Choices(Waiting for Forever BK 1) by Jamie Mayfield Page A

dozen assorted friends. Derrick Kennedy and John Kurtz were across from us, talking about some video game they were going to get after school. Kurtz’s girlfriend Tara was steadfastly ignoring him in some kind of girlish pout because she wasn’t invited on their boys’ night out. She was flipping through some flashy teen magazine with the latest heartthrob of the week splashed across the front. She sat next to me in math, and the guy on the cover distracted me all through class with his full pouty lips and big green eyes. I had only stopped looking at the cover when Jamie caught my eye and smirked.
    “Hey Mayfield, you want to head over to Northridge Mall with us after school for a while?” Kennedy asked Jamie. After glancing up at them once, I pretended to study my mystery-meat sandwich. Kennedy wasn’t talking to me. It was generally understood, by me and by them, that I was just Jamie’s little tagalong geek friend. I wasn’t one of the popular kids; I was just the throwaway foster kid, though that had never mattered to Jamie. In fact, he’d told me that was one of the things that made me special, the fact that I never took anything for granted.
    “Can Brian come?” Jamie asked casually. They knew as well as I did that his answer would depend on theirs. If they said no, so would he. Kennedy looked at me for a minute, and I saw the effort it took him not to sigh before he agreed.
    “Sure, we’ll meet you out front after last bell. My mom let me take the car, so we can go straight from here,” he said. Jamie and I threw our garbage in the bin and tossed our trays up on the belt for the lunch ladies to get.
    “Do you want to go to the mall after school?” Jamie asked me as we headed to our lockers to get our books for our next class.
    “You already told them we’d go, so why are you asking me now?” I asked, a little frustrated at being an afterthought. I reached my locker with him lagging several steps behind and tossed the books for our next two classes into my bag along with folders and notebooks. Just for good measure, so I wouldn’t have to look up at him, I made sure I had pens and pencils as well.
    “Because if you want to do something else, I’ll brush them off,” he replied, lowering his voice as a couple of girls passed. “Come on, a couple more weeks until we’re done this year, and then we’ll be seniors, and then we’ll be gone. Once we’re in college, we can start over and be who we want to be. It will be a new beginning for us. We just have to get out of here first.” I was surprised by his casual optimism. So, rather than argue, I just agreed to meet him in front of the school after the last bell.
    The rest of the school day passed surprisingly quickly. We were gearing up for final exams and final projects, so the teachers were pretty relentless during classes. More work and constant talk of making sure we passed to get to senior year made our minds focus more and wander less. By the end of the day, the mall seemed like a pretty good diversion.
    “Ready to go?” he asked with that soft, sweet smile, the one that made my heart race.
    “Yeah, are we just leaving our books in Derrick’s car?” I asked. Not really having any friends other than Jamie, sometimes I felt left out: like a shadow standing next to him, a flat, two-dimensional representation of a boy not really good enough to—
    “Hey, whatever you’re thinking, just stop,” Jamie said sternly, and I looked up from my shoes. “We don’t have to stay with those guys the whole time. I just want to hang out with you. Okay?”
    Wishing we could have just been alone, I nodded and glanced up the hall to see a couple of younger girls walking past. Jamie was one of the popular kids, and he didn’t understand what it was like to be forced on people who didn’t want him around. My entire life had been like that, until Jamie. Jamie wanted me, but he’d also been friends with guys like John and Derrick since kindergarten. I