Biker Class (19 page)

Not to mention the fact that if it got around, she'd be dead.
Literally. Jake would see to it.

"Melanie?" Rachel said, a little worried that she hadn't
answered after so long. Especially when Melanie had gotten a distant, almost
dreamy look in her eyes, she knew that she was remembering something that had happened.

Rachel's best friend's head suddenly snapped in her direction.

"I... I just know," she finally said certainly, her hair
blowing back behind her.

"What happened, Melanie?" she whispered, her voice full of
curiosity and wonder. She knew how cautious her friend was, so if she was so
sure, than she wanted to know what convinced her of that. If Melanie was
staring off into space, than it was big. And she wanted to know.

"I can't tell you," she replied apologetically. Her voice
was quiet.

"What... did you guys—but... why can't you tell me about
it? Melanie, I don't care what happened, you know that you can tell me
anything, right?"

The confusion in Rachel's voice made Melanie feel even worse.

"I know that," she sighed, running a hand through her
wind-blown hair. "It's just... Rachel, you have to understand, it's not
my
secret to tell."

Her friend smiled softly, nodding. She spoke gently. "I
understand. You told him that you wouldn't tell anyone, and you're keeping your
promise. I can respect that." Rachel smiled, taking a happy lick of her
chocolate ice cream. "Don't let your guard down. You're so nice, Melanie."
She frowned. "You're too nice for your own good. And I'm just scared that
he's going to take advantage of that."

That statement really seemed to hit her in the gut. Part of
her—the part that knew there was a different guy somewhere inside of
him—didn't believe that he would stoop that low. But the other side of
her—the side that couldn't forget his dark eyes that she feared more than
almost anything else—knew that he wasn't all good, and she needed to make
sure that she always kept that in mind. Jake had goodness inside of him, but Melanie
needed to make sure that she got all of that part out before she let her guard
down.

"I know."

They were both silent, listening to the distant laughter of tourists
and other people enjoying the sunlit beach and the swelling of the waves.

"C'mon," Rachel motioned, beginning to walk again, but
backwards so that she faced Melanie. "Let's go." Melanie walked at
her left side. "Let's talk about something else."

"You know what?"

"What?"

Suddenly, Melanie grabbed Rachel's wrist, smirking. It was her left
hand, the one holding her ice cream. With a wild giggle, she forced the ice
cream upwards and squished it to Rachel's nose. Rachel stood there, leaning
over to keep the ice cream from dripping onto her sundress, incredulous. She
wiped her nose furiously. Her eyes snapped up to Melanie, full of childish
mischief. She eyed her best friend's cup of orange yogurt, and before they knew
it, Melanie was racing down the shoreline as fast as she could, a laughing
Rachel close behind.

"Come on, Melanie! I am
so
gonna get you back!"

Melanie's lips formed a large 'O' as she yawned, her eyes threatening
to close and not open again for a couple of hours. She leaned her forehead
against the cold metal lockers, disagreeing with her tired skin. She sighed
heavily,
the tapered bangs hanging down flying against the
metal with her exhale. She had gotten absolutely
no sleep
the night
before. Melanie clearly remembered lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling,
begging the good Lord that she would be able to sleep. The next day had been
Monday, and she had just returned from yet another beach trip with Rachel (one
that had been completely void of any talk of Jake, thankfully), and she was
having a great day.

Then the second she had gotten to bed, the room seemed to grow
darker... less relaxing. Her once sleepy eyes were suddenly alert and wide. She
watched the reflection of the light outside her window through her blinds and
shadowed to her ceiling. Her ears were peeled for any noise of any
kind,
she could even swear that she might have heard a car
pass on the distant road. Was this what insomnia was like? Wanting so badly to
sleep, but not able no matter how hard one tried?

This wasn't normal for her; this wasn't natural. She was
Melanie Hart
:
always punctual, always smiling,
always
sticking to a
day-by-day routine. Melanie had never had trouble getting to sleep besides when
she was ill, so what was this? And why was that passing by car sound morphing
to the sound of a motorcycle?

As Melanie opened her locker in a sickeningly slow way, she stared at
the back of it blankly. She didn't think she'd ever been so tired in her entire
life. This was insane. Melanie was always bubbly and energy-
filled,
so this was like... like... her evil twin! What the crap? Seriously!

"Hey."

Melanie's eyes turned slowly towards the voice, but the surprise she
felt didn't stay long before it was overtaken by sleepiness. Melanie turned her
eyes back towards the back of her locker, and before she knew it, she was
leaning into it, her head hidden inside of the metal box.

"Hey," she mumbled, voice muffled inside the metal box. Melanie
could almost feel his eyes staring at her questioningly.

