Addiction to a Natural Drug - Chapter 2

I slowly opened my eyes as I felt someone gently hitting me. I had fallen asleep in the car from the airport to our new house. “Where are we?” I asked my mom. “We just got off of the highway. We’re in Boca Raton now.” I looked out the window. Jesus, this was a huge change from the rolling Adirondack Mountains I was used to. There was nothing but offices, restaurants, and houses everywhere the eye could see.

“Mom, this is really ugly. Why do we have to live here?” I said angrily. Unfortunately, she played her favorite trick on me – ignoring whatever I asked. I hate when she does that. I might as well be an adult, so I feel like I should be informed of all family matters.

About ten minutes later, we arrived at our new home. The moving truck had completely blocked off the driveway, so we parked in front of the front lawn. Now what the hell were the architects of this neighborhood thinking? Every house looks the same, and they’re all uninspired. It’s almost as if city planners wanted another look-alike batch of houses to accommodate for the rapid population growth of their city. Goddamn.

My mom turned to me and said, “You should probably get settled into your bedroom.” I laughed and said back, “I will be exploring the neighborhood. I’ll be back in awhile.” I needed to familiarize myself with the new terrain and see who I could meet. I really didn’t want to start off high school as a total loner.

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I didn’t have to look far, luckily. A kid who looked to be around my age was shooting hoops by himself in his driveway, two houses down from mine. I walked up to him. He noticed me out of the corner of his eye, caught the ball off of a rebound, and said, “You must be the new kid in town.” I responded, “That’s me. Chester.” “Jeff.”

“So where do you go to school, Jeff?” “River.” “Yeah, that’s where I’m headed off to. How is it?” “Well, the girls are ugly if you don’t know where to look, but other than that it’s a great school. Much better than Olympic and Boca High. What grade will you be going into?” “Freshman. You?” “Same. I’ll introduce you to some of my friends, you can chill with us until you find better people.”

“Thanks,” I said. “So how are these local sporting teams? Is everything I heard about them right?” He answered, “Well, it depends. The Marlins have good years and bad years. They’re having a piss-poor year this time around. The Heat are generally sucky, but everyone loves them because of their recent championship. The Panthers have always sucked, but their games are fun to attend. And the Dolphins – well, whatever you’ve heard about them, it’s even worse than that.”

I smiled and said, “Thanks man. I’ve gotta get going now before my mom bitches me out for not organizing my new room.” “No problem,” he responded. As I walked back to my house, I shouted over the back of my shoulder, “I’ll see you at the bus stop next week.”

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Four days later, I received my school schedule in the mail. Hm, seven period day. First I had AP Environmental Science. Second was French 2. Third was HOPE, some banal and mandatory health/P.E. class that everybody had to take to graduate. Fourth – geometry honors. Fifth was AP Human Geography. Sixth – AP Biology. Apparently I’m the only freshman in the history of the school to take AP Bio. Shit. And finally, I ended the day with English Honors. What a day. How many freshmen take three AP classes? I hate being smart.

I put this up on my Facebook, which Jeff had encouraged me to create, using the Courses application. The program told me that Jeff also used it, so I clicked onto his profile. We had geometry and AP Human together. Sweet.

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Jeff had gotten a couple of his friends to add me on Facebook, so we started talking. I found out most of the running drama that was left over from eighth grade, who was cool, who was a douche, who was a loser, etc. I got the rundown on the girls (at least the ones that they knew from eighth grade). Overall, I was pretty happy that I could accomplish all of this in the week before school started.

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Finally, the first day of school was here. A day I had formerly dreaded was now a day that I was actually kind of happy about. Jeff was already at the bus stop when I got there. I nodded to him, which he returned. “Are you ready?” he asked. “I’m actually looking forward to it,” I said. “New school, new reputation.” He laughed at this.

“I still can’t believe that they’re letting you take AP Bio,” he said. “Yeah, neither can I,” I agreed. “My 8th grade science teacher told me that he spent twenty minutes on the phone saying that I was the most brilliant student he’d ever taught and that I could have gotten a 5 on the AP exam as an 8th grader.” “Damn,” Jeff said in shock. “Well, I hope you have fun when you lose your life. I’m going to be swamped with work just from taking one AP.” I smiled and said in a taunting manner, “I haven’t studied a day in my life. I have a true photographic memory. I could recite pages out of books on command, if you wanted me to.” He punched me in the arm and said, “You bastard.”

The bus came, and we got on. He led me to the back, where one of his other friends was sitting. “Eric, this is Chester. Chester, Eric.” I mouthed a “hey” to him before turning back to Jeff. He pointed in the direction of a girl sitting by herself a few rows up. “See her?” he asked. “Yeah, what about her?” I said. “I want to get with her really, really badly.” I smiled and immediately got up to sit next to her. I hate people who are too afraid to make basic moves. It appears that Jeff’s one of those people, so I’m going to make the move for him.

“Hey,” I said with a lightly cheerful voice. “What’s up?” “Uh, nothing,” she said. Apparently she wasn’t used to guys hitting on her who she didn’t know. “Do I know you?” “No. I’m new in Boca. I’m a friend of Jeff’s. Chester’s the name.” “Brianna.” “That’s a very pretty name.” She blushed and said, “Thanks.” I beckoned for Jeff to take the seat across from ours. The three of us spent the rest of the bus ride talking. I kept playing up to Jeff like any good wingman would do, and Brianna was eating all of it up.

However, I noticed that Brianna kept eyeing me whenever Jeff wasn’t paying attention. She occasionally touched my arm at certain times, too. Shit, she was into me instead of Jeff. She also moved closer to me at one point so our legs were touching, which was precisely where I thought, “I can have her.”