5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Tyler
A s I head to meet my friends for lunch, I marvel at how my first day of senior year is off to such a great start. When I was heading into school, I felt my flannel fall from my waist as I was walking down the steps. Just as I was about to pick it up, I heard a girl's voice. We both leaned down to pick it up and knocked our heads together. Okay, so that part wasn't great, but the girl was so cute and sweet. What am I saying, she is more than cute. She's beautiful. She's really tall, which is so cool, and she has these huge blue eyes and I swear I can see into her soul. Then, when I got to marine bio, late because I was hanging with my bros in the hall for too long, I slid into the first seat, right next to the girl with the big blue eyes. I couldn't believe my luck. Even better? This girl seems cool. She has awesome taste in music which isn't common at this school, and she seems really nice. Like, genuine. She's not like other girls here, that's for sure and I want to get to know her better.
"Tyler!" I hear my name being yelled across the hallway and see my friend, Brian Applequist waving me down, camcorder in hand.
I nod and head his way. "Hey, man. What's up?" I walk up to him and he raises his camera up to his face. "Are you recording right now?"
"Yeah, say hi." I wave at the camera, then flip him the bird.
"Brian lowers the camera and glares at me. "Thanks a lot, now I have to edit that."
"Or just not use it," I laugh and we start walking toward the door leading outside.
Brian punches my shoulder. "Dude, you were so out of it. I must have called your name five times," Brian says as we head outside to eat. Being football players, we're pretty used to the heat since we've been practicing over the summer and it's just nicer getting out of the school for lunch. Once the weather cools down, lots of kids will be out here, so we relish having the picnic area mostly to ourselves.
"Sorry," I tell my best friend as we sit at the end of a picnic table where some of our teammates and friends are already eating. Of course, there are several cheerleaders who sit with our group, but I'm not into them. I mean, it's cool that they cheer for us and all, but at Dunwoody, they tend to be a bit snobby, with a couple exceptions. At my last school, we had some girls like that, but the cliques seem really defined here.
"How are your classes so far?" Brian asks before he takes a bite out of his Blimpie sandwich. I swear that's all the guy eats.
"Pretty good," I say as I pull out one of two sandwiches I made last night, this one roast beef. "I'm excited about marine biology. Coach K is the teacher, too, so that's even better."
"That's rad," Brian says through a mouthful of sandwich. "I know how much you love fishing and Coach K gets how busy we are with both football and baseball."
"Yeah, he's so cool," I say then bite into my sandwich. I don't tell him about Sloane because I want to keep that to myself for now and see where it goes, but I think marine bio is going to be my favorite class for several reasons. I just wonder if Sloane Warren is out of my league.
"Have all the rumors died down?" Brian's expression grows serious.
I shrug. "I guess so. I think it would have been worse if I weren't an athlete, you know?" I take a bite of my sandwich thinking about what happened when I started here last year. "It's crazy how people think the worst and make so many assumptions."
Brian nods as he finishes chewing. "I guess when you get kicked out of private school, people are gonna talk." A wry grin appears on his face.
"Kicked out unfairly," I scoff. "But when you beat up the richest kid in school and star quarterback for his unwanted advances on a girl, you don't always get the benefit of the doubt."
"I can't believe that even though the girl corroborated your story, you still got kicked out." Brian tosses the paper wrapping from his sub sandwich onto the table in disgust.
"Money talks," I say nonchalantly. "Besides, I'm glad I'm here. My parents really liked the prestige that came with St. Christopher's, but I think our teams here are better and could help me more with my shot at going pro."
"And, you get to see me every day." Brian flashes me a Cheshire cat grin.
"And there's that," I say as my mind starts to drift. There's also the girl in marine bio who I will definitely look forward to seeing every day.