Last Hope

Brynn Taylor sat at the front of the classroom and absent-mindedly ran her fingers through her straight, blonde hair. Today was the first day of school at North Gwinnett and she was finally a junior. Now, that was nothing in comparison to a senior, but it did mean she was finally an upperclassman. She could go to prom, her class could win second place in the homecoming games, she could join in the junior-senior water balloon battle they held at the end of the year... everything was already looking up.

Mr. Carson walked up to the front of the room and stood with his hands clasped together, bowing a little and waiting for the class to quiet down. Everyone soon noticed, and after the last resounding 'shhh!' died out, he opened his arms wide and smiled.

"Welcome to AP English 11, folks. This year we will be focusing on the works of Tolstoy, Homer, Gaiman, and some other contemporary authors such as John Green. I trust everyone completed their summer reading lists?" He paused. Everyone in the classroom nodded their heads as if it was a pain to do so. "Great," Mr. Carson smiled. "Now, we shall kick off the year with your first project!"

The whole class groaned and Brynn looked over to her best friend, Kennedy, and smiled. Brynn's senior friends had given them fair warning of all the odd projects and papers that Mr. Carson assigned to his classes. This project was really just so that everyone started the year with an A in his class.

"I do apologize, everyone," he said, picking a clipboard off the corner of his desk. "I don't know any of you or who you work best with, so I've randomly assigned each of you to a partner. As you will come to find out, I prefer to use boy-girl partnerings as it results in less catfights."

Kennedy shot Brynn a panicked look and Brynn grabbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. No matter what, Brynn always managed to get stuck with the worst partners. Last year, it was Shaye Martin. Shaye was a short brunette who looked like an oompa loompa; she was super snobby and had made Brynn do the entire project by herself.

"Irwin and Jones," Mr. Carson called out. A rather attractive boy with curly brown hair stood and crossed to the desk in front of Kennedy, using his toned arms to turn the desk around. Brynn sighed. Kennedy always got the attractive partner.

"Hemmings and Taylor," Mr. Carson called out again. Brynn looked up to see a rather tall blonde with a lip ring wearing a faded Nirvana shirt crossing the room. It was Luke Hemmings. The boy that egged the cheer team's bus the night before they went to Nationals.

"Hey," he smirked. His breath smelled like cigarettes and a tiny bit of beer. It became clear to Brynn that she would have to do this project all by herself, just like last year. "Aren't you gonna say hi back? Or are you too prim and proper?" He said the last part in a bad imitation of the Queen of England.

"Hi," Brynn spoke flatly.

"Are you still pissed because I egged the cheer bus?" He asked with that goddamn smirk still taking up half of his face.

"No. I'm pissed because you clearly have no regard for personal hygiene and I can already tell that you're going to con me into doing the project by myself," Brynn huffed.

He reached out and took one of her long, golden strands in between his fingers. "Nah, I'd love to help. Especially if it means a late night study session with you," he wiggled his eyebrows.

Two boys, one with green hair and one that was almost Asian-looking, erupted into laughter behind them. Brynn smacked Luke's hand away and turned to look at the two boys in disgust. "Which one of you is the girl?"

Luke snorted at that and Brynn turned back around, raising her eyebrows at his smug little face. "I like 'em feisty," he winked. Brynn's face heated up and she crossed her arms, waiting for Mr. Carson to pass out the papers with what they needed to do on them. She sat like that for several minutes while he finished doling out partners, but eventually Mr. Carson got around to explaining the actual assignment.

After the papers were passed out, Brynn broke out her brand new highlighters and two sheets of notebook paper, explaining to Luke what he would do for his half of the project. She quickly set to work planning out the poster, even though she could feel Luke's eyes burning into her forehead. As soon as the bell rang, she was out the door and on her way to Bio II; hopefully as far away from Luke as possible.

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Brynn carelessly tossed her lunch box onto the lunch table as all of her fellow cheerleaders sat down, folding the back of their skirts under their butts so nothing showed. She plopped into her chair and scooted toward the table. It was supposed to be a great first day as a junior; now she was only four periods in and it was already Hell. Bio II, her second class, she was paired as Luke's lab partner for the entire semester. In German, she had to sit right next to his smug little ass and his little cronies flanked her on the other side. In US History, Brynn, Luke, Kennedy, and Ashton all were partnered up for the first nine weeks. Of course, any time with Kennedy was a relief, but for some reason, the universe was shoving her in the wrong direction - toward Luke Hemmings.

"What's wrong, Bubba?" Sydney asked.

"I've had a shit day," Brynn sighed. "For some reason, the universe is pushing me toward Luke Hemmings, and I can't seem to get away from him. We've been partnered up in nearly every class."

"Wait," Sierra blinked a few times. "Isn't that the same guy who egged our bus?"

"Yes," Brynn groaned. "He's a smug little dick."

"Speaking of..." Jenna interjected, subtly nodding her head in the direction of the empty table beside them. All the cheerleaders watched as Luke, Ashton, Calum, Michael, and few other boys filled the table. The boys, oblivious to proper lunch room etiquette, began talking loudly over each other and throwing bits of the cafeteria-made salads.

"See what I mean?" Brynn sighed. "They're cavemen. Each and every one of them."

The girls all nodded, except Kennedy. "Actually, Ashton, the really cute one with the curly hair, asked me to come to a party with him this weekend." Ashton, hearing the mention of his name, turned and smiled at Kennedy.

"What?!" Ashley asked, perplexed.

"Well, I mean, he's not that bad-looking..." Jenna shrugged.

"But they're probably all stoners who have just invited her to a massive orgy," Ashley bowed her head a bit and looked at Jenna like she was insane.

"Well, they look like they'd be more fun than those brick-headed football players. Like, seriously. Johnny Ozmun didn't even know that kg stands for kilograms, not kegs," Sierra laughed.

"Well, maybe we should all party crash and make sure they aren't trying to force Ken to join an orgy," Brynn spoke up. She didn't like Luke, but she could tell Kennedy liked this Ashton kid and she wanted to support her.

"Yeah, we could see the skate punks in their native environment," Sydney laughed.

The excitement about the party died down into banter about what to wear, whether it would be at an actual house or a skate ramp, whether there would be drinks or a bunch of different types of alcohol poured into a trash can, etc.

"Thanks," Kennedy gave Brynn a grateful smile. "I know you think Luke's an ass, but Ashton's really great."

"No problem, Ken. Anything for you," Brynn smiled back.