Chapter 13

Part 1

Looking back and forth at the clock and the teacher, I sat quietly in my fourth-period class patiently waiting for the class to be over. My fourth-period class was English, possibly the most boring subject in existence. Every day I have to sit here for nearly an hour and a half shaking my leg and staring at the clock while the teacher is at the front of the class talking about stuff which I’ve already learned 3 years ago but the rest of the class is too stupid to understand.

This class also happens to be the only class which Xela and I have together. Normally I’d be talking to her right now, but the teacher moved our seats to the opposite corners of the class recently because we were talking too much.

As I kept staring at the clock, the time that the class ended finally came, and I started to rush out of the room.

Just as I was about to leave the classroom, our teacher, Mr. Matthews made one more announcement.

“Oh yeah, can Xela and Johnny stay back? The rest of you can leave.”

Fuck, just as I thought I was out of this hell. I looked over to Xela to see if she had an idea of what was going on, and she looked just as confused as me. The rest of the class exited the room while making jokes about how we were in big trouble and I shut the door once they all left.

“Maybe try teaching something somebody actually gives a fuck about next time,” I suggested jokingly.

I knew Mr. Matthews pretty well as he was the father of one of my good pals from my hockey team. I’d occasionally talk to him from time to time outside of school, and despite how boring his classes are, he’s actually a pretty cool guy.

“Talk to me when you learn how to tie a pair of skates,” he retorted.

“You don’t know how to tie skates?” Xela asked.

“It was 7 years ago,” I slightly blushed.

“I used to have to tie his skates every game because his parents weren’t around and he was too embarrassed to ask anyone else so he-” he began to tell Xela.

“IT WAS 7 YEARS AGO!”

“7 years may feel like a long time for you teenagers, but for us adults, it felt like just yesterday.”

“How old are you again?” I asked.

“46”

“Wow, you’re old.”

“Shut it.”

“Okay.”

“Is there a reason you made us stay behind?” Xela asked.

“Right. So, I’m going on a date tonight with my wife-.”

“Ew” Xela and I both interrupted simultaneously.

“Shut up, he said. “Anyway, I have a date tonight but the janitors took the day off today and the school was looking for someone to take over for the day. I took the job to earn myself a bit more extra cash, but I also have that date tonight and I’d rather enjoy an expensive dinner with my wife with a chance to get laid than be stuck here mopping the halls. You, Johnny, happen to be the only student I really know in this school and I know you don’t have the balls to burn the whole school down so I’m leaving you in charge of cleaning duty for the day.”

“Wow, you’re a dick,” I commented.

“Wait, why do you need me here then?” Xela asked.

“Oh, I figured Johnny would want his girlfriend to keep him company so you need to clean with him too.”

“We’re not dating!” we both said with red faces.

“That’s what they all say. Don’t worry, when I was a teenager I was the same-”

“No, we’re not lying. We’re seriously just friends,” I said.

“Just friends. HA! Let me tell you kids a little something. In two months time, being ‘just friends’ results in either fucking on the sofa or being complete strangers again.”

“Like we haven’t heard that a million times.”

“It’s true though.”

“No, it’s complete bullshit."

“Fine, don’t listen to me. Your loss.”

“Remind me again why we need to do your dirty work?” Xela asked, bringing us all back on track.

“I am your teacher, meaning I am in control of both of your marks, meaning I could reduce your mark by 10% each if I wanted to.”

“That’s illegal!” Xela argued back.

“Really? From what I’ve seen, neither of you have been paying attention at all in class or been doing the required work.”

“That’s because I already know everything you’re teaching!” I said.

“I know you do, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to slack around and do nothing all class, now does it?”

We both stood in silence for a few seconds as we knew he had a point.

“I’ll tell you what, if you do this for me, I’ll let you two keep slacking around in class without dropping your marks. You’re both smart kids, I’m not too worried about your grades. Hey, I might even boost you a bit.”

“Fine, we’ll do it” Xela agreed. “What time do we have to lock up by?”

“Preferably before six.”

“SIX?? Yo, I got stuff to do!” I exclaimed.

“No you don’t. My son already told me all you just stay home all day and do nothing.”

“Fuck!"

“Any more complaints?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Good. Then meet me here after school so I can give you guys the keys to all the classes and show you what you need to clean.”

Part 2

As the final bell rang, Xela and I headed to Mr. Matthews’ room where he had been waiting for us. Like he said, he handed us this huge keychain which had all the keys labelled with their classrooms on it and told us what to clean and what not to clean. There were still a few people left in the building, but they were all either walking out the door or in the process of doing so.

