Skipping in the Shade [Open]

[Jamison Dubois]

He was supposed to be in Geometry class right now, but trying to find the circumference of a circle this close to the end of the year sounded basically impossible. Plus it was way too fucking early. Normally, if Jamie was going to skip his morning classes he’d use this time to catch up on beauty sleep, but the humidity had roused him up and he’d been awake ever since.

His room had been hot and sticky thanks to this weather. Jamie liked summer, but it literally came overnight this year, the temperature raising from in the 60’s to fucking 90 degrees in what seemed like the barely 24 hours. He hated the humidity, but he supposed it was better than the shitty winter they’d had. But he’d fled his room this morning and found solace in the shade, underneath one of the big, leafy trees behind the track.

Jamie had his back leaned up against the rough trunk, a cigarette hanging out of his lips and his legs stretched out in front of him, as he scrolled through his phone. The wifi sucked out here so he couldn’t stream anything online, so he settled for swiping through other people’s shitty Instagram, his music playing loudly through his headphones.

He wasn’t even worried about what he was missing in Geometry. It was almost the end of the year anyway. And who actually did schoolwork right before summer break?

[Cianna "Cici" Rivers]

Cici looked outside longingly. It was such good weather today, and she was stuck indoors. She was in her Art class, but had already finished the assigned work, given that it was one of the few classes she actually liked. So now, she was just sitting here, daydreaming about going outside and relaxing in the sun. It was a rather chill class today, with students just working on their own thing and the teacher at his desk lost in what looked like grading. How fun.

Glancing outside once again, she made her choice, and stood up with her satchel slung around her body. Walking up to the teacher, she gave him a smile. "'Scuse me, can I please go t' the bathr'm?" She asked sweetly, and smiled even wider when her teacher nodded with a distracted smile in reply. Practically skipping out of the classroom, Cici turned in the opposite direction of the bathroom, to where she knew would take her outside. She had no intention of going back to class, and knew that her teacher probably wouldn't even notice that she hadn't returned. As she stepped outside she smiled at the heat that welcomed er, and shut her eyes for a second, turning her head to the sun and enjoying the warmth. She absolutely loved hot weather! Deciding to go somewhere far away, out of sight of the window to her art classroom, Cici headed, no destination in mind.

On the way, she pulled her large headphones out of her bag and slipped them on, connecting the bluetooth on her phone to them and flicking through songs until she found a nice one. Come Clarity by In Flames, a beautiful song that she had recently learnt how to play on the guitar. Sighing, in contentment, she looked up as she arrived at the tracks. Squinting in the sunlight, she saw someone else leaning against a tree and decided to go make a new friend. They looked vaguely familiar, although she didn't the boy, and she pulled out her phone to pause her music as she approached him, headphones getting pushed down to hang around her neck. "Wha, class get too borin' for you too?" She asked softly, a friendly smile on her face and New Zealand accent quite present.



Outfit

[Jamison Dubois]

Jamie had been very content sitting in the shade of his tree, not a care in the world. And then someone had to come and interrupt him. He glanced up from his phone at his intruder, and was relieved to find that she was a student and not some teacher who had come to bust him for skipping class and smoking. Then again, this girl could and might still bust him for smoking and skipping class. You never knew who the snitches were.

She didn’t look familiar…well, maybe she did. Honestly, Jamie didn’t pay too much attention to anyone outside his friend group. There was a very good chance he’d seen her before, probably even more than once, but if they’d never talked and if she didn’t do anything memorable there was a very low chance that she’d stick out in his memory.

He pulled his headphones out of his ears when her lips started to move, only really catching the last few words of her question. People were always telling him that his music was too loud; most people could probably hear it if they were standing a few feet away from him. Jamie really didn’t give a fuck about what anyone else thought about his music, even if he was constantly asking people to repeat themselves or even just ignoring them all together if he couldn’t hear them.

But he’d done this dance enough times to assume the gist of her question. He removed the cigarette from his lips, blowing the smoke out before answering. “Class is always boring.” He said, “Not like we're actually learnin’ anything now anyway.” He didn’t even know why they were required to be in class at the end of the year.

[Cianna "Cici" Rivers]

For the first time, Cici noticed the cigarette in the boy's mouth. Not the she minded it; the girl didn't smoke, but smokers didn't bother her, and she found herself momentarily distracted by the smoke as it left the person's lips. It swirled prettily. Blinking as she heard the boy talk, she turned her attention back to him. Smiling in amusement, she tilted her head to the side absent mindedly. "True, but sometimes s' OK, 'f you have a cool pm out 'n' it's an all good subject."

At the boy's next words, Cici couldn't find any argument to that, and laughed softly, nodding. "T' be honest," she said in agreement. Looking at the earphones he'd removed, she asked curiously, "So who ya listenin' to?" The short girl was always happy to talk about music, and sometimes tried to guess by looking at people. Looking at the boy, she wondered what he listened to. Maybe rap or something cruisy, considering the smoke and wagging class, but she could have been totally wrong. After all, she didn't look like she listened to metal, and yet it was blasting through her headphones constantly.

Glancing at the boy, she gestured to the ground a few feet away from him, and asked, "D'ya mind if I sit?" She didn't want to just sit in case he wanted to be alone, and yet she would rather sit than just stand around if she was going to talk to him, as that was a bit more awkward.

[Jamison Dubois]

This girl talked funny. He noticed it the more their conversation carried on. Not surprising; Hammel takes all kinds from all different parts of the world. A lot of people told him that he talked funny when he first got here. But with his infrequent trips home, he sort of just adopted the New England accent over the last couple of years.

“Nah.” He waved off her comment. Class was never fun and the subjects were never good. “Way too much work.” Jamie hated doing any type of work. Classwork, homework, yard work...really just anything that had the word work in it just instantly put him off. He preferred to just relax.

He glanced down at his phone. “Up All Night” flashed across and the Blink 182 album cover for “Neighborhoods” was pictured on the lock screen. “Blink.” He replied, taking another drag of his cigarette before snubbing the remainder out of it on the tree that was behind him. “You?” He nodded toward her headphones.

“Go ahead.” He motioned to the grass in front of him. He didn’t own the field, and he usually didn’t mind company...so long as they didn’t attract the attention of unwanted faculty members. That would definitely be a bummer. Especially since Jamie was already on his fifth detention for the month.

[Cianna "Cici" Rivers]

Smiling at his denial, Cici simply shrugged. Some people didn't like some things, and she supposed it was fair enough. Although she still couldn't help but disagree that some subjects could be fun, she didn't bother reiterating her opinion; it didn't really matter, and after all, she didn't want to annoy the boy before her. 

Interested as he said Blink, the short girl thought for a moment. They were a punk rock type band, she knew. She had only heard a couple of their songs, an didn't really know them, but they seemed nice enough. She also realized her initial impression of the boy's music taste had been totally wrong- and with his taste in music, the smoke, and the wagging class, her mind was putting him into the 'rebellious punk' type, but she tried to squash that part down and not try to...categorize him.

"Chur." She said in acknowledgement. "They're pretty skuxx, ye?" She said, using the New Zealand slang involuntarily when trying to say she thought they were cool. 

At his own question, she replied, "Come Clarity by In Flames. D'you know them?" She would have been more surprised if he did than if he didn't as most people she encountered didn't, but she still asked in the hope that she had found another person that liked the same music as her. She always did.

At his invitation, Cici smiled and took a place across from and slid her bag off, then dumped it on the ground beside her. Crossing her legs, she looked at the boy curiously. "So wha's your name? I'm Cici."