Chapter 4: Waking Up is Hard to Do

In an effort to make it easier to get out of bed, I had set my alarm clock to play a random song from a playlist of my favorites instead of an annoying buzzer. Although that makes the process more enjoyable, I'm still not exactly a morning person.

Nevertheless, I forced myself out of bed and blindly pulled clothes from my dresser. While I dressed, I consoled myself with the fact that the first day of school is all about learning the rules for the umpteenth time: I wouldn't have any homework.

I trudged, zombie-like, to the bathroom, and saw that Nicole was still asleep when I passed her room. For whatever reason, she sleeps like a male college student. Being that this was the first day of school, I had to wake her up. I shook off my drowsiness and took a flying leap onto her bed.

"Nicole, it's the first day of school! Aren't you excited?!"

"Fuck off!" She replied, attempting to dislodge me from the bed while desperately holding on to the covers.

"Not getting rid of me that easily!" I grinned as I threw the covers off of her.

"Aaron!" She shrieked.

"Don't wanna be late on the first day!" I said in an annoying sing-songy voice.

Nicole grumbled a lot, but she got up from her bed and shooed me out of the room so she could dress. I completed my usual morning routine and headed downstairs for breakfast.

"Morning!" My mom said cheerfully from the kitchen. I think she, like all of us, wanted to forget the events of the night before and had chosen to move on.

"Morning, mom. What's for breakfast?"

"Scrambled eggs and bacon."

"Awesome." I sat down to eat. Have I mentioned that my mom's a great cook? She is.

After Nicole and I finished breakfast, we said goodbye to mom and got in my car.

"What are we listening to today, MC Nicky?" I asked Nicole. Fortunately, we have very similar taste in music (despite her being a teenage girl, who usually have the worst taste in music), so we don't often argue about what to listen to.

"I'm thinking we roll up bumpin' some gangsta rap, dawg." She said.

"F'sho, homie." I handed her my phone to look for music.

Nicole plugged the auxiliary cable into my phone and started scrolling through my library of music. I was surprised when some stupid One Direction song started playing.

"The fuck?!" I yelped. "I do NOT own that song!"

Nicole laughed and put some other music on. When we were only a couple minutes away from school, one of my favorite songs came on: "Gimme the Loot" by the Notorious B.I.G., may he rest in peace.

I am proud to know all of the lyrics to this song, so I turned the volume up to disturbing-the-peace levels and lowered all the windows.

"My man Inf left a tec and a nine at my crib/ turned his self in he had to do a bid/ a one-to-three, he be home the end of '93/ I'm ready to get this paper G, you with me?" I rapped in time with the music.

After that, the lyrics contain a bunch of words that I'm not really supposed to say, but I did anyway. When we drove past the groups of students making their way in, many of them grinned and waved as they recognized us.

My antics are pretty well-known at my school, so no one usually takes offense. I parked the car and got out, taking a facetious and very pompous bow toward everyone who heard my grand entrance.

I made my way toward my friends and several of them started clapping. As more and more people joined in, I took several more bows, while Nicole did her best to look like she wasn't associated with me.

"Another douchey start to the year, eh, Aaron?" Jake remarked.

"Is there a better way?" I asked him as I gave Nicole a big hug to remind her that I was her brother and she couldn't escape my embarrassing actions.

"Yes, definitely. But you seem incapable of doing anything normally." He quipped.

"All of you fuckers love me." I said, pointing to each of my friends in turn.

After I enjoyed their exasperated looks for a little while, I said, "Best not be late!" and strode off to homeroom with Jake.

We found the room and sat in the back corner. Since we were a few minutes early, I decided to relax for a while; I pulled out my headphones and plugged them in as I put my feet up Jake's desk.

We watched the students file in one-by-one. After a couple minutes, Lana walked in. I waved to get her attention and she came over to sit next to Jake and I.

"Hey guys." She smiled somewhat nervously.

"Hey Lana." I pulled out an earbud to talk to her. "How's it going?"

"Alright. It took me forever to find this room. The numbering makes no sense."

"Eh, you'll get used to it."

Just after I finished speaking, my friend Mitch came over to our corner of the room.

"Hey Aaron, you wanna come to this party I'm throwing at the beach on Friday? There's gonna be a bonfire and shit. Should be fun."

"Your friends can come, too." He added, giving Lana a pretty conspicuous once-over. She was looking great in short jean shorts and a tank top.

"Thanks, Mitch, I'll see if I can come." I gave him a bro-handshake (there really needs to be a better word for that... ) and he walked back to his seat.

The bell rang and class began. Since my school runs on a block schedule, I prepared to endure an hour-and-a-half of learning when I'm allowed to chew gum, what violates the dress code, and a bunch of other boring rules.

