Textbook Living [OPEN}

[dale jaden eckhart]

Dale liked the library.

Not something you usually heard from any high school student, let alone one attending Preston Heights. But honestly, one could get fed up with all the rumors, gossiping, sex scandals, financial issues, back-stabbing and partying pretty easily. At least if that "one" happened to be Dale Eckhart. Easy-going, Dale did not need all the drama that seemed to revolve over PHA like a perpetual storm cloud. All she needed was her team, her sports, and her bio classes. Everything else... Well, everything else she would be leaving behind come graduation next year.

Christ, another year of this place...

Sighing, Dale turned the page in her text book. There was an Advanced Anatomy test coming up on Monday or Tuesday and she wanted to be doubly prepared. That was why she was in the library on a Saturday morning. That and it was dreary and gray and drizzly out. Not that that would stop Dale from kicking up the grass. But most of her teammates had elected to sleep in (and who could blame them?) and there was something depressing about playing and running in the rain alone.

Dale twirled her pen around her fingers before etching a block-lettered "DECKA" onto the top of her notebook page. Her nickname. A smile came to her face as she thought of all the people who called her by that particular handle. It was her closest friends and family; everyone else usually settled for DJ or just plain Dale. She didn't mind either way, really. Dale held no qualms over her name.

Mindless thoughts. Pulling a brief face, she focused back in on the school work. After a good fifteen minutes of highlighting the most important points and adding stars to vocabulary words (along with a few more doodles to the margins) and the usual reviewing things Dale decided she needed a break.

The chair-legs rubbed roughly over the scrubby carpeting as Dale rose from her seat. Stretching extensively, she tugged the hoodie (that may or may not belong to her brother) back into place. Folding her books and shoving them back into her pack, she saved her seat with the bag and wandered off. Meandering aimlessly through the shelves, she hoped for some sort of distraction. Her mind just wasn't on studying today...

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word count 384
muse my own test coming up tomorrow...
tag OPEN
outfit Study Break

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[mason alexander wright]

well i'm starting to fall in love
• A N D I T ' S G E T T I N G T O O M U C H •

• it's not often that i slip up •
and it's just my luck !

Mason had no idea what the hell he was doing in the library, because truth be told he hated books. Okay maybe hate was a little strong, but it definitely wasn’t on his list of favorite things to talk and/or think about. But his God forsaken roommate needed the room again. It sucked sharing the room with someone, even when he was at home he had to share his room. He had thought so many years ago, that when he got to PHS that he would have his own room, that hadn’t happened. But anyways, here he was, in a place he didn’t really want to be. But he couldn’t exactly leave, could he? He had no other place to go, all his other friends were doing something that weekend, ‘The countdown starts now,’ he thought, taking a sip of the coffee he had brought with him. He loved a good cup of coffee. It made everything that seemed wrong with world feel oh so right.

He walked around aimlessly, occasionally stopping to look at the occasional book on a shelf. In truth didn’t know why he here. He didn’t really care about what he was seeing, and it was starting to frustrate him quite a bit. Mason was trying to be a good boy. Trying and failing miserably. He didn’t like who he was becoming, or what he was doing with his life. Okay maybe that was a lie, he did enjoy some aspects of what he was doing with his life. But he didn’t like how he was doing it.

‘At least, I still got a banging body,’ he thought, but that was due to his tedious workout schedule that he never strayed from. Up at 4:30, and out running from 5 until 7:30, it seemed like the only thing he could commit too. He did this no matter the weather, and no matter what or who he did the night before. ‘Who,’ he thought. Mason laughed bitterly taking another sip of his coffee. There seemed to be a lot of who’s recently. Not that he minded, Mason did love a good party, and sex always seemed to follow one.

He looked down at his watch, seeing if enough time had passed. Crap only 20 minutes had passed. “Ugh!” he yelled, venting his frustration, he still couldn’t leave. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Just as the sigh left his mouth he first saw her. He had seen her around the campus before, but never really talked to her. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to, but he just never had the chance. He slowly made his way towards her, contemplating what to say to her. Finally reaching her he smirked, “Hey.”

tag ! dale ! word count ! 457 ! outfit ! mi dudscredit ! justlikefalling @ caution 2.0 ! lyrics ! just my luck , MCFLY ! notes ! uh...hey!!

[dale jaden eckhart]

Dale was just popping onto her tiptoes to catch a better look at one of the books on the top shelf when she heard someone's anguished exclamation. Okay, maybe that was a little dramatic. It wasn't really anguished. Just frustrated, probably. Some frazzled student, anxious for study material? Turning, Dale saw who it was. She recognized him, a little. Not by name but she had seem him around. And her bet was was that he was not there to study. Knowing his crowd (or at least she thought she did), he was probably there because his roommate had sexiled him.