We went from class to class, cleaning the chalkboards, sweeping the floor, and checking underneath the desks to see if there was anything still left in them.

After we were halfway done cleaning the entire school, we were both getting pretty tired so we decided to take a short break. We both bought ourselves a can of Coca-Cola from the vending machine and sat next to each other ON a table in the cafeteria since nobody was looking.

“I’m already tired,” Xela complained. “How much more do we have left?”

“We’re just about done half of the classrooms,” I responded.

“Onlyl?”

“Yep.”

“What a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, I just wanna go home now.”

“Same.”

“I don’t like Mr. Matthews.”

“I’m kinda glad he made us do this though,” she said. “Right now we’re complaining and all, but once we graduate high school it’s memories like these we’ll miss. After all, these are our last few months of high school.”

“Fuck, already?” I said, remembering we were already well into March.

“Yeah, I know. Time flies fast.”

“Have you figured out what you’re gonna do yet? With the future I mean.”

“Nope.”

“Neither have I.”

“Probably going to go to college though.”

“Well yeah, obviously. I mean do you know where you wanna go or what you want to study?’ I asked.

“Jeremy’s been bugging me recently about coming to study in Toronto with him, so I might just end up going there,” she said. “What about you?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I kinda want to stay here for a while longer. It’s nice and peaceful here and I know people already.”

“We’ll probably never see each other again then.”

“Let’s worry about that when the time comes,” I comforted her.

“Nothing’s confirmed yet though, so.”

“Whenever someone says ‘nothing’s confirmed yet though’ they’re just stalling the inevitable.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“So have you sent in your applications yet?” I asked.

“A while ago, but I haven’t gotten anything back yet. Have you sent yours?”

“Yeah, I’ve sent applications to multiple schools already but I have no idea if I’ll even want to attend any of them.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll figure something out at the end of the day.”

“How are you so sure about that?”

“I just am,” she said, giving me a smile.

I smiled back at her, which was followed up by a silence which lasted a few seconds.

“Toronto, huh? That’s really far away from here.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll try visiting every once in a while if I do end up going there.”

“You better. I don’t know what Rebekah will do without you.”

“Haha, are you kidding? I’m the one who can’t live without her. She’s always the one telling me stuff and giving me advice when I need it the most.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “I thought it was exactly the opposite!”

“Nah, we’re both helping each other out when in need. After all, that’s what friends are for.”

“As a friend of mine, may you please help me out too by throwing out this Coke can for me?” I asked her politely while handing her the can.

“Lazy ass,” she said, smiling wryly and taking the can from my hand. “You’re welcome.”

“Thank you.”

I took my phone out to check the time and saw that we only had an hour left before we had to close up.

“Okay, break time’s over. We need to get cleaning again,” I said, grabbing all the cleaning supplies.

“Yay, fun!”

Part 3

As we kept going around from classroom to classroom and doing the same thing over and over again, we finally made it to the last class. We already finished sweeping the floor and checking the desks for that room, and all that was left was to wash the chalkboard.

We each dipped our cloths in the bucket of water and began to wipe it on the chalkboard, with Xela taking the right side of the board while I took the left.

“We’re finally done,” Xela said, just finishing off her side. “That was exhausting.”

“I’d just about kill myself if I had to do this every day.”

“I know, I could barely even handle one day.”

“You wanna head home now?” I said, finally completing my side of the board.

“What’s the time?”

“5:50 we still got 10 minutes left before we gotta leave,” I said, checking the time on my phone.

“Then, let’s stay here for a little more,” she said, walking over to the window and putting her arms on the window sill.

I followed her and stood beside her, also putting my arms on the window sill. The sun was about to set and we got a pretty nice view of the school’s baseball diamond and soccer field as we were on the top floor of the school.

“I’m going to miss all of this,” she said. “Coming to this school every day and saying hi to everyone, girl talk with Rebekah every day at midnight, our pointless conversations at Filip’s Cafe, and everything else. I’m going to miss it all.”

“Stay then,” I suggested.

“As much as I want to stay, I also want to leave. I feel like I need to move out of this city in order to move on with my life. At the same time, I don’t want to completely leave everything I’ve built here behind me.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need to make up your mind before it’s too late.”

“I know.”

“Well, whatever you do, I’ll be here to support you.”

Suddenly, the classroom door slammed open and a boy I’ve never seen before in my life slowly walked in, trying to catch his breath. He looked like he just ran a marathon and was constantly panting heavily. He was around my height but looked much more built than I. Xela stood frozen in shock and dropped the cloth in her hand until he finally spoke.

“XELA!” he yelled. “I LOVE YOU!”