by Roxie Spears
“Well, what do you think causes this?”
“I don’t know, instinct?” she shrugged.
“So what you’re saying is that competitiveness is pure animal instinct? Like the law of the jungle?”
Jasmin nodded yes.
“So it’s not, say, a product of a capitalist society?”
Jasmin didn’t respond. The truth was that she couldn’t wrap her head around what Ms. Maggy was saying most of the time. Suddenly Tina’s hand shot up in the air. Jasmin smiled. If anything she was glad her friend was having a good time.
“We can never really know unless we dig deeper,” Tina said, her eyes lighting up. She seemed pretty proud of herself.
“Exactly!” Ms. Maggy said, mirroring her student’s enthusiasm. “We can never really know unless we dig deeper, and that’s where us, sociologists come in!”
Jasmin tried to stay focused, she really did, but just like every time, Ms. Maggy’s lecturing became no different than the humming of the AC. She wondered how everyone was so invested, and if anything was wrong with her for feeling differently about Ms. Maggy’s analytical ways. For a class of highschool students, everyone was pretty quiet.
When Jasmin finally snapped out of her trance, she realized that Tina was still talking. If it was one class that Jasmin actually enjoyed, it was physics class.
“Exactly, which brings me to my next point!” Ms. Maggy stopped, her eyes snapping sideways. The door had opened, and through it came a blond guy wearing a plain red hoodie. His clothes were the first thing that Jasmin noticed about him; baggy and skater-like, she couldn’t help but admire his style.
Mrs. Thomas, the school principal, followed him into class, interrupting the flow of Ms. Maggy’s relentless lecturing. “Class, I’d like to introduce you to Kyle, he’s new.”
“Yo, Kyle,” someone said from the back of the class. There was a collective giggle, one that brought a smile to Jasmin’s face. The class’ embrace wasn’t the only thing that made her grin, though. The new guy had managed to capture her attention for reasons that were totally obscure to her. Kyle was skinny, sad-looking and far from her type.
“Hello, Kyle,” Ms. Maggy said, her pearly teeth showing through her smile. “I’m Ms. Magdeleine and this is Sociology 101.”
He mirrored a rather weaker version of her smile, making a beeline for the seat next to Jasmin. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks, automatically straightening herself and pretending to flip through her notebook. She crossed one leg over the other and tilted her face in the other direction. Kyle was present in her periphery now, sinking slightly in his chair, arms folded across his chest.
“Hello,” he said faintly before reaching into his backpack and pulling out the wrong textbook. Jasmin resisted the urge to daydream again, even though this time it was justified. Tina glanced at her from across the room, but it was fleeting and negligible. Jasmin, too, thought she should take notes. Even though she never really listened to Colt, this time she thought he might be right.
The lesson carried on just like any other, except maybe Jasmin was more invested this time. Kyle, too, was engaging in an aggressive session of notetaking. Perhaps he was mirroring the two girls, and perhaps he was just intelligent like that. Jasmin hoped it was the latter. She loved a smart guy, or at least someone that would fit into her own juvenile interpretation of intellect. Kyle seemed to fit the profile, with his curious sparkly eyes and pen collection. Jasmin knew this because, every once in a while she would reach into her bag, using that as an excuse to glance up at him.
The class passed by like a breeze, eventually coming to an end more gracefully than what Jasmin was used to.
“I can’t believe it, we haven’t had a new guy in three years!” Tina said, the silver of her eyes flaring up as she stuffed her face with broccoli. Jasmin nodded, leaning across the table, smiling from ear to ear.
The pair enjoyed their lunchtime gossip more than anything. But for months on end, there was really nothing to gossip about. Jasmin bit into her burger, scanning the cafeteria with her eyes. Besides Tina, she really had no friends. The friends usually sat right in the middle, watching the people go by, gawking at them like watchbirds. Jasmin’s eyes fished for the new kid, but eventually grew bored and averted her gaze to a sad looking hotdog sitting on her plate.
“He seems… interesting,” Tina said, waving to a girl standing by the nugget station. “Hey, Velma!”
