Chapter Text
Chapter 2, Jake
I was surprisingly happy when I got to school.I dont hate school kind of the opposite acutally, but I usually have to wake up at like 5 am for football practice which is kind of a chore right before school but it was canceled because it was too hot and someone on my team already had heatstoke once that was pretty bad so they just canceled it. But the positive side to that is I didn’t have to put in contacts so early in the morning and I could get 8 hours of sleep for once.
But my morning started off kind of rocky with my younger sister and brother(who are twins, which is great for me)waking me up by jumping on me at the same time, but it backfired for them because they both fell off of my bed when I rose up and they just had to be loud and wake up my mom who is pregnant with another set of twins by the way and have her come in my room worried asking what happened and I had to say”Oh it was nothing the twins tried to wake me up and fell when I accidently pushed them”My mom just looked tired and said”Well just don’t make so much noise ok.It’s early and me and your dad are trying to sleep.”I nodded and so did the twins and we all said sorry and she left saying”Have a good day at school.Love you guys.”and she left back to her bedroom.I tured to the twins and said”Remember what I said a few days ago”and Harvey said”no not really, the only thing I remember you saying is that you thought Rafael Reyes Diaz is hot but”not in a gay way”or something like that”As much as I love my sister, she can be kind of harsh sometimes, and he is hot but that was just me admireing him, I guess.
Basically Rafael Reyes Diaz is a boxer or well he was he kind of quit when he was in his prime to go to medical school and had kids but it was like 2 years before I was born, and when I was a kid he was like my hero and he's still pretty famous from doing boxing and wrestling matches every so often and is one of the best boxers I’ve ever seen but he's in his early 50s now.
When I got to school I saw someone who looked familiar in the parking lot but I couldn’t tell who he was he just looked familiar but my staring stopped when I saw Ethan who was sitting on the base of a tree talking to a boy with ginger hair it took me a minute to recognize who it was but then I realized it was Alex Bennett, a kid in our grade who was kind of notorious for being sort of a stoner and someone who smokes cigarettes to look cool or something.I didnt think that Ethan would hang out with someone who smokes since he hates vapes, like one time his brother started vaping and Ethan grabbed it and threw it like 50 yards which was really impressive and after that his brother just stopped vaping because it was like the third time it had happened.
When I walked over Ethan was all smiles and giggles and I knew he liked Alex because he was way too happy like he’s always smiling but not like the way he was smiling in that moment and he definitely never giggled, and when he said”Hi Jake”with a big ass smile on his face knew he liked Alex, his face said it all and I said”Hey twunk”and he got up and said”Who told you what a Twunk is?”to which I replied”Maddox when I went to your house on Sunday”Ethan was still smiling and said”I thought he was too busy with what’s her name to talk to anyone”and he looked kind of annoyed at the thought of his brother's girlfriend, like something was bugging him but I didn’t want to ask.
Ethan got Alex up and we all started walking to first period together, we dropped Alex off first and I saw his eyes were a bit red and his pupils were dilated, he was definitely kind of high.I never really understood why someone our age would get high but I guess some people just have access to that stuff.It’s honestly kind of sad like why not just not smoke it probably tastes bad anyways.
I walked Ethan to his class and started walking to mine when I was called to the office.I assumed that it was something about the student commity since I’m on it and I handle a bunch of stuff in it, like school dances or like cultural events.But when I got to the office I saw a boy who looked my age and he was standing awkwardly next to the front desk lady and she introduced me to the kid and I really got to take a look at him and I realized that I knew him, it was Chester.I think he realized before I did because his eyes widened slightly.I decided that I would just act nonchalant about the situation so I said”Hello, it's nice to meet you again, Chester”and I put out my hand to shake his, it was a bit ftomal but I was trying to be nice but it was a bit of an awkward hand shake.
