Chapter Ten

Diagnosed with Love:

Chapter 10

Lunch had rolled around quicker than I had thought. Everyone quickly scattered out of their classes to be the first in line for the jail food. I’d rather pass- it wasn’t that great. I made my way to a classroom full of computers and students that were focusing on their work.

A teacher, a little chubby in the gut and a bit taller than me, had made his way over to me. “Can I help you?”

“Mr. Bird?” He kind of did resemble a bird- just a little bit.

“Correct. What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I’m Starlight Saitou. I’m not sure if Mr. Arnold contacted you or not, but I’m interested in the position that you have available.”

“Hmm… yes, I talked to him. He gave you a good recommendation… but a good recommendation could mean that he just really likes you a lot. I want proof that you’ll be a good addition to my paper. I want proof that you’ll come up with killer ideas that’ll make this yearbook better than the rest. Can you do that? I don’t want to just hire anyone who thinks they have the basic skills, or even the advanced ones, to be on my paper. I want someone who knows they have the skills and won’t mind proving that they have those skills… have I intimidated you yet?” He finally rested his tongue, but not for long.

“No. What’s it gonna take?” I asked, causing him to smirk, and then I knew that that tongue was about to start flapping again.

“I like your confidence. That’s just the kind of attitude we need on this paper. I’ll tell you what- give me a good story and I’ll see where you land.”

“Do I have a deadline?” I asked, trying to make a schedule in my head mentally.

“Hmm, good question- no later than Monday morning before the bell rings for school to start.”

“Alright- you’ll have your story by Monday morning,” I said.

“Good luck.” Mr. Bird turned away from me and headed to the back of the room.

As I looked around the room, seeing a copy machine, a rack of old school newspapers, hanging up pictures, and many personalized work stations, I saw a boy look up from what he was doing and lock eyes with mine. The boy had jet black hair and a pen behind his ear as he leaned forward, hovering over a girl, obviously helping her with her work. He talked as we locked eyes, and when the girl pointed to the screen, he tore his gaze away from me and studied the screen and kept speaking. As he turned his attention to the monitor of the computer, I headed out the room. Shortly after, I felt eyes watching me, but I didn’t turn back around to see if it was him.

When I was outside the classroom, I took out my phone and looked at the time. Lunch was just about halfway over. Depending on what I did next would determine how fast these last fifteen minutes would go. Lunch was only a mere thirty minutes, hardly enough time for anyone to do anything.

When I looked up, I saw my friend Jaelynn. I’ve known her since middle school- and even though we weren’t really close, we were still friends. When I see her, I always gave her my short and sweet, “Hey, how’s it goin’?”

“Hey Star!” Jaelynn was always so cheerful with her bright, red, apple-colored hair and beautiful brown eyes. Jaelynn was the type of person to pep up old people. She was just a really peppy person. I told her that she should go out for the cheerleading team, but she always refused.

“Hey Jaelynn, how’s it goin’?” I asked, just as I always do.

She fell into step with me, “Goood, I got and ‘A’ on my history quiz! Mr. Check helps me personally at his house every night,” she said as she shifted her books in her hand. She had two that looked really heavy.

“At his house? Why not at school?” I asked. It sounded a little bit weird that a teacher would invite their student over their house.

“He never told me to meet him at the school. Earlier this week, he came to me when class was over and asked if I wanted extra help. When I agreed, he told me to meet him at his house that night, and I’ve been going every other night. I’m glad- it helped me get an ‘A’.”

“I don’t know, Jaelynn… maybe you should be meeting in public daylight hours…” I said, a little worried.

‘Relax. He’s a school teacher, what could he possibly do?” She laughed. “You’re overreacting, Star.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think I was overreacting at all. I think I was reacting just fine. It was her that was under reacting. I didn’t know who her history teacher was. I had heard of Mr. Check, but couldn’t match his face with his name. I had Mr. Cole for history, the best damn history teacher at that. Mr. Cole was awesome.

“Just be careful, okay?” I said as she stopped at the bathroom and I stopped with her.

“Okay.” She laughed again. “Relax- I will keep it in mind, though.” She walked into the bathroom and I kept walking, since I didn’t have to actually go to the bathroom.

I headed to the lunchroom in a hurry, hoping that I could get a snack for class so my stomach wouldn’t be making various noises throughout the whole class period, as it previously had been doing. When I walked over to the lunch line and quickly paid for a bag of chips and a juicy, my phone started to vibrate in my pocket as I punched the straw through the top of the little barrel of juice. As I pulled my phone out my pocket again, I quickly noticed the three letters run across my screen. I quickly tried to make my way out of the noisy lunchroom to take the call. I had missed the call by a few seconds by the time I had reached the hallway, but I scrolled through my contacts in attempt to call him back.

Lunch had went so fast, I had forgotten to call him… now I felt really guilty for leaving him waiting for me to call. I had six minutes before lunch was over… that was nowhere near enough time to talk to him. Then Mr. Arnold made his way over to me, just as I was about to hit the send key.

“Hey, Starlight- just the person I was looking for.”

“Dang it!” I said out loud, not realizing I had actually said it out loud until it was too late…

“Is everything okay?” he asked, looking concerned.

“Yes, everything’s fine. Sorry, you scared me a little bit.” I slid my phone back into my back pocket, and few seconds later, it began to vibrate again.

He chuckled lightly. “Ah, I see.”

“Yup,” I said, trying to speed things along.

“Anyway, did you get a chance to speak with Mr. Bird?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. He seemed pretty nice and into his work. The students are really focused there. They all have good… I don’t know, but it was definitely good.”

“So he accepted you?”

“Not exactly. He wants me to give him a good story for him to analyze himself to determine if I’ll get a position on the paper and yearbook or not.”

“Wow, he’s never done that before. That’s weird. He must’ve just started it this year.” I shrugged. This was taking longer than I wanted it to. “Well, I wish you good luck, even though I highly doubt you’ll need it.” He winked at me.

I smiled in return. “Thanks,” I said as I turned and headed off. Three minutes until lunch’s over, I thought as I looked up at the clock on the wall. I took out my phone and scrolled through the contacts.

“Hey Star, I have a question,” said a familiar voice as it approached me.

“NO!” I said. “Three minutes!” I yelled as I took off running for the school’s front doors. When I reached outside, I stopped and tried to catch my breath as I hit the send key as quickly as I could.

“Star? What the hell happened? I called twice.”

I was breathing hard. ”Can’t… breathe… ran… from… people…” I collapsed onto the top of the stairs, panting.

“God, are you okay? Why are you running from people?”

“I needed to call you before… another person came up to me and … distracted me… First I went to go see Mr. Bird real quick… then when you called … Mr. Arnold… came up to me…” I was still slightly out of breath, and I inhaled deeply as he laughed at me. “It’s not funny!” Then the school bell rang, pissing me off, and also signaling that lunch was over and that it was time to get our sorry butts to class.

‘Awww man…” I said.

“Well, that was a fun almost three minutes.”

“Sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it- I’ll call you after school. You can talk to me then.”

“Alright…”

“Have fun,” he teased.

“Can I ever in this place?”

He chuckled. “Try”

“Only for you.”

“Only for me. Later, beautiful,” he said.

“Laters.”

We both hung up. Did you see how he said, “I’ll call you after school,” and not “Call me after school?” Uh huh. That’s Cas for ya- doesn’t make the same mistake twice. I smiled and headed back inside the building for my next class.