“Hey!”
Tina’s smile quickly faded with that brief encounter. Even though she seemed to have more of a social life than Jasmin, those so-called friends meant little more to her than hallway conversations and mutually beneficial note exchanges. “Oh, wait! I think I see him,” she popped up in her seat, eyes lighting up like fireworks.
Jasmin quickly turned around, her gaze instantly landing on Kyle, who had just strolled into the cafeteria. Hands in his pockets, he walked around with the aimlessness of a new kid. He was wearing an orange beanie now, one that clearly clashed with the rest of his outfit. All in all, though, he seemed to have a liking for baggy clothes. “Oh, God,” Jasmin said, turning back around, sinking slightly in her chair. “You think he saw me looking his way?”
“Probably did. I mean, you weren’t being very subtle about it,” Tina said with a raised eyebrow. Unlike Jasmin, she sat there with the confidence of a Hollywood actress, brushing through her curly hair, twirling it around her fingers. Jasmin applauded her for this, but she wasn’t nearly as gutsy. “Hey!”
Jasmin froze. Suddenly Tina was calling Kyle to their table. “What the hell are you doing?” she whispered with her back to him. Her stomach was in knots.
“Too late, he’s already coming our way.” Tina was half-smiling; she had stopped playing with her hair by now. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Kyle said, hesitating for a moment before placing his tray on their table. They seemed inviting enough, and so he slumped down on the chair next to Jasmin’s. “So, how are you guys doing?”
Jasmin couldn’t help but grin. Kyle was probably just as awkward and ill-fitting as she was. “I’m Jasmin, and this is Tina,” she finally managed to say. Her friend’s eyes glittered, almost like she was proud of her. “So, you’re new to Fieldstone High?”
“Yeah, I saw you guys back in class,” his thumb pointed in a vague direction. “You seemed very intrigued and you were…”
“Melting with boredom, yes,” Jasmin shrugged. Kyle snickered quietly, almost inaudibly.
“Well, sociology happened to be my least favorite class back in my old school,” he smirked, biting into a chicken nugget. His eyes darted to Tina, whose face dulled with disappointment. “But it was only because our teacher was eighty and weird.”
“Well, Ms. Maggy happens to be quite young, but she’s definitely weird,” Jasmin said. “I imagine she has twenty cats.”
“And wears fancy nightgowns instead of pyjamas.”
“For some reason, that makes perfect sense.”
The pair exchanged brief, yet lingering glances before shifting their attention to their plates. “Well, I don’t know about you guys,” Tina said, holding a box of orange juice. “But I love Ms. Maggy’s class. She’s just so… smart.”
“Well, I’ll let you guys know what I think three weeks into school, so stay tuned.”
Kyle was funny. Jasmin thought he was exactly her kind of guy, but she refrained from thoughts like these for now. She was far from a social butterfly, thinking that Kyle would surely lose interest as soon as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch hour.
“So, where were you before you came here?” Tina asked. She had started twirling her hair around her finger again, something that she often did when she got nervous.
“Boston, I went to Fenway High.”
“So you’re a city kid!”
“I am,” he beamed, averting his gaze to Tina’s, turning his body slightly towards her. “It’s pretty quiet here, I don’t know how I’m gonna make it.”
“You like the noise?�
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“I just like crowds. I like how busy it is over there. Here it’s just a bit…”
“Dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we’re used to that kind of solitude here, I guess.”
“So what’s your idea of a fun Friday night?”
“I don’t know, go to the park, sit by the lake or something?”
“When we’re feeling really adventurous, we like to have bonfires,” Jasmin scoffed. Kyle chuckled, their gazes meeting only momentarily. Jasmin felt that rush; was that what it felt like to get butterflies?
“Well tell us, Kyle, what’s your idea of a fun Friday night?” Tina asked, propped up on her elbow.
“House parties, and going to the park.”
“Woah.”
