I groaned, letting my head fall back onto the pillow. It was hard to find the motivation to get up in the mornings anyway, let alone for school.
"JACK?" My mother called from the bottom of the stairs.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm up" I answered only loud enough for me to hear. I pulled myself reluctantly from the warm cocoon I had made in my sheets and stood up lazily. I rubbed my eyes sleepily as I made my way down the stairs in my sweats to the kitchen. My mum had her back to me as I walked through the door, busily putting together my breakfast like she did every morning. She turned to me with a smile.
"Morning honey" She chimed as I plopped myself down into a chair, pulling myself closer to the table.
"Morning" I yawned, resting an elbow on the table and resting my head against my hand. She placed my cooked breakfast in front of me with a smile, running her hand through my hair before leaving me to eat in peace. It was only breakfast that really woke me up in the mornings. After I finished the plate, I climbed the stairs to get ready for school. Pulling on the usual skinnies and plain top. I used to wear my blink tops, but they drew a lot of negative attention that I didn’t need. I didn’t bother doing much to my hair, I liked it messy. Pulling my bag over my shoulder I shouted goodbye to my mum and headed out the door to school. I always walked alone. There wasn’t anyone at my school that really got me. I always tried to get to school a little before anyone else, to reduce the chance of me bumping into people I didn’t want to see. But I had left too late this morning, the hallways were busy. As I approached my locker I saw an unfamiliar face, stood only a few lockers down from mine. She was having trouble getting hers open. I stood awkwardly watching her, debating whether I should say something. I was never good at talking to people. It wasn’t like we could be friends, as soon as she spoke to the other assholes in this place she'd realise I wasn’t someone people made friends with. I took a deep breath and approached her from behind, giving her locker a hard shove. The door swung open and she turned round to face me. She was very cute, with the most amazing blue eyes. Of course I wasn’t interested in her that way, she was a girl. But I would of sure loved to be her friend. It was a shame it could never work out that way.
"You just need to give them a shove, they get stuck sometimes" I told her, my lips curving into a shy smile. She smiled back at me. She opened her mouth to answer me when the bell rang, telling us that it was lesson time. She pulled out what I assumed was her timetable, soft lines formed on her forehead as she tried to make sense of it. I peeked over the top of the creased paper, realising that she was in my next lesson.
"You have English with me next, I can take you to there if you want?"
"Yeah, sure. thanks" She looked relieved that she knew someone in her class, I could relate to that. I knew how daunting school could be, it was hell for me.
"My names Jack by the way" I told her as we began the walk to English.
"I'm Amy" She smiled at me shyly.
"Hey Amy!" As soon as I heard the voice, my stomach dropped. Stood blocking the hallway in front of us was Stanley, grinning like a madman. Amy looked at me, unsure on what to do or say.
"Hello" She said, not managing to hide the surprise in her voice completely.
"Your new here aren't you? You'd have to be, if your hanging around with him" He didn’t even look at me when he spoke. He hadn't even acknowledged me, he just carried on smiling at Amy. She turned to look at me, her brows furrowed in confusion. I dropped my eyes to the floor, realising this was where her and my relationship would end. I just waited for what was going to happen next.
"I don't understand" She spoke a little more clearly than before. My stomach began churning as I knew what his answer would be.
"He's a fag, can't you tell by just looking at him?" Stanley sneered. I could feel his stare on me but I didn’t look up, what was the point.
"Uh…. No" Amy answered quietly, still sounding unsure of what was going on. Her timetable rustled as Stanley took it from her hand.
"So you've got English too? How about we walk together? We don’t want to be late" He took her arm lightly, pulling her along next to him. I stood alone at the lockers watching sadly as they walked away. Amy stopped, looking back at me.
"I'm walking with Jack" She told him, taking a step back towards me. Stanley's smile disappeared and was replaced with an expression I had become familiar with. I didn’t want that for Amy. She seemed so kind and nice, she didn’t deserve the same treatment as me.
"It's okay Amy. You can go" I said, trying to keep my voice unemotional. I swallowed the uncomfortable feeling in my throat. Her eyes met mine, trying to figure me out. She wasn’t convinced. She looked at me with worry, but carried on walking with Stanley. I stood by the lockers, watching until they were out of sight. I took a deep breath, trying to calm and steady myself. I could feel warm pools beginning to form in my eyes, which I knew was stupid. But after the continuous torment I had received from Stanley and his friends, even the little things were hard to cope with. I slowly walked in the same direction, not wanting to run into them again. When I got to English class I was 10 minutes late.
