The Jesters Fool- Chapter 4

A Young Adult (Grades 10+11?) novel about Brooke Taylor a senior at a prestigious boarding high school

Senior move in day has finally come around. This morning, the sound of kids moving in woke me up before Lexis morning time One Direction had a chance to. The dorm halls are filled with the sounds of feet shuffling, boxes thumping, and parents reciting the same sorrowful goodbyes that they’ve been giving for years.

“I’m excited to see who our suitemates are.” Lexi has been floating throughout our bathroom all morning, trying to see if the door that connects the dorm next door to us will open or not.

“Have either of them shown up yet?” I ask her, pausing the youtube video I was watching.

“No,” She sighs, but then perks up as we hear a door creek open. “What if it's them!” She runs to the bathroom grinning, “It is!” She calls back to me, crossing through the bathroom into the room of the girls next door.

I close my laptop and follow Lexi to the next bedroom over. “Savannah!” I exclaim, wrapping my arms around the redhead's neck in a tight embrace. 

“I’ve missed you!” She matches my enthusiasm and hugs me with the same amount of fervor.

“Who's your roomie?” Lexi asks, deciding that there are enough boxes in the room for two people to reasonably be moving in there.

“I don’t know, she hasn’t shown up yet.” Savannah pouts, readjusting the charm on her necklace. 

“This is all your stuff?” Lexi asks, shocked, walking through the room and counting up the boxes again.

“One of the boxes is all the stuff for bible study.” She says, using her long acrylic nails to cut the tape off of one of the boxes.

“You’re running Timberline bible studies this year?” Lexi begins helping Savannah pull out some bibles from the box.

“Yep.” She grins, setting the red spined books on her desk. Timberline, along with being a prestigious private academy, is also very heavily ministry focused. We do host a student-led bible study every morning that's optional to attend, and a church service every Sunday during the school year that is mandatory for all students.

Most of us are involved with religious activities as little as physically possible�" preferring to spend our time with friends or on studying, but there are certain outliers like Savannah, who jumps at the idea of a Christian leadership activity. “You think girls are really gonna show up for bible study this year?” I ask, thinking back to last year when I went to one, and one only bible study, and besides Savannah and the leader�" her name was Maggie, or Madaline, or something like that�" there was nobody else in the room.

“Madaline wasn’t a great leader.” Savannah said, “She really struggled with making connections with the other girls and stuff.”

“You’re gonna be different?” Someone asks from the doorway. We turn to see Alexis- who prefers to be called Alex because it reflects more with her tomboy nature. 

“Oh my goodness, I missed you!” Savannah laughs, wrapping her arms around the girl. 

“Missed you more.” Alex grins, tucking her bright pink hair behind her ear.

“Their friends?” Lexi whispers to me, shocked, I laugh, nodding. “What a world, I thought they’d be at eachothers throats.” Although the red head decorated in crosses and often spotted wearing an ‘imago dei’ sweatshirt and the girl with bright pink hair who never managed to quite master the ‘modesty’ dress code didn’t look like they’d be friends, they were as close as could be.

“Most people do.” Savannah says, wrapping her arm around Alex’s shoulder. “I love my girl though.”

“You love everyone.” Alex counters, brushing her finger tip against the end of Savannah's nose.

“Jesus tells me to.” The four of us laugh, settling in on one of the beds, fighting each other for space.

“How was your summer?” I ask Alex, pointing to her pink hair and indicating that I want to know how her mother reacted to it.

Alex shrugs, “It was fine, I told my mom I was going to dye my hair black�" with box dye, if she didn’t let me see my friends this summer.” 

“And she was okay with pink?” Savannah asks, reaching up to tussle her friend's hair.

“Oh, absolutely not.” Alex's laugh comes out sharp, “I did this yesterday night when it was too late for her to stop me.”

“You’re so interesting.” Lexi says, sounding almost jealous, “I wish I could be as bold as you.”

“Ew, I hate talking about myself, can we change the conversation?” Alex asks almost self-consciously, pulling the hood of her jacket over her bright hair.

“Well,” Lexi laughs, shoving my shoulder, “Brooke here finally got her first kiss.”

“Who?” Savannah pounces on me with questions, her eyes wide with excitement.

I bite my lip before telling her, she’s been trying to set me up with Aaron since freshman year,  but he had never interested me before now. “You’re going to be proud to know,” I start dramatically, “I kissed, the one, the only�" Aaron Rashid.”

