Chapter 5

       Most people would rather leave school as soon as it ended, not wanting to stay in the building any longer but for me, I actually enjoyed staying at times. Most people left the school almost immediately so the only ones still in the school were those with after school activities or who simply wanted to hang out with their friends.

       Being inside the school with not too many people wasn't so bad, especially when I was staying with my friends.

       The cafeteria had round, folding tables that the janitor always set it up the period before lunch and put it away after lunch. Because of it, there was always a large available space after school, which was what I was currently using with Justin, Dalton, Amanda, Lenora, and Justin's younger brothers Tobias and Ethan.

       Tobias was currently helping Ethan with his homework while the rest of us were running through our routine for the dance class. Except for Justin. He was working on redoing his essay and he was clearly stressing out about it.

       Once we marked the routine once, I walked over to Justin and sat down beside him. "You doing okay?" 

       Justin sighed heavily. "No. I've never been this stressed about school before. People normally say grade twelve is the easiest year but it's not for me. There's this stupid essay, my hockey practice, dance practice, play practice. I haven't even remembered all the songs yet for the play this year."

       "Justin, you don't have to worry about a lot of those until you're actually at the practice," I said. "Right now, just focus on your essay, okay? How far did you get?"

       Justin gently pushed his laptop towards me where a document was opened. The only thing on there was his name in the top left corner, the date this was going to be due, and the period he had the class.

       That was it.

       "I don't know where to start," Justin said. "The teacher told me my ideas didn't flow well enough and some was written in the topic that I didn't even talked about and..." He groaned and rested his head against the table. "I give up. Might as well fail."

       "If you fail, you'll get kicked off the hockey team," I said. "Look, I have a trick that will at least help with the ideas and topics. Whenever I write an essay, I write the body paragraphs first. That way, I can just look back on what I wrote and add that to the introduction."

       "That sounds complicated."

       "It really isn't. And it will also help with your thesis. I always struggle with my thesis. Just work on the first paragraph and tell me if you need any help, okay?" I kissed his cheek before getting up and joining the others who were working on the dance routine.

       I hated watching Justin struggle with his homework and I wanted to help him a lot more but I couldn't tell him exactly what to write or what topics to write about. I had to let him figure it out himself but I would help him as much as I could.

       I continued practicing the dance but I couldn't really concentrate when Justin was still struggling with his essay so I walked over to him.

       He actually did get quite some work done. There were multiple grammar mistakes but they could be easily fixed once I explained it to him.

       In fact, he did finish one paragraph. "When is this due?" I asked.

       "Next Thursday," Justin said. "So I got... eight days."

       "I think that's enough for you to take a break right now," I said. "You won't have any practices over the weekend so you can work on majority of it then. I just don't want you feel too stressed."

        Justin did agree to taking a break. He saved the document and closed the laptop. "Can we work on running lines for the play of practice the songs? That's what I really need to work on."

       "Yeah, of course," I said. "I'm sure the others would love to." 

       Dalton, Lenora, Amanda, Tobias, and Ethan were all in this year's play as well so I called them over and asked if they wanted to run some lines and songs. They wanted to, especially Ethan. He said he needed a huge break from his homework.

       "There aren't any songs we're all in together, are they?" Amanda asked.

       "No, there isn't," I said. "We can always just choose one song and whoever isn't can fill in for the characters who aren't here. Justin just really needs to work on the songs he's part of."

       "Ooh, let's do There, Right There," Dalton said.

       "Why would you even suggest that one?" Lenora asked. "You're not even part of it."

       "I know and it sucks," Dalton said. "It's such a fun scene but no, I'm not part of it because I just got punched in the nose by someone." He glared at Lenora.

       Lenora rolled her eyes. "Hey, that's your fault. I was the one who was trying to pick up the stylus. You didn't have to try to when I was already bending down to get it."

       "Anyway," Amanda said. "I think we can do that song if Justin wants to."

       "I'm fine with doing any song I'm part of," Justin said. "I just need to try to remember the lyrics."

       "Sweet, I claim being Carlos," Dalton said. "The rest of you, fight it out to see who is who."

       "Well, Ethan is already Nikos," Tobias said. "I'm already Warner but I can do Professor Callahan's parts as well so Justin will only have to focus on Emmett's parts."

       "I can do Enid and Vivienne," Lenora said.

       "And I'll do Brooke," Amanda said. "And the judge has one line so I can do that as well."

       "Perfect," I said, taking my phone out of my backpack. "I have the music on my phone so I'll pull that up."

       I got the music playing for the song we were practicing for our school musical and soon enough, we were practicing that song. The more were practiced it, the less stressed Justin seemed, which didn't surprise me because this was such a fun musical to perform.

       We all had such a fun time practicing it, especially Dalton because he was such a comedian and made the put his heart into the part, even if it wasn't his actual role.

       While yes, it did get stressful at times trying to remember all our lines and songs, hopefully this was one practice that wouldn't put too much stress on Justin because he already had a lot going on.

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oof i updated this :O

i missed justin and lark <3 and i want ethan to be in here a lot more because he's such a bean <3

i almost didn't update today because my laptop wouldn't connect to the hotel's wifi and i was ready to cry. not really lol. but it did finally connect.