Chapter 10

Emma’s POV:
“Okay, come on.” Janet said. It was Thursday. It was right before the bell rang for First hour. I decided to go to it early and skip homeroom. I didn’t want to risk seeing him. Janet and Amanda were helping me. Kaliyan thought I was being stupid. But I just felt really idiotic. It was my first kiss and I ran away yelling, I’m sorry. Ugh. As I walked down the hallway almost to my first hour I heard, “Shoot!” from Amanda, way behind me. “Okay so they should be…..” I heard Kaliyan from behind me. Damn it! Why is she here. As I turned around to find out I almost smacked into Charlie. “U-uh……” was all I could say. Then I got a grip. The bell rang and I ran out as fast as I could. Not stopping until I almost hit Mr. Jeffersons’ desk. “Woh. Miss Emma. I didn’t realize you were so excited for Review Day. I always thought you said it was a waste of time and that the test should just be done. That people should already know the information. Or is there another reason that you are running into my desk?” I smiled. Jefffersons knew me well. Although it doesn’t seem too weird because he had both my siblings before me. “Well…….You see I have a relationship problem. Sorry, but it doesn’t seem like your expertise.” “Oh but how would you know. Although I am only a math teacher I do have a social life. I think by now you’ve learned that teachers don’t live at school.” “Yes.” “Now what seems to be the trouble. We have a few more minutes until the other reluctant reviewers such as yourself get to class.” As he said this I was going to happily decline. But then I realized that although Mr. Jeffersons was a teacher he wasn’t an old teacher. When he was in school the Backstreet Boys, Insinc, and 98 degrees were the fad. Not poodle skirts or the Beatles(though they are awesome). He might actually understand me. So I took a chance and told him. “Well you see I like this boy and well we went out before and …….” I then launched into my story. The shortened non-creepy story. “Well I have a question for you. Two actually. One, do you still like him.” I nodded. “Two do you want me to be frank or not?” I told him yes. “Okay. You need to get off your high little tower. Your not a damsel-in-distress, nor are you a worthless little rat. You are the one girl I thought would be immune to this. Although you are not a total man, you have a quality of not being the one to by into the girly stuff. For example, making a emotional murder suicide for two people? I always hated High School for this. Girls did this a lot and I never understood. Stop screwing around and just deal. Now take a seat, it is time for review day. “ I then took my seat where Janet was looked like she either had to pee really bad or had something to tell me. As soon as I sat down Janet exploded. “Damn that Kaliyan! I told her not to do anything. I don’t care if she thought you were being stupid. That was really bitchy. I mean what is she thinking?!? Ugh! Well, after you left I got really mad at Kaliyan. Mandy and I were yelling at her until Ms. Stonserson told us to get to class. Charlie just slinked off. Actually in your direction. Hoping to find you before class probably. All I know is if I see him coming near you I swear I tackle him.” Janet was usually really peaceful. I should probably nip this in the butt right now, I thought. “Okay Janet calm down. I’m fine. I was an idiot and Kaliyan was right. After the joyous review day, I’m going to go talk to him again and so yeah……” I said this seriously. Well except for the talk of the review day part. I really hate whole class periods devoted to reviewing an idea that was already covered during a couple weeks. It really annoys me.
Janet knew I really serious when I said those words. “Okay. Do you want me to go with you or something?”
“Nah. I’ll be fine. I can do this.” I said. I thought, if I could handle AP Calculus with much ease I could handle a boy. Then I remembered how much social interactions didn’t work well with me. I had the same best friends since second grade. My high point in my social life. Even in classes the social interactions or opinions in history or now freaked me out. That was why I hated English and Civics. They tortured me. Numbers were my element. Everything had a place and everything really flowed with me. I could work with ease on that. Writing essays and doing charts on the different opinions were when my eyes got blurry and my head got really confuzzled. Ugh. Anyway.
The class went by really fast. Mostly because Janet and I were talking in note form, because otherwise the class would get angry. Before I knew it, it was time for second hour. I waved goodbye to Janet and went out the East side door. It was a quicker door to get to the Auto Shop.

