Chapter Text
"Have a good day at school," Clay says as Hailey climbs out of the car.
"I will," she says with a certainty that makes him jealous. "Call me if you get scared again," she teases and he smiles sheepishly remembering how the year before when he was a freshman he had called Hailey at lunch on the first day because he'd been feeling overwhelmed and Nick didn't have the same lunch bell as him.
"I thought we agreed to forget that ever happened."
"Did we?" she asks, pulling the backpack straps around her shoulders.
He just rolls his eyes. "Bye."
"Bye," Hailey waves and then she shuts the door to the car and walks up the sidewalk towards the middle school, meeting up with Tommy, Toby, and Lani as she goes.
Clay pulls out of the middle school parking lot and drives in the opposite direction to where his high school is. He doesn't mind driving Hailey to school, but he's excited for when Hailey will be a freshman and he'll only have to make one trip.
The parking lot is already busy by the time he arrives and traffic is backed up for a few minutes before he can actually get to his assigned spot. In the car next to him he can see his friends are all sitting together enjoying precious moments together before they have to go into the school building. He waves to them as he parks and quickly hops out of his car and into Nick's.
"Hey guys," he says as he takes the remaining seat in the back next to Luke. Sam and Nick sit in the front and Sam is currently enthusing about some new coding thing he learned. As a senior, Sam got to take AP Computer Science Principles, which just sounded miserable, but he loved it. Clay settled for something easier, which was an entry level coding course. Unfortunately, Beginning Programming was much harder than he had anticipated.
Clay unzipped his backpack and pulled out an assignment for the class and handed it to Sam just like he did nearly every morning. Sam looked over the paper as Clay and Luke talked about the game coming up at the end of the week. There were two high schools in their school district and once a year the two football teams would play against each other. It was the biggest game of the season and nearly the entirety of both schools would show up to cheer on their teams.
Despite it being the biggest game of the season, Sam--the quarterback--hardly acknowledged the conversation between Clay and Luke. Instead, he read through Clay's assignment, his mind far from the idea of football.
"Do you know how to do it?" Clay asks hopefully. The project is worth a pretty big portion of his grade and if he fails it or doesn't turn anything in, he won't be allowed to play on Friday. That and his parents would beat his ass.
"This is a unit my class never did, I'm not entirely sure about this one," Sam admits.
Clay takes the paper back and thanks Sam for trying before stuffing his things into his backpack and climbing out of Nick's car.
They split up as they go to different classes, Luke and Nick to Chemistry, Sam to Pre-Calculus, and Clay to Programming. It sucked that it was his first class of the day, but at least that way he could get it out of his mind at the start. Besides, he'd rather start his day in Programming than Pre-Calc.
In his classroom Clay boots up his computer with a grimace and pulls the assignment outline from his bag. He hardly knows what he's being asked. He considers asking his teacher, but Mr. Phipps, a senile old man who should've retired eight years ago was going to be no help at all and Clay would just end up roped into listening to one of Mr. Phipps elaborate stories from his youth which may or may not have happened. The stories seemed to become less believable by the day.
Clay ended up spending most of the class as a study hall completing some homework he should've done over the weekend but hadn't. He felt like he'd been productive, just not with the things he should've been doing.
He coasts through the rest of his classes and spends lunch with his friends listening to Sam's newest assignment in Comp Sci which is so intricate Clay gets lost about two minutes into the conversation.
After school he heads straight home, knowing that Hailey takes the bus in the afternoons. When he pulls into the driveway, Hailey, Lani, Tommy, and Toby are all sitting on the front porch with lemonades. He's used to it by now, the whole group just randomly showing up at the house.
He waves to them as he climbs out of the car and Hailey flips him off in response. He just rolls his eyes and walks into the house, greeting his mom before heading up to his room.
He flops onto his bed, not wanting to think about the project in his backpack. Reluctantly, he pulls out his phone and texts Sam.
Clay: Are you sure you don't know how to do it? He sends, along with a photo of the paper.
Sam: I didn't learn that, but i know someone in my comp sci class who might.
Sam: I'll introduce u to him tmrw
Clay throws his phone down onto his bed and takes a deep breath, hoping that Sam's friend, whoever they are, will be able to help him.