Chapter 15 - Jessie

Harmoni

A week had passed since I had explained everything to Emily. The first few days, I had been wary of my surroundings, thinking Marcus would make good on his threat and pop up from any corners, but after not seeing him in school, I allowed myself to relax a bit.

“Hey, girl!” I smiled as I heard Emily come up to me.

“Hey! You ready for another day in hell?” I half-joked. It was Monday again, Emily's least favorite day of the week. I used to hate the start of the week and love Fridays like most students, but since I started training with Will, it became the opposite. Monday was the start of our training again, and Friday meant that I wouldn't get any one-on-one time with him for two days. Apparently, resting your body was equally as important as the training itself.

She opened her mouth to answer me, but something behind me distracted her. I watched as her eyebrow drew closer.

“I didn't know we had a new student,” she said, lifting her chin in the direction of the boy that had just walked through the door. “He's hot,” she added, grinning at me.

I turned around and indeed, in the middle of the hallway walked a boy I had never seen before. He had slightly long hair which was styled messily and was wearing a leather jacket. I was ready to bet he had come here riding a motorcycle too. Overall, I'll admit he wasn't bad-looking, but I was just not interested in the whole bad boy vibe he gave out.

Soon, I realized that he was walking towards us.

“Shit,” I muttered so only Emily could hear me.

“Is he coming here?” she whispered, seeming just as distressed as I was when the new guy started getting closer. “Do you know him?”

I shook my head. I had never seen him in my life. What could he possibly want with one of us?

Quickly turning around to focus back on getting my books out, I listened to Emily, who covered by talking about the new history project we had to do, hoping he wouldn't realize we had just been talking about him. He had his head in a piece of paper, so I was quite sure he hadn't caught us checking him out.

I felt his presence and braced myself, but he never spoke. He simply opened the locker next to mine and put down a few books.

Jeez, what was wrong with the both of us? He had been assigned the locker next to mine. As soon as he left, Emily and I looked at each other before bursting out laughing. We had been absolutely ridiculous.

Walking into class, I sat down at my usual seat next to the window. I've always liked to sit there because although I was considered a good student, I didn't necessarily pay attention in class. Some may hate me for it, but I was a quick study. I could learn anything in an hour, whether it was a history chapter, analyzing a book, or solving math problems. It all came easy to me. I was lucky in that way.

Instead, I spent most of my time looking outside and watching people interact with each other. It was fascinating to see how some people could be so carefree. Beware of appearances, I know, but I still wish I could resemble them a bit more.

“Alright, settle down,” Mr. Peters said, attempting to start his class. Mr. Peters was my English teacher. It was the second year in a row that he was my teacher. I was glad to have him because he would leave me alone in class. He knew I would deliver when the time came and didn't bother me when I wasn't paying attention.

Mr. Peters was about to start his class when someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” he said.

The door opened and the bad boy from earlier made an appearance. He seemed a bit lost, like he wasn't sure if this was his class. It seemed weird. I expected this confident, cocky guy, but he seemed shy and innocent. The complete opposite of the way he was dressed and the initial vibe I got from him. I guess I shouldn't judge him without knowing him first.

“You must be Mr. McKen. Have a seat.” The boy looked around before spotting the only seat available in the class, and guess what. Yup, you guessed right. It was the seat right next to me. He was hot and all, but I wasn't into talking, nor did I want to be all buddy with him.

“Thank god he didn’t ask me to present myself,” he whispered when he placed his bag down beside his desk. I resisted the smile that came onto my face. Did I not just say I didn’t want to befriend him? But I had to agree with him. I hated being put on the spot like that. I can’t even imagine how awkward it must feel when you are put in that position and don’t know a single person in the room.

“I’m Jessie, by the way,” he said, extending his hand towards me.

I turned to face him, slowly placing my hand in his for a quick shake.

“Harmoni,” I simply said before focusing my attention back outside. Hopefully, he would get the message and leave me alone.

“Nice to meet you, Harmoni,” I didn’t bother to answer. As I said, I wasn’t going to be buddies with him.

“So Harmoni, tell me a bit about yourself,” he said, not even bothered to hide the flirtatious tone. I guess he didn’t get the message or simply didn’t care.

“Not going to happen, buddy,” I answered flatly. He was about to continue talking when Mr. Peter asked him to shut it. Well, he didn’t say it in those words, but the message was loud and clear.

Halfway through the class, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I adjusted myself to slide it out of my back pocket.

I smiled when I noticed William’s name on the screen. I swiped my phone to open it.

William

How are you holding up Princess?

Even I had to admit it was sweet of him to send me this while he was probably still at work. It was nice to see someone other than Emily and my dad care.