Smirking a little at that, Dale shook her head and turned back to the shelves. She had ended up in the biography section and was staring at a tome dedicated to Paul Newman's life. Her mother had something of a crush on the blue-eyed actor and Dale debated flipping through the book. Wouldn't hurt to find out why her mother was so enamored with the guy. Plus it would be something to do.

She was offered another distraction soon enough, though; in the form of Sexiled Dude. At least, that's what she was calling him in her mind. He stood before her, smirk expectant and a coffee in his hand. Dale's nose wrinkled instinctively. She hated coffee. A casual "hey" fell from his lips and Dale took a moment to take him in. He was attractive at least. They just ran in somewhat different crowd. However, she was pretty sure she had seen him in the morning, running; he was usually just finishing while she was half-way through. She could respect that in him at least.

"Yo," Dale drawled back. She enunciated the slang perfectly, making the usually sloppy greeting something ironic. "How goes it?" she tacked on. Dale often spoke in jabber-talk like that. Just barely making sense, unless you were used to it, fluent in her seesawing grammar and tone.

After she had given her response, she turned back to the shelf, eyes flicking over the spines. A moment passed and then her eyes shifted back to him, head cocked to the side, waiting.

---

word count 356
muse kinda laggy...
tag mason
notes hey back atcha. XD sorry this one's on the shorter side...

[/size]

[mason alexander wright]

well i'm starting to fall in love
• A N D I T ' S G E T T I N G T O O M U C H •

• it's not often that i slip up •
and it's just my luck !

Yo, how goes it, that was the response she had given him. Now Mason wasn’t particularly good at English, or school in general for that matter, but he was fairly sure that that wasn’t correct English. “How goes it?” he repeated a smile slowly creeping on his face. It wasn’t what he had expected to hear from someone like her. He had expected her to be, he didn’t know…more grammatically correct than that. But then again he couldn’t just assume that about her, now could he, he had, after all, never spoken to her before this moment. He had seen her around though, in the mornings, about the end of his workout. He had never noticed before, but she definitely was not ugly and one could possibly even go as far to say she was kind of hot.

It was a few seconds before Mason realized, that she probably wanted an answer to her question. “Uh, yea…, it goes okay…” he said a small smile playing on his lips, “I’m Mason, and you are?” He was terrible when it came to names, especially if when it came to a girl’s name. It wasn’t a secret that he loved the ladies, or that the ladies loved Mason. This wasn’t him being vain; he had had his way with a good bit of the girls in the school. Yea, he would sometimes feel bad about that, but then he would shrug it off, it wasn’t like the girls had come to him unwillingly and he was forcing them to sleep with him. It just sorta happened.

I make her say Oh, oh-oh-oh Oh, oh-oh-oh When I P-p-p poker face P-p-poke her face. That was his phone. “Hold that thought.” Digging into his pocket, he pulled out his phone; he looked at the caller I.D. and sighed. It was his sister…the oldest one Cayden. “Hey Cay… No I haven’t called Nana yet…No I don’t particularly want to talk to her right now, Yea I’ll call you later love you too sis, yea yea…bye.” He hung up the phone to not waiting to hear what else his sister would say and sighed again. He knew his sister would be pissed, but he was okay with that. He really did hate talking to his sister on the phone. Actually, he hated talking to anyone on the phone but that was beside the point. He returned his attention back to the girl in from of him, “Sorry about that, that was my sister.”

tag ! dale ! word count ! 417! outfit ! mi dudscredit ! justlikefalling @ caution 2.0 ! lyrics ! just my luck , MCFLY ! notes ! tis okay, i rambled a bit there...sorry bout that.

[dale jaden eckhart]

At his repetition of her question she sent him an uneven grin, confirming that, yes, that was exactly what she had said. Yes, she was aware that it was atrocious grammar. No, she did not care in the slightest. Then he replied in a similar manner, pulling a short bout of soft laughter from her lips. People tolerated her speech patterns, some understood it. But no one had gone so far as to speak it back to her. That was somewhat refreshing.

Mason. Yeah, that was sort of familiar now. And it seemed to fit. Dale often played that game; deciding if someone's name "fit" their face or personality. If it didn't fit, she would run through other alternatives, trying to find a better name. That wouldn't be necessary for this person in particular, though. This Mason just seemed to be a "Mason." His parents should be offered a congratulation.

"Nice meeting, Mason," Dale replied. Her fingers played at the cracked leather of some book's spine. She flicked at the covering, peeling it a bit to make it come off a little more than it already was. "I'm Dale." She shrugged then and added, "Or Decka. Whatever." Hmm, she had promoted him to nickname status almost immediately. Interesting. Not that she held calling her by a nickname as any sort of achievement or anything. Just... she usually let people catch onto it on their own, whenever that happened to happen.

