Chapter 2: Just Another Day In Temperance

Chapter 2: Just Another Day In Temperance

The Kitchen,144 W. Guthrie Road, The Quinn Residence, W. Main Highway, Temperance, South Dakota...

    A gentle breeze moved passed the traveling teen who found herself feeling a bit exhausted from the long walk, Layla as she moved down the highway toward the local bus stop was one of two that would finally get her to school. She held her book bag on one shoulder via the strap and did her very best to ignore the catcalls from the unseemly and aged grease monkeys that fixed up various cars in the old body shop located along her route to the bus stop. She hated being objectified by men old enough to be her father and then some and rolled her eyes as she moved. It wasn't all bad, she sometimes would envision one of the cars getting loose and smashing the offending bastards to death and leaving them in a pool of their blood and slick black car oil for laughs. Their annoying words were the very reason she often wore her gray sweatshirt even when it was sweltering outside. She was glad she brought it and sat patiently awaiting the arrival of the bus. She left home early enough to catch it and the waiting game would begin again once she reached her second stop. 

Layla had friends at school, a classmate named Derrick Shrouder who had been as interested in boys as the rest of their friends, Amy Moss and Casey Porter. They were a tight-knit little group since kindergarten with Derrick being the one that bosses them all around from day one as the three of them all stood clueless as to how adjusting to life among other children had been for them. He was the sweetest boy she had ever known but she knew there was sugar in his tank long before they split an apple juice. He often joked about it and how if he had not been interested in naked sweaty men then he might have given them a shot. 

Derrick was a run-of-the-mill geek boy with short-cut dark hair that he kept long enough for bangs close to his forehead due to having insecurity about his forehead size, and he wore thithin-framedasses and liked to dress casually with a variety of solid-colored polo shirts that buttoned up at the collar and khaki pants in various shades of grey, beige, tan, and navy blue. 

He was a big fan of anime and of course, his secret obsession was anything yaoi related. He was very skilled with computers and even worked his way up to A.P. classes in his first year of high school. He spent a good deal of time in the library when not being forced to join the sports teams due to his father having no idea about his sexual preference and his attempt to be a part of the team. Not many people knew that he was born to a blond-haired blue-eyed father with gruff features that sold cars for a living and a go-getter real estate broker of a mother who had been of Asian descent. 

He hated talking about his home life and humored his father by playing water and towel boy to quell the embarrassment of not being good at sports. He often joked that a bonus of being around a lot of sweaty jocks was that he could see what they were working on within the showers. 

Amy Moss was a new arrival, a typical redhead girl, whose hair appeared more orange given to freckles on her pale face and gray eyes that often fogged via allergy season and she easily got a stuffy nose when pollen got the better of her. She was much taller than most of the group and often was self-conscious about her increasing height. She had been from the Midwest and never liked talking about her life there. She seemed happy enough to come to Temperance and lived in a four-bedroom house on the main street with her father and three older brothers. Her mother died in childbirth shortly after she was born and she lived among boys her entire life roughhousing with them and wrestling for years. Her father was an insurance salesman and often did business with everyone in town when he wasn't on business trips that required him to travel. 

Amy was mostly shy, but Derrick often found a way to bring her out of her shell, especially when he told her about the blond-haired jock, Calvin Harris, whom she had a crush on taking various showers and how he looked beneath the water. 

Then there was Casey Porter, head cheerleader, and sister to Kerry Porter the captain of the football team. Casey was a lovely well shaped and talented blonde who had excellent skills in music and coordination. She could sprint and backflip with the best of them but often chose to hang out with her best buds from Kindergarten despite her apparent popularity and social status at school. No one dared make fun of Casey due to her appealing looks and that her infamous and very protective older brother would put you in a trash can for having the gall. 

Casey was always off at practice for something or another but looked forward to mostly being able to relax and eat a slice of pizza or two with her real friends now and again. 

Layla had something of a crush on Casey's brother, like all girls that went to the school but she had a thing for him before he became a handsome well-chiseled jock with rock-hard abs and a killer pearly white smile, and a rocket of a throwing arm. He was the first boy aside from Derrick to ever be nice to her and once when she dropped an ice cream in front of his house that her dad barely wanted to buy for her, he purchased one just like it and gave it to her.

Sometimes Layla wondered what it would have been like to be his girlfriend, but he was a Senior and well on his way to a wonderful life and football career he also had a cheerleader girlfriend named Heather Thompson and they were engaged to be married once they finished college. Heather wasn't exactly a nice girl, in fact, she had something of a reputation as a "teasing slut" among the boys at school, but she managed to get Casey's attention after some constant harassment and being fake nice to his little sister, who had thought her a horrible choice, but she let her brother live his life he was older than her after all.  

With a sigh, Layla turned her attention back to the oncoming bus that she could barely make out in the distance. She got to her feet and stood beneath the sign and waited knowing full well that after the second bus, she was in for it when she got to school as she had not been looking forward to first-period English class.

 Mr. Weller, the English teacher was as boring as it got in the way of teaching and often made his already drowsy students fall asleep in class.  

When the bus arrived, Layla climbed aboard showing her bus pass, and moved back toward the very end of the bus, not wishing to have to endure the constant glaring from the driver and other passengers.

 Once she was in her usual window seat, the doors closed and they were off moving down the open highway.