We didn’t start in the best way he and I, mostly because of me, but I was glad we were slowly becoming friends.

Now I just had to pray he would be one of the ones that stuck around at the end of the day.

Harmoni

I'm good, avoiding the new kid at school :)

William

Why is he giving you any kind of trouble? You know I can be there in twenty minutes.

I could hear his teasing voice in my head just from this message. Yet, at the same time, I knew that if I did end up saying that the new kid was an issue, he would be here immediately.

I chuckled, attracting Jessie’s attention, but I didn’t care.

m Harmoni

No haha, but I'll let you know if he does.

“Get off your phone, Ms. Cooper,” Mr. Peter chastised while looking at Amanda Cooper. Every high school has a queen bee, well she was ours. I didn’t interact with her, nor did she with me.

“Harmoni’s also on her phone,” she rated out. ~Bitch!~

“Harmoni has never scored below an A. I’m not sure you can say the same,” he replied curtly. ~Take that!~

That shut her up. Mr. Peter did give me a pointed look to not give him any more trouble, so I placed my phone back into my back pocket.

When the bell rang, I packed my things and got out of class. Jessie trailed after me.

Looking down at my phone, I was disappointed to see that I hadn’t received any new messages. I groaned internally, I was acting stupid. Who cares about a dumb message?

“Harmoni!” I heard Jessie call. I didn’t stop. He caught up with me before continuing. “I’m sorry if I offended you, it wasn’t my intention. I’m just not used to talking to girls like you, and it’s my first time being new,” he rambled.

“Girls like me?” I asked. What in the world did he mean by that? Besides, I wasn’t offended by his behavior before, but if he continued, he was going to piss me off.

“I don’t usually get seated next to the pretty girls,” he said, smirking at me. My eyes went wide. Did he just...? Was he flirting with me? I didn’t know what to say. I was so shocked, was he mocking me? Thank god Emily took this time to interrupt us.

“Hey, Har! Who do you have here?” Without waiting for my answer, she introduced herself to him. “Hi! I’m Emily, it’s nice to meet you, you must be new.”

“A beautiful name for a beautiful girl. I’m Jessie. I moved here a few weeks back,” he explained. I couldn’t stop my eye-rolling at his cringe-worthy remark. I couldn’t figure out if he was a cocky flirt or a shy guy. This was confusing; at one moment he was one, and at the other, he did a complete one-eighty.

“Well, Jessie, would you care to join us for lunch?” she asked. I couldn’t tell anymore if I wanted him to join, I mean he didn’t seem like a bad guy, just a weird one.

“Sure,” he answered, smiling at Emily, probably grateful not to have to eat lunch alone. Jessie and Emily started walking towards the cafeteria, but I didn’t miss the warning eyes Emily gave me. They meant, ‘play nice!’.

I guess I did deserve it, but to be fair, Emily knew I hated making new friends. I mean, what’s the point? It’s not like he’s going to be around much. The end of the year was drawing near, and then we would all go our separate ways, and even if it was sophomore or junior year, most people didn’t bother to stick around.

I found out at a young age why letting people in and making friends was only going to bring you heartbreak and pain. When I had to redo a grade, the ones I used to call my friends became bullies and decided to torment me simply because I was one year below them. I had Emily, and that was enough. I mean, who needed a thousand friends?

Jessie talked a lot with Emily. I have to admit, after a while, I didn’t mind him sitting next to us. I mean, he was quite the humorist. He would tell us stories of what happened at his other school and how at some point they had gone into a prank war with the teachers. Which honestly was hilarious.

I ended up joining in the conversation, and we talked with the three of us like we had been friends for a long time. Which was good because he didn’t bother asking any personal questions.

Or so I thought.

“So Harmoni, what does your mom do? You haven’t mentioned her.”

~If I didn’t mention her, there might be a reason, you dumb ass.~ I couldn’t help but think.

I saw Emily freeze beside me, knowing this was usually around the time I would chase away the new people.

“Well, aren’t you nosey,” I said, chuckling while shaking my head. Emily quickly changed the subject, not so subtly I might add. She smiled at me gratefully. She knew I had made an effort. Most of the time I would say something like ‘Have no one ever told you to mind your own business?’ or ‘If I wanted to tell you I would have,’ but I’ll admit that before he asked that, we had been getting along, so why not bottle up my anger for a bit and see if he was worth spending time with.

I mean, spending time with him didn’t mean I needed to open up or share. I would honestly be content with listening. Besides, Em seemed to have developed an interest in him.

I didn’t see him after lunch, but I had a feeling I would be seeing plenty of him.