TUESDAY, 3 DAYS BEFORE THE PRE-SPRING BREAK DANCE

With the pre-Spring Break Dance approaching ever so quickly, Todd entered the school on this fine day...with slightly mixed feelings.

Just yesterday, he witnessed an argument between Jenny and Maurecia, the latter of whom stormed off and rejected his new friend Mac in a harsh tone. All of this was prompted by revealing his feelings towards Jenny, who responded by...kissing him.

After that rather wild incident, neither him nor Jenny could deny at this point that the two were pretty much boyfriend and girlfriend at this point. Considering all the events between the two that had happened the previous few days, it was pretty much 100% confirmed the two were dating.

Todd was happy about the events of the previous days...almost all of them. "I have a girlfriend now..." he thought. He had gotten his first lip-to-lip kiss, too. The dance was only in a few days but he knew that if all went well, he and Jenny would probably be a thing up to the end of high school, and maybe even beyond that.

But at the same time, he couldn't help but think about Mac, and how Maurecia's harsh rejection of him must have severely hurt him emotionally. Whenever he saw Mac that day, it wasn't his usual, laid-back, chipper self. This time, Mac felt like a depressed wreck. And Todd thought Maurecia probably even didn't care about how badly she hurt someone.

Todd asked Mac if everything was okay and if he needed help with anything, but Mac insisted he would be fine. But Mac knew he wouldn't be fine...all he wanted now was to be left alone.

It was very apparent that Mac was feeling severely down, because he had a hard time concentrating on his work in any of classes. All he could think about is how the girl he crushed on rejected him...and not in a gentle manner, either. Mac's teachers will all very concerned about him, and asked him if he was feeling alright. Just like with Todd, Mac would insist he was feeling fine...but he wasn't. He didn't think he'd ever feel fine again.

And it wasn't just his concentration on work that was affected. It had affected his appetite as well. At lunch, Mac would normally eat a nice, good meal, but this time, he barely ate the apple his mother packed in his lunch, and nothing else. But the ordeal did make him feel very thirsty, so much that not only did he drink his juice box faster than normal, but he found himself repeatedly excusing himself to get drinks of water from the water fountain.

It was the end of the day, and Mac was heading out of the school into the parking lot, when Todd caught up to him.

"Hey, bud, hope you're feeling better..." said Todd sympathetically.

"Yeah...I guess I am...a little...so what are going to do when you get home?" asked Mac depressingly.

"Well, Jenny really wants to see this movie in the theaters with me, so that's where I'm going to be tonight." said Todd.

"Okay...well...take care I guess..." said Mac.

"Yeah, you too..." said Todd as he walked off.

Mac wasn't feeling right. He wasn't very hungry, but he was still incredibly thirsty...and down. He was very low energy, and he decided that he needed to drink something that will give him an energy boost. So he decided to go to a local coffee shop. He texted his mom that he was going to grab a coffee and that he'd be home by about 5:30.

Mac reached the coffee shop, and thankfully he found the line wasn't very long. He though to himself as soon as he got some caffeine in his body, he would at least be a little more high-energy, if still feeling somewhat depressed.

While waiting to place his order, he looked around the shop and noticed, at a table in the far right corner, two familiar faces from his old private school. The names of these boys were his friends, Calvin and Dameon, who still attended the private school he used to go to. He had befriended the two in an art class during 8th grade, and until Todd, they were his only two friends, and they used to hang out together regularly. The three still kept in contact with each other on Facebook, and Mac found these two to be his most trustworthy friends; as such, they were the only two he was willing to tell his original name, but they agreed to call him by new name.

Calvin was a boy with a big round face and who wore long pants and a short-sleeved coat. He was starting to grow a goatee, was about 5 ft. 10 in., and had a tattoo of a potato on his left ankle, which he got in 5th grade. Dameon was a young boy with hazel eyes, slightly taller than Calvin but not as tall as Mac, was growing a beard, and wore a checkered black-and-white long-sleeved shirt.

Mac had placed his order and received his coffee. He started walking over to where Calvin and Dameon were sitting when the two noticed him.

"Hey, Mac! Been a couple weeks since we saw each other! Come over here and sit with us!" exclaimed Calvin.