Savannah squeals, “Freaking finally!”
Alex gasps in fake shock, grasping onto Savannah's shoulder, “Thou shall not swear.” She reminds her friend solemnly. Savannah clasps her hand over her mouth, nodding.

“Tell God I’m sorry?” She asks, laughing.

Mine and Lexis phones both buzz at the same time and we look down to see a new group chat started by Marcus. We look up at each other and share a knowing look. He named it ‘I'll think of a funny name later’, I check to see who he all added, it’s me, Lex, Aaron, Thomas, his best friend Trent, and one of Aaron's friends from track named Blake.

A message from Marcus comes through:

Marcus: Meet in my room asap

Lexi bites her lip, concerned, looking up to Alex and Savannah, “Gotta go, girls, I’ll catch up with y'all later though.” She grabs my hand and pulls me off the bed with her. I wave goodbye to Alex and Sav and follow Lexi down our hallway. 

Me: What's up?

Trent: Missing you, that's all

Me: shut up, you hate me. 

Me: You complained about me all the time last year

Trent: Senior year. Putting my dislike for you behind me.

I show Lexi the messages as we walk down the stairs, she giggles, almost missing a step and falling. “There is something so weird about him.” She tucks her hair behind her ear after fully regaining her balance. “Anyways, his senior superlative is gonna be most likely to go to prison.”

“It’d be for some petty crime too.” I agree, but Lexi shakes her head solemnly.

“No way man, he’d totally get caught for murder.”

“You think he’s smart enough to pull off a murder?”

“No.” She sighs dramatically, “That's why he’d get caught.”

“Oh.” I laugh, knocking lightly on the door of Marcus’ dorm room. He pulls the door open, and the faces of Trent, Blake and Thomas greet us. Aaron has still yet to get here. To be honest he probably had his phone notifications off and has no idea that Marcus texted him. I pull out my phone, finding his name in my contacts and hitting dial.

Aaron answers on the first ring and I put him on speaker so the room can heckle him to get over to Marcus’ and Thomas’ room. “Sorry Brooke, just got the message, on my way over now.”

The boys pout, sad that they didn’t get an opportunity to harass their poor friend. Marcus, apparently feeling bold today, does so anyway, “Dude, get your butt down here, you’re so slow.” He whines, just as his dorm room door is pushed open and Aaron comes into the room. He smirks, hanging up my phone call.

“And to think I ran to get here faster.” He shakes his head, laughing and charging at his friend. Marcus makes a squawk of surprise and jumps up onto his bed.

“Hey! Hey!” He calls as Aaron grabs for his legs, “You can’t get me here, this is my safety.” 

Aaron jumps up on the bed with him and body slams him against the mattress, “Safety doesn’t exist when you start the fight.” 

“No fair.” Marcus whines, bringing his arms up to protect his head as Aaron snatches up his pillow and begins to bring it down on him.

“Nah man, seems totally fair to me.” Trent shrugs from the corner of the room, where he’s been trying to subtly glare at me.

I turn to make eye contact with him. The two of us had a thing freshman year. I don’t want to say we dated, because I feel like we were both too young to understand what dating was then, but we liked each other for a couple months. And, freshman year I had been a total theater kid, so was Trent�" but he never grew out of it. After our fall musical, he had asked me out, and at that time I started really devoting my time to soccer, so the idea of having a boyfriend in the stands cheering me on really appealed to me. However, we broke up like five months later for summer break, and instead of reconciling and getting back together, we had done everything in our power to avoid each other. Which was hard�" really hard�" because when I had befriended Marcus I had no idea that his best friend was Trent. One time, I had finally gotten Marcus to blow Trent off for a night so we could hang out and he confessed to me that Trent still had feelings for me and that's why he was such a jerk�" which means that senior year, he must finally be over me.

“Keep your eyes to yourself.” I laugh at him, sliding behind Lexi, and out of Trents line of sight.

“I was looking at your boyfriend, actually.” Trent laughs, blowing a kiss at Aaron, who catches it in the air and affectionately shoves it in his pocket, “What a catch.”

“I know.” I grin, stepping over to Aaron, wrapping my arm around his, “And you better keep your hands off.”
Trent gasps dramatically, looking appalled, “I have a girlfriend.” He argues, “I would never cheat on her with a stud like Aaron, he’s not quite as pretty as she is.”

“You started dating Megan?” Marcus asks, looking across the room to his best friend. Aaron slides off of the bed and wraps his arm around my shoulders, standing next to me. 

Trent shakes his head, “Nah, this chick named Emily.”

“Sounds like you’re very attached.” Blake finally speaks up, earning a laugh from Aaron. 

