Direct Approach

With Emma going off to find Sarah, it felt safe to assume that Jess would know exactly where to go look for Sarah as well, both of them being best friends until you had entered back into the picture.

Your face was probably the last one she wanted to see right now and as you moved to intercept her before she walked inside one of the school buildings, you could tell she was not happy to see you.

“What do you want?” She asked impatiently, looking for an opportunity to get past without having to spend any more time with you.

You could tell she wasn’t in the mood for distractions or tricks to get her to stay but you had been able to get her to pause before when you took a direct approach, standing straight in front of her and hoping it would work again.

“Look, I don’t know what has gone on between you and Sarah since we last spoke, but she has not been in a good mood this morning” you explained, seeing her expression falter.

“Oh, did she…” she started to ask before you stopped her, cutting her off as you held up your hands defensively.

“I don’t want to know. Whatever has been said, hasn’t been told to me and I shouldn’t even be getting involved. Just the way looked when you got here is not the right way of going about things unless you wanna make things worse. Trust me, I’ve repeated that mistake for a lot longer than you have” you continued, seeing her stop shifting her posture and calm herself down enough to consider your words.

“She won’t talk to me…” Jess quietly admitted, your regrets at getting involved only increasing.

“Then whatever you’ve been doing so far isn’t working so try something else. Or don’t try anything at all, just give her some space and let her talk to you when she’s ready” you responded, adding that last part to hopefully give Sarah some extra time to figure out whatever she wanted to do.

At that point, you had said your piece, and pushing your point any further was only going to annoy Jess and cause you more trouble than it was worth. You put your hands down and backed away, giving her space to get past you as you walked back to the quiet spot where you and Emma had been stood a minute ago.

You looked to see that a few eyes from the people stood around the entrance were lingering on you, wondering why you had gone up to one of the popular cheerleaders and even managed to give her advice without her screaming at you. You tried to ignore them and luckily, the bell rang shortly after and the attention was taken away from you, everyone rushing to their class and even you were **** to join back in with the crowd to make it in on time.

Your morning classes were going to be a bit of a chore to get through but you decided to do some actual studying while you had the time to yourself, sitting down at your usual desk and getting out your books for a few of your classes instead of just the one.

Your assumption that the first few classes of the day were going to drag on was definitely correct. All the teachers so far seemed to have given up and were just handing out sheets for you to revise from and when you had finished that, they didn’t seem to care what you did after that as long as you kept the noise below a certain level.

That wasn’t a problem for you when you lept to yourself and you were able to get some decent scores on the extra tests you were flying through and marking yourself afterwards, seeing a distinct improvement since you had got the intelligence upgrades and actually done some studying.

You also didn’t want to say all the teachers were like the ones you had today, knowing that the few good ones were still actively getting involved in teaching and going around helping the students leading up to the exam season instead of just sitting at their desks and passing the time.

Rebecca was one of the good ones even with your own biased opinion, in your last class with her she went over last minute notes and topics that seemed to cause people to struggle and even opening her office after hours.

Luckily you had been the only one to take her up on that offer other than Sarah that one time but she was making an effort to help which you considered admirable given everything her mother was to doing grind her down.

The bell had rang on your last lesson before lunch which had led you to this topic, wondering if you should go and see Rebecca even if you had made plans with Emma to go see her after school. Before you could make up your mind, you spotted Emma and Sarah already heading down the corridor in your direction.

“Just the man we were talking about” Emma announced as she got close enough for you to hear.

“Nothing bad I hope. I don’t want you talking to Sarah about what I get up to when you're not there” you joked back, getting a chuckle from Sarah.

“Like you don’t tell her everything anyway” she shot back, not knowing how correct that statement was.

The two of them continued joking at your expense as the corridor filled up with people leaving their classes before it thinned out, everyone rushing off to have their lunch as quickly as possible.

“I was thinking of going to see Miss Ryans while I’ve got the chance if you two want to have lunch together. Nothing like what your thinking but I did promise to help her with some test marking and I haven’t actually helped all that much with that so far” you admitted, knowing your time spent with her so far had been very different compared to your original deal.

“Sure we can hang out. Just promise to not get too tired with Rebecca until I’m there. But if you do, I want all the details” Emma replied, getting a light shove from Sarah at her last comment.

The push she gave Sarah was a lot less forceful than the one she usually gave you but her hands lingered on Emma's arm as if she wasn't willing to let go of her.

"I promise not to tire myself out" you stated, more for Sarah's concerns than Emma's.

Sarah had the idea to take Emma to the spot she had shown you under the trees so you parted ways, heading up to the next floor and towards the teachers’ offices. You were hoping to minimise the amount of time that any other teacher could see you but luck wasn't on your side this time.

The principal had decided to leave her office at just that moment and locked eyes with you as she did so, with no way of avoiding her now that you had come face to face. With her eyes still on you, she finished locking the door and headed in your direction, standing right in front of you at the top of the stairs.