Mac walked over to his two friends' table, put down his coffee, which was nice and hot with a bit of cream and milk sprinkled in, and took his seat.

"Hey, guys...how are you doing?" Mac asked his two friends.

"It's been going really well, glad you asked!" Dameon said. "Me and Calvin have been working on a project in art together, and it's coming out real nice. How's your new school been?"

"Oh, it's been good...in general..." Mac said. He was still feeling low-energy, but then again he hadn't taken a sip of his coffee yet.

Calvin and Dameon didn't take long to notice that something was wrong with Mac. He wasn't the laid-back, chill boy they used to hang out with regularly. They knew something was up with their friend.

"Is there something wrong? You seem kinda down." asked Dameon.

These being his two closest friends, Mac felt a little more comfortable explaining his situation. He hoped they would stay close friends, even if they couldn't hang out as regularly as they used to due to Mac transferring schools.

"Well, I made friends with boy named Todd, who I helped get a date with this girl he really liked. There was this girl who liked Todd who I've taken a liking to now." Mac explained.

Just as Mac was starting to explain what had happened to him to Calvin and Dameon, unbeknownst to him, Maurecia, who was still in a crummy mood from everything she had to endure over the past couple days, had entered the shop. She was supposed to go straight home as that was part of her punishment, but she had made an agreement with her parents before she headed out of school to do tonight's dishes if she could at least stop by for something to eat, as she had still been feeling hungry even after having eaten lunch a few hours ago. Her parents thought about it, and eventually decided they would make this an exception this time around. Mac had never noticed Maurecia entered, as he was busy explaining his situation to his two friends. Thankfully, Maurecia hadn't overheard their conversation...yet.

"That's really rad, dude. He must be so thankful of you. And good on you for finding someone you like." said Dameon.

"Yeah, and I tried to ask her to this upcoming dance this Friday...but she was so upset about my friend Todd taking someone else to the dance that she...harshly rejected me..."

Maurecia had just gotten her food when she picked up on the words "Todd" and "rejected", and recognized the voice who had tried to ask her to the dance the day before.

"I'm sorry to hear that, dude...is that what's making you feel down today?" asked Calvin with a tone of sympathy for his friend.

"Yeah...and...and..." Mac, at this point, was starting to have tears form in his eyes. After a minute of stammering, he put his head down onto the table and began quietly crying.

"...I don't think I'll ever be fine again! I feel hopeless now!" he got out.

"Aw man, it's gonna be alright, it's just one dance...and I'm sure you'll find some other girl who probably would like you back." Dameon said as he tried to comfort his friend.

"...you don't understand! I wasn't just a minor crush, I really liked her, I thought she looked beautiful, and I thought she was nice, and I was hoping she would be willing to put aside her crush on Todd and go with me...but no! She was blinded by her love for that boy and rejected me in the worst way I could possibly imagine!" Mac exclaimed, his voice starting to get hysterical.

And unknown to the three, Maurecia had heard them, but she didn't want the three to notice her, so she went to the farthest table away from them, on the other side of the shop, behind the main counter. However, she could hear their conversation better in the girls' bathroom, for there was only a wall that separated it from Mac and his friends' table. And so he went into the bathroom to tune in into what they had to say...and she was shocked to discover that this boy had honest feelings for her.

"It's alright, dude...honestly, if she's going to do that to you, I'd say try to move on from her and find another girl." said Calvin.

"...but...I still harbor feelings for her and I don't know what to do..." cried Mac quietly.

"I'm not trying to make you feel worse or anything, I'm really not, but honestly, if she's going to let her love of this Todd boy blind her, regardless of who has feelings for who, I don't think she's worth your time. You deserve better than someone like her. You deserve a girl that will treat you with respect, and if by chance any other girl were to reject you, hopefully they won't be as rude as this girl." said Calvin.

"Yeah...I guess...but I honestly don't think I'll ever recover from this...my heart has been shattered into a million pieces, and I don't know if it can ever be repaired." said Mac, sniffling.

"Wow, he must have really liked this girl..." said Dameon.

