Josh sat down and waited for his friends. It was a cold day, but Josh was only wearing a long-sleeved, black shirt. He opened his book to where he stopped reading in the car. It was a slow point in the book, so he looked up to see Rachel and Elyssa (her full name Elizabeth) walking toward him. He stood up and hugged Rachel, showing the greatest extent of their complicated relationship.
Earlier in the year they had both admitted to each other that they were attracted to each other. From there they each agreed to ask their parents if they could go out. Rachel's mom yelled at her and said that she couldn't have a boyfriend until high school. From there they had agreed to go out in later and have had a subtle relationship ever since.
Rachel and Elyssa proceeded to talk about their Spanish class that Josh did not share. Josh, used to this kind of thing, stared into the sky, thinking about if he forgot to do some homework or something.
"Yo? Josh? Are you listening?" asked Rachel.
"Oh, yeah sorry. Just thinking," replied Josh.
"Its fine, Elyssa and I were just talking about how at the end of this week is Thanksgiving break, and how much it will suck. Well, at least I think it will suck, because I won't be able to see you," at this point both Rachel and Josh smiled ", but Elyssa thinks it will be fun because of no homework. What do you think?" beamed Rachel.
Josh decided that he wanted to see Rachel blush "I would rather see you and do homework than go without either," beamed Josh. Both Rachel and Josh had decided that it was a natural talent of Josh's to make Rachel blush insanely easily. Splashes of red stained her pale, cold cheeks, but only for a second. Her short, black hair sprang from its resting position as she moved closer to Josh, embracing him for a few seconds before she let go.
"Same here," smiled Rachel as Elyssa groaned audibly, showing her obvious disapproval of a romance between her two friends. Who else wouldn't be uncomfortable in that situation? But that made no difference to them other than making Josh laugh at Elyssa's blatant annoyed state.
"What is wrong with you two? Isn't that, like, against the law or something?" scoffed Elyssa
"Go check again Elyssa," laughed Josh ", everything here is extremely legal." Josh embraced Rachel once again to emphasize his point. Elyssa rolled her eyes and walked off to nowhere in particular. Ignoring her, Josh turned to Rachel "How are you, I mean other than beautiful."
"I'm okay," blushed Rachel "you?"
"Well, I am talking to you aren't I?" Josh exclaimed before Rachel nodded "Therefore I am amazing." Rachel opened her mouth to reply but the bell cut her off, signaling to them to get to their lockers and then to class, pronto. Josh sighed and walked through the hallway, holding Rachel's hand all the way, until they reached Rachel's locker. They hugged and Josh headed for his locker. When he got there he swung his red backpack off of his back and into his locker, pulled out his binder, and shut the locker door, lock closed. Josh ran his freezing hands through his somewhat warm long-ish, midnight black hair. He arrived at his Chinese class to see that Mr. Heartless was their substitute, which didn't matter because they were just working on their essay today.
His friend Morgan slipped into her seat, which was next to his, right as the bell rang and Mr. Heartless turned around. He handed out the papers and started to pull out his laptop, which everyone knew was all he paid attention to when "teaching". Josh pulled out his bag of candy left over from Halloween and placed it on his desk along with his mp3. "Hey, Morgan, do you want a chocolate?" Josh offered. She looked tired and Josh thought that she hadn't had any breakfast by the grumbles roaring from her stomach.
"Yeah, thanks. I am starving," smiled Morgan as she grasped the candy in her pale hand.
"No problem," grinned Josh. He picked up his mp3 and handed her a single ear bud whist he placed the other in his left ear. She accepted the gift and rested it in her right ear. He then proceeded to play his endless playlist of his favorite band, Fall Out Boy. Resting his head on his elbow, he started to write about his family that he dreaded, his two younger brothers who stole his things every day, his younger sister who felt that his room is her personal living room, and his parents that thought him to be stupid even though he was taking geometry in seventh grade. Yes, he thought of school to be his utopia.