Finally, the bell rang and saved me from my boredom. I flew out of the class so I could go to the bathroom. On my way out of the bathroom, a big guy with a bunch of tattoos slammed into me.

"Watch it." He snarled.

"Watch what?" I asked innocently, trying to diffuse the situation so I could avoid getting into a fight on the first day of school. That's always a bad omen.

" ... What?" His aggression evaporated and was quickly replaced by confusion.

"You said 'watch it', I was wondering what I was supposed to watch. Are you going to perform a magic trick?"

"Fuck off." He growled as his aggression quickly returned.

"Whatever, dude. I'm just disappointed that you're not going to do a trick." I walked away, shaking my head.

I walked to the next class, my mind already on lunch. I saw Ashton walking the same way as me a few feet ahead. After taking a moment to study at her yoga pants-covered posterior, I called out to her above the heads of the people in between us.

"Yo, Ash!"

She turned and looked around for a moment before seeing me. She smiled and stepped to the side, out of the endless flow of students, to wait for me.

"Hey, Aaron. What class are you going to?"

"English. Mr. Harrison." I replied as we started walking.

"Me too!" She replied.

"I guess that means you can cheat off of me this year." I grinned.

"I think that would lower my grade." She retorted.

I stuck my tongue out at her and smacked her butt. She hit me with her purse and blushed as she looked around to make sure that no one had seen.

We walked in to English and sat down. It went pretty much exactly the same as homeroom, so we were very thankful when the bell rang for lunch.

I met my friends outside and we began the usual argument over where to eat. Eventually, I got bored and decided for everyone.

"Mexican." I declared. "We're getting Mexican food, so everyone shut the hell up. Ok?"

Everyone begrudgingly agreed, so we drove to my friend Jorge's family's Mexican restaurant. We sat down, ordered, and got our food. A few minutes later, I finished my burrito, but everyone else was either still eating or full.

"You gonna eat that?" I asked Dre.

"Mm-- Yeff." He said through a mouthful of his own burrito.

"You gonna eat that?" I turned to Ashton.

"Ugh. No, I'm soo full..." She groaned.

"Thanks." I switched plates with her and started on her remaining tacos. After I finished, we threw some money on the table for a tip and got up to pay.

Mrs. Delgado, Jorge's mom, was at the cash register.

"Hola, señorita." I gave her my trademark half-smile. "You're looking as beautiful as ever." I always call her "señorita", which basically means "young woman", because Jorge's mom was a total MILF. I'm about 90% sure she was Miss Mexico.

I used to always tell Jorge that I had such impure thoughts about his mom, solely for the purpose of irritating him. (If you haven't figured this out by now, I like pushing people.)

"Such flattery, mijo." She responded in her soft, lilting accent, waving a hand as if to dismiss the praise. She teasingly calls me "mijo", which means "my son", because I used to hang out with Jorge so much that I was like another son to them. Jorge is in college at Oxford now, though, so I don't see him too often.

"How's Jorge?" I asked as I dug out my wallet.

"He's good. He is still planning to be a doctor. He just started his second year."

"That's great! Please tell him and Mr. Delgado that I said hi." We exchanged kisses on the cheeks, as always.

"I will, mijo. Good to see you again."

"Good to see you too, señora Delgado." I followed my friends out the door.

"Dude, why do you have to flirt with every woman or girl that you meet?" Adam asked me, only half-joking.

"I like to grant their wishes of being hit on by an incredibly charming and good-looking stranger." I answered, not really paying attention.

I walked over to my car and Ashton hopped in, as she had done on the way over. I started driving back to school. When we reached a red light, however, Ashton siezed me and pulled me in for a kiss. I was surprised, but I rolled with it and got caught up in the kiss until someone honked from behind us, alerting me that the light had changed.

I reluctantly broke off the kiss so I could drive as I quoted Albert Einstein. "'Any man who can drive safely and kiss a pretty girl simply isn't giving the kiss the attention it deserves.'" I've been known to spout random quotes and pieces of trivia, but they're not usually quite that relevant to the situation at hand.

Ashton sighed. "Fine, I'll ask. How do you know that?"

I shrugged. My brain absorbs information very well, especially unimportant information. Since there's no way I can really explain that to my friends, I don't even try to anymore.

"Sorry for ruining your post-kiss bliss." I said. "I know it can take a while to come down from the high created by kissing me. I suppose I'm like cocaine in that way."

"Oh, my god. You are such a narcissist it's surreal." Ashton had her face in her hands.

I smirked and kept driving. We arrived at school and headed off to PE. Although most people hate PE, I actually love it. Since most of the people in the class are very out-of-shape, I feel like an Olympian most of the time. The same goes for Jake and David, who are in my class, though they'd never say it because they're too "humble".