"How nice of you to join us Jack!" Mr Carrigan said from the front. I apologized quietly, keeping my slightly inflamed eyes on the floor. I sat in my usual seat, right at the back on an empty table. The lesson dragged on as usual, Mr Carrigan did love to talk. I looked across the room. Amy was sat with a girl I have never spoken to, she looked up at me and surprised me with a smile. Maybe we could be kind-of friends.
"So back to today's lesson. As a department, all the English teachers have decided that we are going to set you an assignment that will be completed in pairs. This assignment is pretty open, you can write about whatever you decide. It is your thought processes, planning and the eventual quality of the writing you produce that you will be graded on. Saying that, don't go for the obvious choices. Try and stretch yourself" The teachers announcement filled me with dread. My palms began to sweat and my mouth went dry. There was only one person I could bear to be paired with in the class, and that was Amy. What were the chances of me being paired with her? Mr Carrigan read out a list of pairs he had already decided on.
"Amy, your paired with Natalie" She nodded with a smile, looking at the girl next to her in relief. Great. Now all I could do was wait to see who I was paired with. Luckily Stanley had already been paired with someone else.
"Jack, I've paired you with Alex" I groaned internally. Although he was nowhere near as bad as Stanley, Alex was his friend. I knew he felt exactly the same way about me as Stanley did. I glanced over at him. His expression told me there was a mutual distaste for Mr Carrigan's pairing. Alex was obviously complaining to Stanley and the rest of their pathetic little crew. They all turned to sneer at me, I immediately dropped my eyes.
"Right, sit with your partners and get started, you have enough time to decide on a topic" I didn’t move. There was no way I was sitting with them. He would have to move to the back with me. I didn’t raise my eyes when I heard the seat next to me drag against the carpet. We sat there in complete silence the whole 5 minutes we had left of the lesson. I flicked my eyes up from the floor once and instantly regretted it when I saw the way Alex was looking at me. He looked as if I had just insulted him, glaring down at me. I dropped my eyes back to the floor, feeling them stinging and my face becoming too warm for my liking. The bell finally rang and Alex jumped out of his seat, not bothering to move his seat out of my way. I slowly put my stuff back in my bag, hoping that everybody would have left by the time I was ready to. I slung my bag over my shoulder and looked up to see Amy, stood by the door awkwardly. She smiled shyly at me.
"Hey Amy" I smiled at her. Was she waiting for me? I didn’t want to get too ahead of myself, this kind of thing never happened to me.
"I wondered if I could ...maybe…sit with you for lunch?" She looked at me hopefully as I approached her.
"Yeah, sure" I tried to play it casually, ,I didn’t want to scare her off. But I couldn’t believe someone actually wanted to sit with me. She smiled in response, following me out of the classroom. She stopped when I turned towards the schools back entrance.
"Aren't we going to sit with everybody else in the canteen?" She frowned at me, gesturing towards the canteen.
"I uh… I don’t usually sit in there. I sit in the playing field… alone" I looked to the floor, my face becoming warm. It was embarrassing to admit. But it was just easier that way, I didn’t have to deal with Stanley and his stupid friends. I could by alone in peace. I quite liked it on the field anyway, especially when the weather was good.
"Oh...okay. I guess it would be a shame to waste the sunshine sat indoors" She shrugged with a smile. Relief washed through me as we continued the walk to the playing field. We talked casually about random things, and it was great. But I couldn’t seem to get the glare Alex gave me in English class out of my head. It was literally like I had just killed his puppy in front of him, he looked completely disgusted to be sat next to me. I couldn’t work out what I had done to provoke such a strong response from him. It looked like I had a lot of time to work it out, we would be spending a lot of time together for the stupid English project. Just the thought of it made my hands sweat. At least I had made a friend, Amy seemed really cool. Maybe things were actually looking up for me.

Notes

Hey guys! Ive wanted to write a jalex story for aaages, but I wanted to make sure I made it good. I know this is starting as a really typical jalex story, but there's so much more to come that I don't think has really been done before with a load of drama and mystery, so bear with me! I know there's not much going on in this chapter, but please pleeaaase give me some feedback!
Thankyou for reading (:
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