling out the words “you look cute when you blush.”

This, of course, made him turn the colour of a goddamn cherry. Despite this, he scribbled back a response in a split second of bravery and high self-esteem: “then I must look cute all the time”. He read over his response, which he had written in blue ball point ink, and groaned softly. It was too late; he couldn’t back out now. The TA would have to find out how much of an absolute loser he was at some point.

But then. Maybe he wouldn’t think Jack was a loser.

With that in mind, he set to work on the worksheet, finishing it up seconds before the bell and turning into the box on the desk that was designated as the TA’s. Then, he ran.

*

On Tuesday, the TA wasn’t there. Jack wasn’t sure if he was sick, or ditching, or what, but there was a deep pit of fear making itself known in the bottom of his stomach. He shot a glance at the pile of papers in the box on his desk and let out a sigh of relief. It didn’t look like they had been touched, which meant Winson hadn’t done her goddamn job as a teacher right and graded papers, which means Jack didn’t have to face the burning embarrassment of getting called up to her desk for question as to why him and her TA were flirting on his school work.

Never had he been so grateful for America’s flawed education system.

It wasn’t until today that Jack realized how long the class period was when he wasn’t fawning over the TA. Even with Zack there (who kept fucking shushing him, like he was trying to actually get an education) Jack was bored out of his mind. He tried to pay attention, he really did, but just ended up staring at the mole that was hanging above Mrs. Winson’s upper lip than actually hearing what was coming out of her mouth.

It was about thirty or forty minutes into class when Jack heard the door open slowly; the TA hurried in, his coat covered in wet patched and his hair speckled with raindrops. There were chunks of hair plastered to his forehead and Jack kind of wanted, more than anything, to run his fingers through it for, like, ever . Mrs. Winson stopped lecturing, her lips forming a large scowl. She kind of reminded Jack of the secretary from Monsters Inc..

“So nice of you to join us, Alexander.” She said dryly. Jack perked up at that because, finally , he could put a name to the face.

“Uh, sorry. I’m trying to get my schedule changed.” He said, and, oh right, Jack forgot that today was the beginning of the semester. “They put me in a junior english class and woodshop...” he muttered, walking over to his desk.

“Thank you, but I didn’t ask for your life story.” Alex just rolled his eyes and turned away, digging into the pile of worksheets in the box. Jack held his breath. This was it: the moment of truth. Alex (and, oh man, did it feel good to finally be able to refer to him by name !) would either think he was the biggest fucking nerd on the face of the planet or find him endearing. In all honesty, Jack wasn’t all that sure why he was freaking out so much. People flirted all the time, it was normal. Jack didn’t flirt though. Ever. This was weird for him and he was pretty sure he was doing it wrong, and nobody could convince him otherwise.

Jack wasn’t used to being this introspective. He was getting a headache from all of it. He didn’t notice that ten minutes had passed by and, just as the seven minute bell rang, Alex was traipsing out of his seat and passing out the worksheet, bending over on those long legs to place the sheets on the right desk. Finally, Jack got his paper back. He didn’t even register the fact that he had gotten a 92% because right under his messy blue scrawl were ten small numbers in big black lettering.