Jasmin must’ve zoned out, because all she could hear was white noise from the cafeteria. The line at the burger station had grown longer and more discouraging than ever. Meanwhile, Kyle and Tina were still talking, and she had somehow faded into the background. All she could do was study the new kid, swallowing his presence at their table like it was the freshest thing she’d encountered in a while.
It wasn’t long before he was up on his feet, getting ready to leave. “Well, I’ll see you guys in class?” he said, flashing them a perfect row of teeth.
The girls nodded and said their goodbyes. As always, Jasmin couldn’t wait to get home.
They normally biked back. The wind pushed them forward as they pedaled aggressively, their calves growing tired and the tips of their noses cold. Despite that, they still managed to hold a conversation.
“So he’s cute, huh?” Tina yelled into the void of an open road.
“He is, he really is,” Jasmin replied. “I like his smile.”
“Somebody’s smitten!”
“I’m not really smitten, just… intrigued.”
“Fair enough, I mean, his life is probably way more exciting than ours.”
“Did you hear, he goes to house parties!”
“Come on, we have those here, too,” Tina moaned.
“But they’re probably not as great,” Jasmin insisted. “Here is just… boring.”
“I think I prefer the quiet, to be honest. I like this,” Tina waved her hand in a wide, sweeping motion, signaling towards the lake. “I would pick this over the city anytime.”
“I wouldn’t,” Jasmin shook her head, squinting in the wind. “It’s too dull here. I wish I lived in the city, everything must be so exciting there.”
“I’ve been to New York a couple of times. It’s not that great. Just a lot of people and street food.”
“Sounds pretty fun, if you ask me.”
When Jasmin got home, she couldn’t stop wondering about Kyle. With that bleached blond hair and honest smile, he had managed to reel her in without even intending to. She found it endearing. The truth was that she couldn’t wait to see him again, although she refrained from thinking about him a little too much. Heartbreak was something she really wasn’t up for. For now, she just had to settle for lonely lunches in the cafeteria, her friendship with Tina and jam sandwiches with Colt.
Chapter 3
Colt pulled over in front of Fieldstone High. He must’ve sat in the car for what felt like hours, trying to gather his thoughts. He only visited Jasmin’s teachers every once in a while, and when he did he usually felt awkward. When he was young, he was homeschooled. His parents had chosen to shelter him because they didn’t think he would fit in with the other kids. Years later he wondered if that was the right choice, but he often warded off these thoughts because they were unproductive. Dwelling in the past, he thought, was unproductive.
The weather was getting colder, and so he had no choice but to get moving. As Colt entered through the parting doors, he felt his body warm up. With his arms wrapped around himself he made his way up to Jasmin’s class, where Ms. Maggy was sitting. He had scheduled an appointment to talk about Jasmin’s progress, one that he very much dreaded.
He imagined Ms. Maggy to be an old, plump woman, and what he saw struck him. A beautiful, curly haired woman sat at the desk, reading a book. She swiveled in her chair, looking pretty much absorbed, not picking her eyes off the page. It wasn’t long, though, before she noticed his presence.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you Mr. Bane?” she asked, staring at him through big black eyes.
“Yeah,” he pursed his lips, scanning the classroom, which was well decorated with world maps.
“Please, have a seat,” she said, gesturing towards one of many chairs. He hesitated for a moment, considering his options. Eventually he slumped down on the nearest chair to her desk. She, too, sat back down, letting her eyes linger on that final line at the bottom of the page before setting her book aside. “So, you’re here to talk about Jasmin,” she said, clasping her hands together. Ms. Maggy had a pretty intense stare. She had thick eyebrows and long lashes, which were accentuated with mascara and some kajal. She wore big, bright, colorful earrings that extended down to the nape of her neck. She seemed like quite the character, and far from Colt’s type. And yet, he found her to be quite beautiful.
“Yes, I am,” he said, trying to suppress a smile. “I just… wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Well, let me just start off by telling you that Jasmin is one of the most intelligent people in my class, she just doesn’t know it.”