“I’m not. We’ve only dated two weeks and I’m already about to break up with her.”

Aaron wrinkles his brow, “How come?” 

Trent just looks at him and shrugs. “Can we talk about something else?” He asks, casting his glance to the floor, and staring down at his converse.

“Yeah man, sorry.” Aarons arm falls a little heavier against my shoulders, and I pull in closer to him. 

“So, why’d you call us all down here?” Lexi asks, breaking the sudden and awkwardly tense silence.

Marcus grins, “Does this not seem like it’d be the best friend group ever?” He asks, looking around the room. Lexi’s gaze follows his.

“There's only two girls.” She observes.

“And?”

“Never mind.” She sighs, deciding that the less girls that Thomas hangs around, the better it is for her.

“That's what I thought.” Marcus says, practically reading her mind as well as I can. Sometimes I hate the fact that the three of us know each other so well we can almost predict each other's thoughts. It's a little uncomfortable having two other people who hold full access over your mind. “Now, our first order of business is to think of a good name for the group chat.”

Trent groans, and begins heading to the door, “I stopped unpacking for this?” He asks, indignant that Marcus had wasted his time.

“Yes. This is very important.” Marcus’ hand shoots up as he stops his friend from making his way to the door.

“Fine.” Trent rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes, “‘The kids who never finished unpacking’. There, I gave my idea, can I leave now?” Marcus laughs and moves his arm away, allowing Trent to leave. When he gets to the dorm frame he turns and salutes to us, before pulling the door open and leaving.

“Who wants to give their idea next?” 

Aaron shifts beside me before biting his lip, contemplating whether he should say his idea or not. “‘The couples and Marcus’,” He grins as Marcus turns to playfully glare at him.

“You got a girl and didn’t tell me?” He asks, turning to look at Blake, who grins and holds up his wrist revealing a bright pink pura vida bracelet. Marcus nods, impressed. “Fine, I’ll take your idea into consideration.” He moves his eyes to me for an uncomfortable second, an unreadable expression temporarily crossing his face, before I speak.

“I think it should be ‘the real housewives of Timberline Prep.’”

Everyone sighs, shaking their heads, “That's horrendous.” Lexi says, wrinkling up her nose.

“Do you have a better name?” I ask, stepping to her and squaring my shoulders.

Lexi shudders in mock fear, before taking off her dainty gold hoops and handing them to Thomas, “Hold my hoops.” She pats his back, stepping to me with a grin, “It should be called, ‘the chamber of secrets.’” 

“That's worse than Brooke's idea.” Thomas says, shoving her earrings back into her hand, shaking his head disappointedly.

“Is that from Harry Potter?” Marcus asked, shocked and more than a little astonished.

“Yeah. There's a snake in it.” 

“How is that relevant?” Marcus asks, even more lost than before.

Lexi whips her head to look at me, “Because this little snake right here doesn’t support my group chat name ideas.”

I hold my arms up, defensively, “I didn’t even say anything!” I cry as she grabs the pillow that Aaron was previously using to beat Marcus, and she turns my boyfriend's weapon of choice on me.

“You didn’t say you loved it though.” She wines, cornering me against the edge of Marcus’ bed, and I fall against it.

“Guys,” I exclaim, gasping for breath between bursts of laughter, “I think Lexi's idea is great, why not go with it?” 

“If it’ll save you I suppose we have to.” Thomas laughs, grabbing Lexi around her waist and pulling her off of me. She shrieks, still swinging the pillow wildly.

Marcus jumps between the two of us, taking the force of the pillow. Lexi screams in grief as she hits him across the face. His hand flies to his forehead and he falls down, struck by the killing blow of his own pillow. “Marcus! No!” I scream, dropping to my knees before him, pretending to give him CPR.

Lexi has her face buried in Thomas’ chest, “I killed him.” She whispers over and over again, her voice muffled in the fabric of Thomas’ shirt. He pats her back awkwardly, still not used to the over the top demonstrations that were so common for the three of us.

Aaron gets the act right away, and pulls Lexi away from her boyfriend. He holds her arms behind her back, “You’re under arrest, ma’am.” He informs her solemnly.

“Officer, aren’t you gonna read me my rights?” She asks, struggling to break free from his strong grasp.

Aaron goes still for a moment, thinking, “No.” He sighs, “The station no longer enforces the officers to know them.” 

Lexi begins to laugh, and the scene is broken, Marcus sits up slowly, holding his head for real now. “I hit my head on my bed on my way down.” He complains, twining his fingers through his hair.