She snorted at his ring tone, eyes crinkling. The librarian seemed to find her mirth as more distracting then the cause of it --his cell phone ring-- though. A "Shhhh!" rang out through the atrium and Dale rolled her eyes. It was, like, her, Mason, the libranian and maybe three other kids. Was it really necessary to chastise them?

She listened as Mason held a quick conversation over the phone, apparently with his sister. Nodding in reply to his excuse, Dale rocked on the balls of her feet a little. "You know," she drawled. "I always call my Nana when I'm supposed to. Even if I don't want to talk to her." It was a joke, just playing his own words back at him. She smirked to him lightly, leaning her back against the shelves, fingers drumming on the spines of books.

"I eavesdropped," she elaborated. "Although, I'm not sure it would be considered eavesdropping. You were talking right here before me. It's more 'listening' than eavesdropping, huh?" She offered a lazy shrug of the shoulders, proving her nuetrality on his verdict of the matter.

---

word count 426
tag mason
notes haha, no prob. ^^

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[/right]

[mason alexander wright]

well i'm starting to fall in love
• A N D I T ' S G E T T I N G T O O M U C H •

• it's not often that i slip up •
and it's just my luck !

Nice meeting…Mason’s smile grew a little bit more. Man this girl’s English or variation of English was amusing him quite a bit. He took a sip of his coffee, having temporarily forgotten about. “Dale…that’s an interesting name, not exactly up there in femininity, now is it, but then again, neither are my sisters’ names.” He was thinking out loud, a really bad habit of his. “Sorry, I’m rambling…but…um yea…Decka that’s an interesting nickname, how’d you get it…actually you know what I don’t want to know. Shit…I’m still rambling. Sorry.” He said running a hand through his hair.

Mason leaned against the bookshelf closest to them answering his phone. He closed it and apologized. He rolled his eyes at the librarian and then raised an eyebrow at her comment, “You only say that because you haven’t met her. You wouldn’t say that if you met my nana. She’s not exactly the sanest person in the world.” A small laugh left his mouth at the thought of the crazy stuff his nana had done these past few years. He loved her, but she needed some help.

He laughed at her eavesdropping indecisiveness. “No…it’s still eavesdropping, I think. You could’ve adverted your ears elsewhere, but don’t sweat it,” He smirked. He was silent for a few seconds, taking another sip of his coffee before opening his mouth again to speak, “Hey, so um…, You go to the party last night” He asked her. He hadn’t seen her there, but then again Mason was kind of busy getting to know the keg, and the girls hanging out around the keg. God did he enjoy a good party. He didn’t think he slept with any of them…he hoped he didn’t sleep with any of them. That would bad…really bad. But then again there was a huge part of the night that he couldn’t remember. He REALLY hoped he hadn’t slept with any of them.

tag ! dale ! word count ! 319! outfit ! mi dudscredit ! justlikefalling @ caution 2.0 ! lyrics ! just my luck , MCFLY ! notes ! sorry bout the shortness my muse kinda ran away and i'm too lazy to go chase after it.!

[dale jaden eckhart]

Dale smiled little at his rambling. She wasn't really a babbler or anything like that (a talker, sure, but not just rambles). Her oldest brother though, Tim, he sure was. Esepcially when he was nervous. Which could either be adorable or annoying, depending on the degree of nervousness. Dale was left to wonder if Mason's rambling was bred of nervousness or just a need to fill the quiet air. Either way, she didn't really mind it.

"Nothing scandelous about the nickname," she promised. Its origin was actually painfully boring. "Just the first letter of my first name and the first syllable of my last name. D-ecka," she demonstrated, emphasizing the separate parts. She had gotten it some time in her primary school days, playing soccer. There was another DJ on the team and they had to come up with a different nickname for her or something like that...

Laughing softly at the comment about his Nana, Dale shook her head. "Aw, I bet she'd not all that bad," she said. And then suffered another stern shush from the library. Dale mirrored Mason's earlier eye-roll. If this conversation went much further they would probably have to continue it elsewhere. Otherwise that freaking book-nazi was going to have a heart-attack. Okay, that wasn't very nice. She wasn't a book-nazi; she was probably just trying to do her job which was more than Dale could say about most of the other teachers at PHA. But still. She didn't have to shush them every thirty seconds.

A frown twitched at her lips but wasn't quite born completely. "No," she answered plainly. But then, realizing how cold that sounded, she mustered up a small grin. "No, I'm not really much of a partier." She added a short, light chuckle to the end, to ensure no hard feelings or judgments were meant. "Why, was it kick-ass?" She wondered if Megan, her captain, had been at that party. Probably. Megan was usually at, like, every party.

It was times like these that she wondered how much she was really missing by not being one of the masses, hitting every party back-to-back and then sleeping through classes. Were they really so much fun? Were they worth it? Well, a good percentage of the students at PHA seemed to think so...

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word count 382
tag Mason!
notes haha, no prob. my muse is kinda flickery too.