I've always been one of the "good kids". I think it's a combination of being a first-born girl, my withdrawn personality, and being parented well. In elementary school I was only sent to the principal's office once, and that was only because I'd witnessed someone else's infraction (standing on the toilets in the girls' room so she could talk to her friend without the visual interruption the stall presented). I think my heart may have beaten faster during my walk of shame after my name was called over the school's loudspeaker than any of the regular offenders' would have.
Over the years I would have one or two friends that persuaded me to get into more trouble than I was used to, but nothing serious.
When I got to high school I experienced the wrong side of the Templeton High School law, and it was all my own doing. During the fall of my freshman year, a sophomore boy had taken notice of me. When my curly-haired, freckle-faced friend Sarah from the volleyball team, told me about his crush, I didn't even know who he was. But once I knew about him, I decided Jacob Rodrigues couldn't be such a bad guy. He obviously had impeccable taste.
Slowly but surely my own crush on Jacob developed. We'd call each other a few times a week, I'd sit on my bed with my green telephone, complete with a two foot long ringlet cord, as we talked about absolutely nothing. (Not in a cute awwww-they-don't-even-have-to-say-anything sort of way. A we're-tying-up-our-parents'-phone-lines-by-sitting-here-not-saying-ANYTHING sort of way.) We'd pass each other in the hallways at school, he'd smirk at me, oozing Older Boy appeal, I'd blush and giggle to whichever friend was unfortunate enough to be stuck with me at that moment.
Jacob played football, and he was #78. My friend Jasmine had a crush on a boy named Casey, who was #49. We'd attend the games like we would have anyway, but when you have someone to watch, it sure makes a sport in which I had zero interest as a 14-year-old girl a whole lot more engaging.
Jacob also worked at a classmate's family owned Pizza Place on Main Street in Templeton. I managed to talk my parents into going there for dinner on a night I knew he'd be working, becoming conscious too late of the fact that my dad would most definitely humiliate me. (Let's be real, being within the same fifty-foot radius as, having to acknowledge relation to, and most definitely allowing my newest flame to converse with my dad was horrifying. I was fourteen.)
Looking back, I can't remember if my dad actually said anything ridiculous, but simply sitting there with my family, having him serve us made all the blood in my head burn. What a stupid idea I'd had. We left the Pizza Place with my dearest dad having coined a new nickname for Jacob: Duck Man... due to the slight waddle in Jacob's pace.
Back to my brush with the THS disciplinary office.
Jacob had a last period guitar class. I had study hall the same period. Since the dawn of study-hall-period time, I would venture to say that if a high school student can get out of class, she will choose to. We had excuses ranging from needing to check out a book at the library to working on our newest ceramics project in the art room.
For the better part of my freshman year, I left every single 7th period class to listen to Jacob play his guitar. He probably wasn't very good yet, but I didn't care. I was spending "quality time" with my crush, and everyone knows a man who can play a musical instrument (or dance) is 5.2 million times more appealing to any woman.
We'd sit in the quad while he played Blind Melon and Wheezer songs, and I'd try not to drool. Our arrangement worked out pretty well until the day I decided to just not show up to study hall. How hard was it to wait for the required 20 minutes of silent reading to be over, then get a legitimate excuse, if not fibbed, written on a hall pass? Not hard. But apparently this particular day I just could not hold in my feelings. I needed to be sitting with Jacob for the entire hour and a half period or I would just die.
That same day the school called my house to report my absence from 7th period. Since I didn't have a good excuse (I can't even remember if I tried to pass it off to my mom or if I just told her), I was issued a Saturday School.
Saturday School was one of the best punishments ever concocted for the typical never-does-schoolwork, sleeps-late-every-day, hates-setting-foot-on-campus teenage delinquent. It required you to wake up early, go to school, and sit in a cold classroom with a grumpy teacher for 2 or 4 hours, depending on your crime. I was just pissed off that I wasn't in my warm bed, and missing out on part of a Saturday that I could be socializing with my friends.
But as I sat there, in the portable classroom, actually doing homework (hey, I missed out on study hall, after all), and taking breaks to daydream about my rockstar Jacob, all I could think was...
It was totally worth it.
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