2 The Pact

HE WALKED UP to his locker and worked on the padlock before swinging the door open to take out two books, with the one on top being a History book and had a tag with the initials, J. F.

His locker door suddenly flew shut, missing his fingers as it slammed back to its hinges, causing him to react by dropping his books to the floor where he was met by a skull.

He gasped a little, taking a step back.

"Yo, Fowler! " a boy called from across the hall, "do you mind? "

Of course it was a fake skull.

The boy named Fowler grabbed the skull and lifted it to his face. The two dark holes for its eye orbits seemed to be staring back at him as he felt himself somehow drawn to its gaze.

"Boo!"

He gasped again, this time in embarrassment when the boy who had tossed the skull towards his locker suddenly appeared next to him.

"Very funny, Cole," he sighed and handed the skull back to him.

Fowler, Jake Fowler or Jake as most people at the school identified him(except for Cole—the deranged sicko who also happened to be the class clown who never called him by his first name) shook his head when someone called out his name.

"Did you drop this?"

Jake turned and instantly froze after seeing who it was.

"I...I..."

His whole face was turning red as Nicole stood there before him, waiting for his answer.

"I don't think there's another J F in our class...so... "

Nicole went on, adding a smile this time.

"Oh... right, " Jake quickly took the books from Nicole.

"You're welcome..." she added, all the while making Jake feel confused.

Jake was about to open his mouth but words failed him like the always did. He ended up nodding and smiling nervously.

A kid then yelled after he was supposedly hit in the face by a skull.

"Oookey...I guess I'll see you in class..." Nicole shrugged, her face lighting up with a smile as she turned to leave.

Jake still said nothing.

Fuck! 

He cursed, marking yet another day of being unable to overcome his fear of talking to girls and in particular—Nicole Parsons.

Sure, I can work out the Quantum theory in twelve seconds but I can't  make up even a word! Way to go, Jake!

The school bell went off, drowning his fucked up thoughts.

Towards the end of school, Jake met up with Matt and Gabriel—his high school friends whom he met back in Sophomore year, 2019.

"Mr. Dinkley's just full of shit!" began Matt, a fairly tall African-American and in this case, the same height as Jake, only more built than him.

"Language!" came Gabriel who was much shorter, probably the shortest kid in class.

Matt threw him a fuck off  look before getting back to his story.

" He called me after class and started pointing out how my grades in Biology were so bad..."

"So bad...?" Jake and Gabriel asked.

Matt sighed.

"Oh, alright, he said my grades were so terrible that they could kill you from just lookin' at them!"

Jake and Gabriel broke in short bursts of laughter.

"Nice," Matt added, eyeing them both, "you guys are real friends!"

"We're sorry, man," Jake responded, hiding away the rest of his mockery.

"Even my Bar Mitzvah  wasn't that bad," Gabriel added, still chuckling.

Oh, another thing about Gabriel. He is Jewish.

"Hey, J F, " came a girl's voice as the three turned to see Nicole brush past them with a group of girls, most of which giggled as they walked on.

"Have you talked to her?" Gabriel asked, kicking a small piece of rock across the sidewalk.

"Well, does her picking up my books for me count..."

"Dude!" Matt interrupted, "you still haven't talked to her!"

"Hey," Jake shot back defensively, "who have you been talking to lately, Casanova?"

"Oh, I don't talk..."

Both Jake and Gabriel muttered under their breath in annoyance.

"You guys still don't believe me. "

Apparently, the three had made a pact to get girlfriends(as silly as it may sound...oh, who are we kidding!...As silly as it is) by the second year of highschool and there was this one time Matt "manned up" and approached a senior girl. He ended up with a drenched shirt and it did not take Jake and Gabriel long enough to figure out what had happened or rather what didn't happen.

"Let's face it, we're never gonna go through with this," Gabriel added, sighing.

"We still have seven days before Halloween..." Jake said with a shrug and a slight agitation at the word 'Halloween'.

If there was one thing Jake hated more than his brother, it was Halloween. He just simply never understood how people could put on ridiculous costumes to celebrate such a ridiculous holiday!