We kind of just stood there for a second and Ms Lisa looked a bit confused about the”again”part of what I said so Chester explained taht he used to go to the school a few years ago but that he moved for”personal reasons”, and it seemed like she understood it better and she said”oh ok, well I have some paperwork to get done so you two better get going”So we left the office and it was kind of awkward because we walked in silence for a little while until I said”So you’re back now and sorry if this is a weird question. I know we weren’t really friends, but why did you leave?”He looked kind of nervous said”Well um some stuff happened with my Abuelito so we had to move to New York for a bit because he lived there but we moved back because he um died and some other stuff happened with my mom too so we had to move back”I kind of felt guilty so I said”Oh sorry I probably shouldn’t have asked”He said it was fine and we kept on going with the tour.
I asked to see his schedule and he gave to to me and we stopped for a second so I could read it over and I saw that me and him had a few classes together and he also had a few classes up with Ethan so I said”oh we have 4th and 7th period togethe and you have 2nd, 5th, 3rd and 7th period with Ethan”And his facechanged from a bit of a smile to a look of confusion and he asked”Um who’s Ethan?”It took me a minute to realize that Ethan never came out to Chester as trans so I said”Oh yeah that’s right you left before he could tell you, um ok do you remember a girl named Moon?”He said that he did so I said”Oh well the thing is Moon is not Moon anymore I guess”He looked like kind of confused because i definitely explained it badly so I tried again and said“Sorry, that was not a good description of what I meant to say which is basically Moon is trans and his new name is Ethan, I thought he would've told you it’s been like a year and a half maybe since he came out"He said”oh ok, thats cool”And we kept walking.
I showed him his classes us talking every few minutes, and then we got to the end of the tour and there was only like 5 minutes left of class so we just headed back to his second period and he said that he was going to watch something on his phone and to just tap on his shoulder when class started, I said ok and went through my bag for the lego set I was doing the day before.We stood there in silence for a while until the bell rang, he didn’t hear it and I remembered that he’s deaf so I guessed that he knew sign language so I tapped on his shoulder and signed”The bell rang”He took off his headphones when I was done signing and he said ok and I realized that he would probably forget where his classes were so I said”Well if you want I could give you my number incase you need help finding your class”He smiled and that”Oh yeah thanks that would be really
helpful”So we exchanged numbers and left for our classes.
And then nothing really happened in my second period because it was art class so all I did was paint and draw for like 45 minutes and we had to do like nature inspired paintings so I did one of a Lily of the Valley flower because it's really pretty and it's one of my favorite flowers.
When I saw Chester before lunch I asked him if he wanted to have lunch with me and my friends and he said yes but I didnt even really get to talk to him too much because Stephanie kept talking to me everytime I would try to talk to anyone else, it made me realize that she did that quite a bit, so I never really got to talk to Chester like all of lunch but I saw that him and Ethan were talking and I was glad because he hadnt really talked to anyone before that so I was glad he was talking to at least someone.
My other classes were fine and just normal until I got to my 6th period which is a kind of pointless class like I couldnt even tell you what we did in that class or why it was a class it just was so Ethan me and Stacy got bored so we all somehow managed to get likea bunch of snacks like when class ended we had a lot of candy and chips, like way to much and the teacher didn’t even care.So we obviously didnt finish them all by the end of class and had to finish all of it in our study hall or be forced to take armfulls of candy and chips home so fuck it we ball and ate almost all of it somehow in our 7th period and played chubby bunny and got a bit in trouble because we couldn’t stop laughing especially Chester and Stacy because they are apparently really prone to laughing when they look at each other or do like anything, but it was nice that they were getting along and then Stacy remembered like half way through clas that she has diabetes and had to stop eating the candy and could only have the chips and it was her service dog that kept lightly scratching at her legs to make her realiz that she was eating to much sugar so she stopped eating the candy and just had like 2 bags of chips and started watching My Hero Achdemia with Ethan, and then I looked at Chester and realized that he had fallen asleep and I kind of started staring at him because he was kind of cute when asleep, and then I realized that it was kind of weird to watch your friends sleep so I just grabbed out my computer and started doing my math work that I had to finish while watching Madagascar.