"Someone—"

"Is a little out of it, yeah," Melanie finished for him. She
could feel him lean against the outside locker door beside her own.

"I thought that you were always Miss Happy-Go-Lucky-Bouncing-Around-Goody-Goody...
all that stuff."

"I couldn't sleep at all last night!" she groaned angrily,
voice echoing in the metal.

"You gonna be up to tutoring me Wednesday?"

"Hopefully," she muttered. Melanie was refusing to take her
head out of her locker, for more than one reason. 1) She was tired and the cold
metal felt good. 2) This wasn't half bad!
Actually kind of
comfortable.
3) She wearing close to no makeup, and for some reason, Melanie
wasn't comfortable letting him see her.

"Hey," he said suddenly, seriously, and his tone was
serious,
more quiet
.

"Hmm?" she asked, not moving, arms limp. Her fists clenched
uncomfortably as she felt a hand on her middle back.

"Uhm," he whispered, looking at his nervous fingers,
"thanks for, uh, you know... the whole—" he looked around for
any eavesdroppers, lowering his voice to a whisper "—not telling
anyone about my... um... little 'secret'." Melanie smiled inside her
locker. "It actually... it actually was sorta nice—you know, doing
that again. I hadn't done it in, who knows, almost three years."

"Sure," she said sweetly, grinning broadly (not that he
could see). "Anytime."

"You
haven't
told anyone, have you?" he said
suddenly, wondering why she was hiding her face.

"No! No, of course not," Melanie replied swiftly. "It's
not like I'd go put it in the newspaper. Do I look like the kind of person who
would do something like that?"

"Well, I don't know, I can't see your face," he said,
somewhat jokingly. Melanie sighed.

"Couldn't sleep last night."

"Why?"

"No clue."

"Melanie," he said suddenly, serious again, "I need to
talk to you about something else, too."

She prayed that it wasn't something that would be awkward, or
perverted in any way. Wincing, she asked, "Yeah?"

"Are you taking the SAT workshop?"

"Yeah, of course I am. I'm taking all of the help I can get! You
are, too, right?"

"Uh..." he mumbled.

"Jake!" she scolded. "Why not? I told you that you
needed all of the help you could get when it comes to this stuff! Heck, if
I
need help so do you! Why in the world didn't you sign up?"

"Because..." he shrugged, "it'd take time and effort
and
..
. I don't know... it slipped my mind."

"C'mon, go sign up!" she told him.

"Oh, come on, I want to see your face when I'm talking to
you," Jake suddenly told her, grabbing her elbow and pulling her back,
revealing a tired face and disheveled hair. He hid his rude surprise and bit
his tongue. Melanie looked down uncomfortably but kept her voice strong.

"You need to go sign up, Jake!"

Melanie practically pushed him to the nearby bulletin board. Jake
sighed reluctantly as his hand took the pen hanging on a piece of string. His
hand paused, and Melanie looked up to his face. It was obvious that he would
rather be doing anything but this, wincing and all, but he closed his eyes
tightly with a deep groan and opened them again, staring at the sheet. His eyes
were full of something else now, a conflict almost. He didn't want to do it,
but it looked as if he had an unfortunate reason or a cause.

He must not want to do it, but he knows that he has to if he wants to
get anywhere in life
, she decided, watching as he slowly signed his
name.

Little did she know that she was nowhere
close.

***

That Wednesday…

"So, since the root of prokaryotic and eukaryotic comes from the
Greek word 'Karyose' meaning 'kernel', it is referring to the small size of
grain. And since 'pro' means 'before' and 'eu' means 'true' or 'good',
pro
karyotic
means...?"

"I don't know, Melanie!"

"Come on, Jake, we've gone over this," she sighed, running a
hand through her hair.

"Yeah, once," he rolled his eyes.

"
Five
times, actually," she corrected him, holding
her tongue for further comments she wanted to make. "I know you have this,
Jake. Come on, what's the answer?" She looked at him expectantly.

He held her eyes and she held his confused ones, then he finally said,
very slowly, "I. Don't. Know."

"So,
pro
karyotic means 'before a nucleus' and
eu
karyotic
means 'possessing a true nucleus'. Jake, you know this is ninth grade stuff
here."

"Then why am I learning it?" he demanded.

"Because if you know what these words mean, it will help with a
little trick I'm going to teach you to help you remember how DNA and RNA is
formed inside of them!" she told him. "Remember that Guanine,
Cytosine, Adenine, and Thymine are the four base pairs of DNA. Adenine can only
pair with Thymine and Guanine can only pair with Cytosine. So, after Thymine
and Adenine pair, uracil forms. So, naturally—"

"Melanie!" he shouted suddenly, taking her aback
momentarily. "I don't understand a word you're saying. You lost me at
'remember'."

