The scene was fitting.
Girls with dark tans walked around waving to each other. Muscular guys
screeching up in their expensive cars, loud music blaring from their speakers.
“Something’s missing.”
Seth looked over at Ryan as he parked his Rover in front of the high school.
“What?” Ryan looked
bemused and Seth could tell he was a little nervous.
“Something’s missing to
this.” He pointed at the scene outside. He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to
face Ryan. “I know what it is. Theme music.”
Ryan raised both brows.
“This is definitely a
theme music moment, man. Your first day at school here. Summer’s first look at
yours truly since Tijuana. She won’t want to keep her hands off me.”
“Sure.” Ryan grinned
before looking back at the building. “So, should we…go?”
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
The both hopped out of the car and Seth grinned. “What would you do if I sang
out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?” he sang.
Ryan looked at him
incredulously. “Uh what?”
“Wonder Years, dude. With
a Little Help From My Friends. Lennon, McCartney—Not the Joe Cocker
rendition—Perfect theme song.”
“Seth?”
Seth grinned. “Sí mi amigo?”
“No singing.”
Seth nodded. “Yeah,
you’re right. The singing is too much. I get that. We got to keep it cool for
the first day of school—Yeah I just said that. Kill me.”
Ryan laughed and smacked
Seth on the back with his palm. “Come on, let’s go.”
Seth smiled and followed
him inside.
…
“Coop, he’s been playing
you, like, this whole time.” Summer frowned at Marissa as she flipped through
her agenda to see where she had her first class.
“I know but he told me
that he was going to stop and I believe him. We’ve been together so long. It
would be, like, stupid of me to not give him one more chance.” She finally
found where she wrote it and after getting the number, she headed towards her
classroom.
“Yeah, but like, what
about Chino?”
Marissa stopped and face
her friend. “What about him?”
Summer shrugged one
shoulder. “Well after what happened in Tijuana—”
“Yeah, umm, can we just
forget that episode in my life, okay?”
Marissa shrugged again. “Whatever.” She was just as ready as Marissa to forget
about that trip from Hell…kind of.
…
“The cafeteria. The room
that separates the men from the boys,” Seth said as he and Ryan made there way
into the room.
Ryan looked around
casually, his eyes lazily drifting over the room and the students inside. It
wasn’t like any cafeteria he’d been to. It was big, with huge glass windows and
a pond on one side. The light of the sun tinted the room in a way that made it
seem bright, airy and not threatening at all. “Doesn’t look very scary,” Ryan
said casually.
“Yeah, that’s what they
want you think. They like to lull you into feeling that false sense of security
and then when you’re minding your own business eating your brownie they
attack.”
Ryan raised a brow at
Seth’s dramatic ramblings before he continued. “Right. So, anyway, where do you
usually sit?” They stepped into the food line and looked over the contents.
“Well, see. I don’t
really come here…and eat. Like, there’s a couple clubs and stuff that go on at
lunch and—and I see a few guys there and hey, meatloaf...” Seth became fixated
with a brownish lump of meat. “I think.” He really didn’t want to go into the
details of what a loser he was.
He’d never thought of his
school life as being awful. He’d always told himself that it was fine—that he
was fine with not being one of the so-called cool kids but now that Ryan
was around he felt guilty that he wasn’t. Ryan deserved better than watching
anime in a small classroom at the other end of the school.
Ryan looked over Seth, his
sharp eyes taking in his friend’s embarrassed expression. “Hey, man. Whatever
you want to do, I’ll do too. It’s cool either way.”
Seth gave Ryan a lopsided
grin. He should have known better. Ryan hadn’t been overly concerned with being
popular during the summer why would that change now?
They filled up their
trays and paid for their food before eying the cafeteria for a prospective
table. Ryan saw one closer to the doors leading outside and Seth followed him
as he made his way over to it.
They sat down and dug
into their lunches.
“So, seen Marissa yet?”
Seth asked before he took a bite of his sub.
Ryan shook his head. “Nah
and I don’t know, man, I think she’s avoiding me. I catch glimpses of her next
door but she never stops to say anything. I just want to see if she’s—if she’s
cool, you know?”
“Well, here’s your
chance.” Seth jerked his head and Ryan’s gaze fell on Marissa. She was walking
across the cafeteria with Summer and heading towards the doors, the doors that
they were so conveniently sitting beside.
Seth forgot about Marissa
as soon as he saw Summer. She looked amazing. He hadn’t seen her since that
last night in Tijuana and from all appearances she looked like she was back to
normal. For a second Seth wondered if that was a good thing.
The girls were almost at
the doors before Seth decided to call out to her. “Hey Summer.”
Summer turned and her
eyes shifted to his. “Okay, did I, like, not make it clear about the talking to
me?”
Seth paused only briefly,
a tiny burst of anger flaring before he tempered it. He’d hoped that after,
what he’d now come to term, that night she would be a little friendlier
towards him in public but obviously, that had been too much to ask. He’d just
have to wear her down. That he could do.
“I think it’s a little
late to go back to what we were, Summer. After those late nights in Tijuana and
that night at my Grandfather’s party. You remember that party don’t you—,”
Summer slapped a hand over his mouth before he could say anything else.
She shoved her face close
to his and said in a low growl. “Cohen, you breathe one word to anyone about
those, like, two times in history that I have spent time with you, I will kill
you. Got it?”
Her hand was still over
his mouth, so all he could do was nod.
“Good. Coop, let’s go,”
she said, finally taking her hand away from his lips and they both walked away.
Seth smiled a little and
turned back to Ryan, who looked not in the least bit amused. Seth hadn’t missed
the fact that Marissa and Ryan hadn’t talked at all during the time he’d been
teasing Summer. He wasn’t very concerned. For some reason he knew they would
figure it out.
He glanced back at Ryan,
who was picking at a slice of pizza and asked, “Did you see that?”
Ryan looked up, brow
raised.
“She so wants me.”
Ryan snorted and went
back to picking at his pizza.
*