As I walked out the door I almost got trampled by someone. I fell down and so did my books. As I bent to pick them up, Charlie was there. "Sorry." He said. He must have accidentally run me down when he was beelining for the other door. Probably to talk to me.

"That's okay. I'm sorry actually." As we both stood up from grabbing the books. I finally looked at him. He was wearing worn blue jeans that had grease stains on them. He just came from Auto Mechanics. Then I looked at his eyes. They weren't his normal green. They were pale green. So pale I could hardly tell if it was gray or green. It saddened me to think it might be my fault. "I'm sorry I ran away, but I just felt really stupid. And yeah... I mean it was my first kiss and so I don't know." My brain was really confused and I could figure out what to say. All I remember was feeling really sad and that nothing I could do would be enough for him.
"I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have kissed you." He said.

"Well that's stupid!" I said out loud. It came out so fast I couldn't stop it. Shoot! I hate when I do that! Well I might as well say what I mean now that that's out. "I mean it's not your fault. I was the one feeling stupid. You did the perfect job. And at the right time. Shoot I've got to get to Advanced Auto-Mechanics. I'll talk to you later?" I was in a rush because I only had a few minutes until it was time to start the Oil Change Test. It was easy but the later you were the more points that were taken away from your total score.

As soon as I saw Charlie smile and say yes I sprinted down the hall. I got into the room, set my books down and got up next to 'Wet Willy.' He was an old Chevy truck. He was a nice old rusted yellow paint and was my favorite. He just worked well with me. Others had trouble with him so he was almost always available. Though if someone took him I would ask them to move or get really mad and threaten them. It was usually Joe who went into my Willy. Joe was a tattle tell, but he was nice to me. If he didn't move I could just softly punch him and he would move. He and I were friends though. When Joe wasn't taking my car he was joking with me. As I lifted the cover of the Chevy Joe snuck up on me.

"And you're late why?Hmm..........? Is it because of this boy Charlie?" He said. I jumped and accidentally slammed the top back down. I saw Joe move to his old beat up Delorean. It was called Marty because of Back To The Future they used a Delorean. Marty was rusty though, and both doors were taken off. It made me sad to see such a great car go to waste in a High School Auto Shop. I promised myself Freshmen year someday I would change that Delorean into a beauty and call it my own.

"Maybe." I said. Joe knew everything going on in my life really. Even though somethings I didn't tell him he just knew things. He wasn't the most popular, nor the smartest sometimes but he was worse than an old lady in a beauty parlor. "How do you know anyways?"
"Well Katelyn was working at the coffee shop down a couple blocks. And she saw you with him. And then yesterday she was teasing me about this and how you would rather go out on a date with the local creeper than me." He winked. He and I were kind of close and there was always someone teasing about us dating or me flirting with him. He and I used to ride the same bus in Middle and Elementary school and it happened a lot.

I smiled. "Yeah and you were so rejected when she told you this." I loved sarcasism. Luckily he understood me really well in that aspect. He just smiled his nice dibbled, baby-face, cute smile. Then I was tested on my oil changing skills. Easy pass. Willy was really nice that way.

I looked at some of the other ones that had been tested. I could which ones passed and which ones failed. The ones that passed had huge grins on their faces. THe ones that failed were trying to fix it and had oil stains on their shirts. I then saw James and waved. It looked like he was muttering towards a cloud of smoke coming up from an engine. Then he saw me and smiled. He waved at me with a wrench he had in his hand, which was grease covered. On putting his hand down he let the wrench slip. It whacked Owen Kilsber on the head really hard. Owen then fell on the floor. James looked shocked. I giggled. Then someone told Mr. Highlerson, the teacher, and he told all the finished testers to leave while he helped Owen and tested the rest. We weren't doing anything else.

As I left with Joe I laughed hard. Joe didn't know what happened so I told him. He laughed too. We discided to get some ice cream with the time left in class. I couldn't help but smile. Everytime I closed my eyes I replayed the same scene. Me waving at James to The wrench hitting Owen's head. As Joe and I got out of the Dairy Queen parking lot I realized the smoke from the car that James was muttering at looked like a person.