Little did they know that Maurecia heard everything from inside the girls' bathroom. She herself was starting to get teary-eyed now. It was then she realized her obsessive love for Todd had ruined her life in a way that she herself didn't know if she could fix. She had gotten grounded, probably lost her friendship with Jenny, and rejected a boy who was just trying to kindly ask her the pre-Spring Break Dance and shattered his heart, all because her crush on Todd blinded her. She felt horribly guilty for everything she had done, and she thought whoever Mac was interacting with was right. So she ran out of the bathroom and out of the shop crying.

"Er, what was that?" Calvin asked. The three looked at the door to the shop, but by then Maurecia was long gone, and they hadn't even noticed her.

"...eh...must have been someone sad about...something I guess?" questioned Dameon.

Mac decided to take a few sips of his coffee, and after about a minute, he was starting to feel a little better.

"So is there anything outside of school you guys have been doing, before or after?" asked Mac. He still had a somewhat depressed tone to his voice, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

"Yeah, we signed up to help aid elementary school children about two weeks ago. They were looking for students from all across this area's high schools to help out at the the elementary schools. You know, be like teen CEAs. It's been going really well, actually, it's giving us nice credits towards our graduation." said Dameon. "We help from 7:30 AM-9:15 in the morning every Wednesdays and Fridays."

"What school are you guys helping at right now?" asked Mac.

"It's called Wayside School." said Calvin.

Mac had heard of that school. It was the school that Todd went to and told him about. "I've heard of that place, my new friend Todd said he went there for elementary school. How is it there?" Mac asked.

"It's weird, man...like, it's the weirdest school I've ever seen in my life. There's like 30 stories...well, 29 actually, because I don't remember seeing a 19th story, this weird lunch lady who makes this weird-looking gunk called Mushroom Surprise, an ice skating rink, no elevators for this tall of a building, and cows are everywhere!" exclaimed Calvin.

"Don't cows roam just about every school in this area?" asked Mac. He wasn't wrong. Even at this old private school, he would see cows walk around the halls. The only thing it made him think was that this area sure has a problem with cows.

"I don't remember..." said Calvin.

"Do you tutor multiple classes, or is there just one specific class you help tutor?" asked Mac.

"Right now we've been mainly helping out with the teacher on the top floor, Mrs. Jewls. I have to admit, she's really pretty-looking. It's too bad I can never be with her, she's probably married." said Dameon.

"Are the students well behaved?" asked Mac.

"For the most part, yes. There is this one student named Terrence though, who doesn't want to partake in anything in the class and has poor relationships with the other students. He's always getting his name put on this thing called the DISCIPLINE list, then later I see Mrs. Jewls put a check next to his name when he does something wrong again, and then he does something wrong AGAIN and Mrs. Jewls then circles his name, and he has to go home early on this kindergarten bus. I think he's supposed to be in 8th or 9th grade or something like that, but because he never does any work he's always getting held back." explained Calvin.

Mac swore he heard of this thing called the kindergarten bus from someone, but he couldn't put his finger on who told him about hit. "It might come back to me sometime." he thought to himself.

"Hey, our third student aid, Jason, texted me telling me he wasn't going to be able to make tomorrow because he had a doctor's appointment at 8:30. He said he's going to need someone to fill him in." said Dameon with his phone in his hand.

"Say...maybe you could fill in for Jason, Mac?" asked Calvin. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind, even if you didn't sign up. You're just going to be substitute. I'm sure helping out elementary school kids for an hour and a half wouldn't be so hard. But if you do agree, just watch out for Terrence."

Mac didn't think it was a bad idea. It would help him get his mind of Maurecia, he thought. After having drank half of his coffee by now, he was feeling a little more perky. "Yeah, I'm up to the idea." he said. "I'll ask my parents when I get home."

"Yeah, dude! We can finally hang out again! And maybe if you like it, you could sign up yourself and be a full helper!" said Calvin excitedly.

Mac didn't think it would be a bad idea. If he enjoyed the job, he could sign up to be a permanent member, he thought. It would be a good learning experience, and it would help him keep his mind away from Maurecia. And it did work with his schedule, as all the high schools started at 9:45 AM.

Mac decided to head out, and took his coffee with him. "Well, guys, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, totally! Take care!" said Dameon.

Mac didn't think being a temporary student aid would be some extraordinary exciting, but he thought it could be fun. But what he didn't know, was that there was something involving Wayside, Maurecia, Todd, and Jenny he didn't know about.