Josh handed Morgan his last chocolate silently and continued to listen to Fall Out Boy's hit single, "This Ain't a Scene, it's an Arms Race" and explaining his annoying family with Chinese characters. "So how is your essay coming along?" asked Josh in an attempt to make conversation.
"Fine, my family is not very large so I am almost done. How about you?" replied Morgan politely while her hand preformed the twists and turns of the symbols with a pencil in hand.
"I am just doing my regular family, so it is only six people. I am so grateful that we don't have to do our whole family because I have tons of cousins and uncles and aunts. Also I have a lot of pets, but I don't think that we are supposed to include them, are we?" asked Josh curiously while meanwhile something was happening that they were oblivious to. Kyle, the rumor mill and class clown, was spreading a rumor that Josh liked Morgan and vice versa. Most knew this was unlikely because they knew of Josh and Rachel's relationship.
"Hey, Josh! Why don't you just kiss her already?" asked Kyle feeling full of himself.
It took Josh a couple of moments before he understood what was happening. "Piss off, you all know that Morgan and I are not a couple," shouted Josh as he stood up and rolled his eyes. Kyle snorted before going back to his essay. Mr. Heartless was, of course, still transfixed by his computer screen.
"Sorry about that," apologized Josh "you know how Kyle is, always aching for something to try and expose about someone."
"It wasn't your fault," said Morgan sweetly "Kyle is just a jerk and you were just being nice to me." Josh noticed her amazing smile and looked away, sat down, and resumed writing his essay while contemplating the thought that Kyle might actually be right, maybe.
Josh continued to ponder that thought until he got home, especially during lunch when he shared the presence of Rachel and Elyssa. His head was aching with all the thinking that he had done. He decided to erase that pain with the reading of a good book, so he picked up his book and continued to read. Everything that had pained him in the last few hours suddenly vanished from his memory and he was completely immersed in his book. In what seemed like minutes, but was actually hours, Josh had finished the book and his troubles came rushing back into his head. There was homework to be done but he decided to take a nap first.
When he awoke, Josh found that he had a way to test the severity of his problem. He mulled over the details of his plan while completing his geometry homework mindlessly. Tomorrow would make his load a lot easier to carry, or not.
After his homework was finished he headed into his bed. It was a bunk bed even though he had his own room. The top bunk housed his assorted things and his bottom bunk held him while he was sleeping. Sweeping away assorted books onto the ground below Josh lay in his bed, on top of the covers, and dozed off.
"Beep-beep-beeep-beeeeeeeep" was the sound that Josh's alarm clock made to wake him from his rejuvenating rest. Grudgingly Josh slammed his fist into the alarm clock to turn it off. This was going to be a long day, one way or another.
Josh's binder clunked down and made a huge noise, but not bigger than the collected talking in the classroom. Morgan slipped in, nearly late, as always. Josh froze for a moment before remembering his plan. He glanced at the clock and
decided to wait about 5 minutes before carrying out his plan.
'Tick, tick, tick, ti-BANG' was what sounded throughout the fairly big classroom as Josh slammed his head against his desk. The five minutes were going by agonizingly slow, and Josh just wanted it to stop. "Are you okay?" asked Morgan, ever so sweetly.
"Yeah, perfectly fine," replied Josh shaking it off. Most of the class was staring at him. It was very awkward so Josh decided to ease the tension with his classic monkey face. As he pulled his ears his upper lip puffed up, resulting in what was the most believable monkey face in the history of the world. Everyone laughed, including Morgan, Josh noticed, and went back to their studies. Feeling it was the right time, Josh tapped Morgan's thigh lightly and grasped her hand. 'Now time for the test' Josh thought. He gently squeezed, waiting for Morgan's response. She squeezed back and blushed. They both squeezed, yet again, but at the same time, sending Morgan into a fit of silent giggles.
The rest of class was easy for Josh to ignore as he searched his mind for an answer. He could come up with none. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch. He had no idea what he should do next; he had feelings for both Morgan and Rachel, but couldn't put one over the other. As class ended, Josh