As soon as I stepped off the bus, I found I had great difficulty in containing my excitement. I hurriedly went over to the long line that had been built up by all the students needing to be handed their class schedules.

Once I got to the front, I saw that it was Mrs. Jones who would be handing out my schedule. Unfortunately, she had never been a very big fan of me. Though, to be fair, I don't think she was a fan of anyone.

She was an elderly woman with curly gray hair who had a voice that seemed only capable of being monotone. It was surprising to me that she had continued to be a teacher despite her age. She looked well past retirement age at this point, but I suppose I don't know the intricacies of her life.

Her tired eyes looked me up and down, it was obvious she wasn't impressed. Nevertheless, I still shot her a smile. In response, it almost looked like her frown seemed to deepen. Ouch.

"Good morning Mrs. Jones. I hope that you're having a pleasant start to the school year. Could you please hand me my schedule?" I said, hoping that if I was extra polite perhaps she'd be a little less of a downer. Unfortunately, it seemed that my feeble attempt did nothing to change her mood in the slightest.

"Your name?" She said, looking bored and irritated that she had the displeasure of speaking with me. Quite frankly I was a bit offended at this. See, it wouldn't be that much of a problem for her to not know my name. Except for the fact that she had been my math teacher for the past three years. Had she not known my name this entire time? I guess she never really had called my name before.

"Oh, uh, yes of course. How silly of me. My name is Ashley Garza." I said, trying my best to keep up my happy mood. But honestly, it was difficult given how this entire conversation was going thus far.

"Oh. Another Ashley. Your parents weren't very original," she said without missing a beat before going back to search through the many schedules of other students. Although it was in alphabetical order by last name, it seemed that she was starting from the last names beginning with A. And she making her way down so painstakingly slow that it felt intentional.

Part of me just wanted to snatch up the schedule since I could clearly see my name peaking out from the 'G' category but I ignored the urge. Eventually, after what felt like forever, she handed over my schedule.

"Thank you," I said through clenched teeth, trying my best to keep a smile plastered on my face. Although this morning has been a bit of a buzzkill so far, I knew that my day was going to be great. And neither she or Jake could ruin that for me.

Glancing over my schedule, I headed over to one of the large red pillars at the front of the school. This had been the place and Hailey had been meeting each other before school every day since our freshman year.

There I saw Hailey waiting for me, she was wearing a nice pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Hailey has always been a lot more laidback when it came to school and at times I was a bit envious of it.

She looked over at me and gave me a sleepy smile. Even in such a tired state, it was obvious that she was gorgeous. Her curly hair was stunning and I loved how warm her chocolate brown eyes always looked. At one time, I had developed a crush on her. I had confided in her about it at one point after telling her I was bisexual. But, since she was straight she politely turned me down. Luckily things hadn't changed between us and we were able to move past it without any awkwardness.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Oh hey Ash, I was worried about you since you didn't text me or call this morning. But I know how important today is to you so I didn't want to disturb you in case this was part of your prep for the day. Is everything alright?" She said, there was a bit of concern in her eyes. And she was right. It was unusual for me to not call her when I was on the bus. It was part of our routine. And I was usually very methodical about everything. But Jake had completely thrown me off.

"Oh yeah, of course. Today is going to be an amazing day. I had a great morning but in all the excitement I must've forgotten," I said, looking back down at my schedule and not mentioning Jake. You see, there is one tiny detail I forgot to mention.

"Hey babe," I felt my jaw tighten a bit and looked up to see Jake holding onto Hailey and giving her a kiss that looked way too personal for me to be watching before she pulled away. Yeah. That's right. Jake and Hailey are a couple.

I had of course mentioned to her in the past that Jake was a jerk. But she seemed to get defensive about it so I stopped bringing it up altogether. I didn't want her to be mad at me, after all, she was my only friend. And I already knew how bad it hurt to lose a best friend, I wouldn't want it to happen again. Especially because of that jerk.

Besides, once he broke her heart, which unfortunately I'm sure he will, I'll still be there. I'll help her pick up the pieces and we can have another thing to bond over. Our hatred of Jake.

But until then, I have to keep my mouth shut about it. I'm not having our friendship fall apart for some guy, and definitely not over Jake. I can't lie though, seeing them together does sting. I tried my best to tune out their conversation as they spoke to each other, with constant giggles and whispers. It sickened me but I concentrated on looking at my schedule.

Everything seemed to be in order, all the classes I had requested I was now a part of. Unfortunately, I was aware of the fact that it was highly unlikely that me and Hailey would have a class together though.

I was taking AP courses and more advanced mathematics, while Hailey took the normal versions of the courses. I had tried to encourage her to try one out, but she wasn't super into the idea so I dropped it.

On the bright side though, I had requested to become part of the tutoring program. Since I had done so well academically I would be assigned to a student to help them achieve greatness.

I had been informed that as great as my application looked, it was an absolute must for me to have something a little extra to stand out. I had considered tutoring children, but to be honest I've never been that good with kids. So I decided what better way than a fellow high schooler?

Hopefully, I'd be paired with a freshman girl with whom I could see myself, one with whom I could help achieve her dreams. The warning bell that the first period was about to start sounded off, tearing me away from my thoughts.

"Hey, we're off to class Ash. Have a great day! I hope everything turns out the way you want it to!" I looked over at Hailey was gave me a friendly smile and grabbed her bag to head to class.

"Oh, you too! Bye, I'll see you at lunch!" I responded, and she started heading over to her first-period class with Jake in the opposite direction that I needed to go in. Because we had known we wouldn't get classes together, and Hailey had at the bare minimum agreed that we would both make absolutely sure that we both had B Lunch so we could be together.

The first period was a breeze and just consisted of my teacher going over the class syllabus. My teacher was incredibly lax and assured us that this year, at least in this particular class, that it wouldn't be a hard one.

The second period, however, was giving me a bit of anxiety as I headed over. You see, I'm not exactly an athletic person. And because of that, I hadn't yet completed the gym class requirement to graduate. I had always put it off as a problem for the next year. But now that I was a senior, I was kinda of just forced to deal with the problems I was avoiding.