“Poor baby.” Blake coos. I had forgotten he was in here. He’d just been sitting there, observing. I feel like he feels like he’s intruding on us�" on our friend group. But he and Aaron are so close, and from what I know about him from the classes we’ve had together, he’s a total sweetheart.

“He only gets worse from here.” I call to Blake, as Aaron wraps his arm around my shoulders once again, and begins to lead me to the door. “I’ll catch the rest of you guys later.” I add, before the two of us leave the room.

Aaron and I don’t make it a few steps down the hallway before my phone buzzes with another notification from the group chat: *Marcus has changed name of ‘(i’ll think of a funny name later)’ to ‘The Chamber of Secrets’*

Trent: ew.

Trent: Is this some kind of homage to Harry Potter?

Thomas: yes.

I laugh, and explain the messages to Aaron, before powering my phone off and shoving it into my back pocket. Something that I really appreciate about Aaron is that he is so�" connected, not by always being on his phone, but by how real he is. He’s always available to talk to me, because he’s never caught up scrolling on social media during our conversations.

“Where are we going?” I ask as he leads me out of the dorm building and into the bright light of a post-storm afternoon in Minnesota.

“Coffee shop.” He says, glancing over at me, “You look great today, by the way.” 

I blush, remembering the baggy jeans and black cropped shirt I threw on this morning. Then, also realizing that I let my hair dry naturally today, I tuck one of the curls behind my ear. “I didn’t think we’d be going out today.” I try to explain my less than desirable appearance.

“Don’t be stupid, you look cute, and your curls suit you, you should wear your hair like that more often.”

“Are you serious?” I find it hard to believe him, but I do appreciate the flattery.

“Absolutely.” He grins, tugging on one of the coils, watching it straighten for a moment before he lets go and it springs back up into its previous messy curl. 

He drops his one arm from around my shoulder and reaches down to hold my hand instead. We walk like that for a while, in silence, until we leave the border of Timbreline campus and begin to make our way down the sidewalks of downtown Ely.

“How far are we going?” I ask, following him past a park with a comically large bronze statue and flower gardens right next to it. The sign in front of the garden read ‘Biergarten’, fitting, seeing as how German this city was. 

“Just another block or two�" or four.” He shrugs, biting the inside of his cheek, trying to remember the exact distance.

“In a town this small, it shouldn’t be too far.” I laugh, and we go back to our walking in silence. Not uncomfortable, unwelcome silence, but also not the peaceful, warm silence�" just silence, with no particular emotion behind it. Something between us fails to click. We were fine, talking like two people who had known each other for their entire lives literally yesterday, so why was there a lull in conversation now?

When we get to the shop he pulls the door open for me, and wrapping his arm around its usual resting place�" my shoulders, we place our orders and find a seat that is yet to be taken. Aaron is sitting at a leather chair, and I perch myself on the footrest that's several inches away. “Do you want to trade spots?” Aaron asks me, casting a glance towards me and then over to a vacant chair directly beside him.

“No, I like it here.” I shrug, “Besides, I can look at you while I talk this way.”

“I have an order for Aaron,” A barista calls from behind the bar, I move to get up but Aaron grabs my arm, holding me in place, “I’ll go grab them.” He smiles, before walking up to the counter and thanking the staff for making our drinks.

“Thanks.” I grin up at him as he hands me my cup. It smells strongly of sickly sweet caramel, and I bring it to my lips, greedy for a sip of the overwhelming sugar.

Aaron ordered himself a black coffee and I saw him add one pack of the fake yellow sugar�" Splenda, or something, to it. He wrinkles up his nose as I take another drink of mine, “I can smell the caramel from here,” He laughs. I shove the cup at his face, holding the cover tantalizingly close to his lips. He shakes his head politely and pushes my hand away from his face.

“It tastes good this way.” I shrug, taking another sip. We fall back into silence. I appreciate it, but I can tell that it's making Aaron fidget slightly, peeling at the edge of his cardboard cup.

“So,” He starts, taking a minute to decide what it actually is that he's trying to say, “What's your life like�" outside of school.”
I look at him for a second, “I guess, it's better.” I go quiet again, but Aarons waiting look prompts me to elaborate on my vague answer, “My mom cooks great food, and I wake up early in the mornings to run, and I don’t have to follow a dress code or anything. What about you, what’s your out of school life like?”
“I have a bigger family, so I almost get more privacy in my dorm room than I do at my own house. And Briannas kinda annoying most of the time, and Mackenzie runs into my room and kicks her soccer ball against my wall�" it drives me crazy.” I giggle before he continues on, “My parents are pretty chill though, they let me go to parties and stuff, and let me leave the house basically whenever I want to.”