"
Jake—
!"

Growl
.

They both were silent, pausing from their ruckus to look around. What
was that noise? When they heard nothing more after a few seconds, Melanie
turned back to him.

"Like I was telling you, it's—"

Growl
.

They were both silent again, looking around Melanie's bedroom,
curious.

"What is that?" Melanie wondered aloud, looking out of her
window. "It sounds like something growling."

"I don't know," Jake shrugged, getting up and looking underneath
her bed. "Maybe it's your little bitch of a dog."

"Jake!"

"What?" he asked innocently, still sitting on his knees
beside her bed with hands
risen
innocently in the air.
"'Bitch' is a the term used for a female dog. I wasn't cussing."

"But
he
's not a female dog," she scowled, eyes
narrowed. Jake smirked.

"Exactly."

Growl. Gurgle
.

"
What
is that?" Melanie cried, whipping around in all
directions. Jake opened his mouth to say something, but she quickly interrupted
before he could speak. "And it's
not
Lucky
!
He isn't in here."

Jake got back up and sat down on the edge of her bed again, lying back
nonchalantly with his hands folded behind his head. "Hm. I don't know
then."

Gurgle. Growl.

Melanie's eyes squinted as she looked at Jake. "It
..
.
it
sounded less like a growl
that time and more like a—"
gurgle
"—stomach." Melanie's eyes lit up as they drifted down to the
middle of his shirt. Jake's head snapped down and then back up. His eyebrows
were raised in surprise. Melanie smirked with arms folded. "Looks like
it's not my dog who's the..." she refused to curse "... B-word."
She finished with an unsure, smug nod.

He glared at her before looking back down to his loud stomach.
Growl
.
It was louder and longer this time.

"What the hell?" Jake frowned.

"I think someone's a little hungry," Melanie laughed,
walking towards her bedroom doorway.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to get us some snacks!" she smiled brilliantly,
turning the corner before he and his self-reliant attitude had time to object.

Melanie was
back
about three minutes later
carrying a big plate. As she sat down, Jake saw that it was nothing but a lot
of cheese nips. He
rose
his eyebrows in a picky way,
but when his tummy made another unpleasant, almost angry sound, he didn't think
twice when he reached out for one.

"I know it's just some cheese crackers," Melanie shrugged,
embarrassed, "but I'm addicted."

Jake couldn't help but notice how different they were right at that
moment. It described them perfectly. The sweet little goody-two-shoes virgin
from Wisconsin was addicted to
cheese crackers
, and he, the bad biker
boy from California, was addicted to... well, other things. Things she'd never
even dream of laying a finger on.

Just then, Jake noticed something else in her hand. It was a large
can. He watched as she took off the top of it, and he soon realized it was some
kind of spray or something. What it was, though, he couldn't tell, considering
the label wasn't facing him. Melanie leaned the can over and held out a small
cheese nip, pushing down on the nozzle. Out came a gooey orange substance
who
's smell was easily recognizable. He wrinkled his nose,
smiling without meaning to.

"You put
cheese from a can
on top of
cheese nips
?"

"They aren't cheese 'nips', they're
Cheez-It
s, by the
way," she informed him. "And, yeah! I like cheese!" She smiled
to herself, happy. "I am from Wisconsin, after all." Melanie popped
one into her mouth, sighing in pleasure.

"Okay, then," he rolled his eyes. Was everyone from
Wisconsin like this?

A long silence passed between them as they snacked on the
Cheez-It
s,
savoring the yummy but simple flavor that covered their taste buds. They both
sat there, chewing thoughtfully, thankfully. It was a long silence, but a comfortable
one.

Suddenly, Melanie spoke. "You know..." she smiled to
herself, turning a cracker around in her hand and watching it, "when I was
really little, I couldn't pronounce
Cheez-It
s. I liked to call them
cheese
zits
."

Jake laughed quietly for a moment, not entirely sure why she was
sharing this with him, but thought it was—what's the word...
nice
.
He didn't say anything, and when Melanie started to look embarrassed and shrink
more into her chair, he felt obligated to say something.

"Um..." he began uncomfortably, unsure, scratching the back
of his head. He was about to say something he'd never even thought about, let
alone told anyone. "When—when
I
was a kid..." he trailed
off, and Melanie looked up from the floor, "I couldn't say
Pop Tarts
.
Well, I could
say
it, but I didn't like to. I thought... I thought it
sounded
wrong
, so I would call them
pock tarts
."

Melanie smiled, laughing a little giggle that undeniably would bring a
smile to anyone's face—including a seventeen year-old bad boy biker who
had been hardened by almost three years of juvenile behavior.