“Let me guess, that’s what you tell every frustrated parent that comes in to talk about their flunking child?” Colt was far from an eloquent man, and he realized that quite well. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, realizing that he had rubbed the starry-eyed teacher the wrong way. She cocked her head to the side and squinted, like she didn’t know what to say. “Sorry, I’m not a great speaker,” was all he could say.
“That’s okay, and how do you expect her to believe in herself if you don’t?” The silence weighed down on them. “Now, what’s Jasmin like at home?” Maggy asked, changing the subject.
“Pretty closed off. We have a lot of problems,” he said, not making eye contact. He realized that talking to strangers about his strained relationship with his niece wasn’t really his cup of tea. “She doesn’t really open up to me, and I don’t expect her to.”
“Why not?”
He paused for a moment, hesitating. Did he really want to get into that right now? Even though typically he would have excused himself by now, there was something bizarrely inviting about Ms. Maggy’s presence, and it kept him going. She unclasped her hands and let them rest on her lap. She was confident and peaceful looking, beautifully neutral, unjudging. If anything, Maggy looked like a trained therapist, someone who knew what they were doing.
“Well, sometimes I feel like she hates me because, in a way, she feels like I’m trying to replace her mother.”
“And her mother is?”
“Dead, quite a long time ago,” he said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s alright. She and I have been living together ever since, but she doesn’t like me that much. I mean, sure, she helps around the house, we have breakfast together. We watch TV sometimes. But she doesn’t really tell me anything. Come to think of it, I don’t know much about her.”
“And what is it that you would like to know?”
“I’d like to know if she likes me, for starters. I’d like to know if she does drugs.”
Ms. Maggy’s face changed, almost like she was judging him. Even though he was aware he wasn’t the most well-versed man in the world, Colt felt only moderately embarrassed. The truth was that he knew nothing about parenting a sixteen year old. As much as he hated to admit it, he was pretty lost, his niece hated him and he had no idea what teenage girls liked.
“Well, it’s pretty alarming to me that you don’t know anything about your daughter’s life.”
Colt didn’t correct her.
“Maybe that’s why she’s acting up? You see, Jasmin is never going to put in the effort if she feels… unsupervised.”
&
nbsp; “Unsupervised? Don’t teenagers hate feeling like there’s an adult breathing down their neck?”
Maggy’s lips curved to a half-smile, almost like she felt sorry that he was so foolish. “No, every child needs support and supervision. You need to watch her, but not suffocate her. You need to support, but also guide. Parenting is tricky, because you’re constantly trying to find that middle ground. Every small thing can tip the balance, and then suddenly you’re the bad guy.”
“Exactly, exactly!” Colt said, his eyes lighting up. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Are you a mom?”
“No,” Maggy replied, meeting his expectations.
“Then how do you know all of this?”
“I’m a teacher, aren’t I? It’s kind of the same thing,” she smiled. “Well, not exactly, but I’m involved in a lot of the emotional stuff, too.”
“I can imagine,” Colt nodded, crossing one leg over the other. He saw that Maggy was a kind, beautiful woman; she made him feel safe. “So, do you know anything about Jasmin?”
“Well, it’s not really my place to know stuff about her, but I can tell she doesn’t have that many friends. She has that one friend that she always hangs out with, though.”
“Oh,” Colt mumbled, his gaze falling to the floor. His thumbs chased each other, like he didn’t know what to say. “Tina?”
Maggy’s eyes glittered again. “Yeah, Tina. Tina’s one of my best students. I feel like she could be a good influence on Jasmin.”
“Not really. They fight all the time. It’s almost like she always tries to… pull Jasmin out of the house, get her to go out a lot. When she’s away, I know she’s with her.”
“And have you tried talking to her about that?” Maggy asked, cocking her head to the side. It was getting late, but Colt was enjoying his morning with this woman, mostly because she was articulate and smooth and easy to talk to. She was relaxed and loved to smile, strands of curly hair falling over her eyes as she spoke to him.
“I really haven’t,” Colt admitted. “I don’t talk to her a lot, which is probably why she is the way she is. And why she isn’t doing very well in school.”