“Your family sounds so sweet.” I try to imagine living a life like that, with siblings, and parents that care about how I feel. Mom’s great, but mentally she’s not all there, ever since her younger sister died when I was ten, she hasn’t really recovered. And dad could care less about our family, he only stays with mom due to some parental obligation he feels towards me, otherwise he would have been out the door the second that mom's mental health fell.

“Yeah, they’re great.” Aaron agrees, setting down his now empty coffee cup. I take a final sip of mine, setting it down besides his. “You wanna go now?” He asks, grabbing our cups and leaning over the back of his seat to reach the garbage can. 

“Um, yeah, sure.” I stand up from my footstool-chair and follow him out the door, tucking my curls behind my ears. Aaron and I walk back down the street again, only this time he doesn’t keep his arm wrapped safely around me.

We’re almost back to Timberline when Aaron finally speaks again, his voice holding an awkward tension. “I really like you Brooke, but I don’t- I don’t think we’re right for eachother.” My heart drops to my stomach and I try my best to keep my face composed, not wanting to cry in front of him.

“Oh.” I half whisper, I can feel my face burning with the shame of rejection. “Did I do something wrong?” I almost don’t want to know the answer.

“No-” Aaron blurts out, “No, of course not.” He rubs his hands across his eyes, trying to figure out what to say next- or how to say it. “It’s just, I can’t handle the silence between us.” He hates the silence that I love so much? “It makes me feel like you aren’t interested in me.”

“Aaron, it’s not like that at all.” I try to explain, jumbling my words in my desperation. “I guess I just get kind of nervous around you�" don’t know what to say.”
“We’re not freshmen!” He exclaims, stopping in his tracks and turning to me, “We should be mature enough to feel comfortable around each other.”

“I’ve only had like half a boyfriend before!” I bite back in my defense. “And, when we’re with other people, I’m fine… It’s just adjusting to one on one time with a guy that likes me… It’s hard. And I swear, I swear, that I will get over it, and I’ll be a great girlfriend.”

Aaron shakes his head, “I just think we’re not meant to be.” I look to the ground to hide the tears that are slowly leaking from the corners of my eyes. I follow Aaron after a few awkward seconds to put some distance between the two of us, I walk a few steps behind Aaron, the rest of the way to Timberline and into the dorm building. 

I run, as fast as I can up the stairs to the girls floor. Halfway to my room, my eyes are so clouded by tears that I don’t notice as I run head on into Thomas. He stumbles back a few steps, but then steadies himself, wrapping his arms around me awkwardly.

“You okay Brooke?” He asks, leading me to mine and Lexis dorm. He knocks lightly on the door, and Lexi quickly opens it, pleasant surprise filling her face when she sees that Thomas is back, but then her expression quickly falls as she sees me crying in his arms.

“Oh babes, what's wrong?” Stealing me from her boyfriend's arms and hugging me to her chest. I hunch over, trying to rest my head on the short girl's shoulder. “I’ve got it from here Thomas, thanks.” She says, before closing the door, and leading me over to my bed. 

We sit up on the edge together, her arms around me. I don’t feel sad over the fact that my shortest relationship to date has already ended. I feel ashamed that Aaron doesn’t think that I’m mature enough to be in a relationship. “He broke up with me, Lex.” I mutter.

“Did your real first date go that badly?” She asks, incredulous. 

“Harsh.” I laugh between my tears, “And I thought it went great.”

“I’m sorry babes.” Lexi runs her fingers through my short hair, “On the bright side you’re so hot, you could have any of the boys at our school on their knees for you. Aaron probably could barely get a girl on the chess team.”

“Stop it, you know he’s hot.”
“I thought he was when he liked you,” She smiles, handing me a tissue, “But now that he ended things I’m noticing how ugly he really is.”

“Is that how you cope with breakups?” I ask, thinking back to all the insults that she had about her last boyfriend after they broke up.

“Absolutely.” She confirms my theory, “After Zach and I broke up last year I just kept telling myself how stupid and ugly he was�" soon enough I started to believe it. I was completely over him in like three weeks.”

“Me and Aaron were together three days,” I smile, dragging the kleenex down my face, and wiping away my tears. “With your tricks, I’m sure I’ll be over him in a day or two.”
“Atta girl!” Lexi laughs, hugging me again, “And until then, I’m completely here for you.”