Rushed

What remained of the weekend was spent much like Friday evening had been spent, which was in solitude and doing not much more than what was necessary and what kept their minds off of each other. The next day however, Jenny's week was off to a not so great start. Normally she would be woken on schooldays by Jason getting up or by him waking her lovingly. Jason would pinch her nose teasingly or stroke her hair and face gently, forcing her out of her slumber gently. Out of habit she didn't set an alarm and having gone to bed quite late as she couldn't fall asleep, she woke up when it was already bright outside. Considering the time of year, that meant that she was way too late. She shot awake and was happy she had been too lazy to bother to close the curtains. If she hadn't, how late would she have woken up then? When she glanced at her phone, she saw that it was even later than she had thought it was.

She shot out of bed, got dressed and rushed out of the door, without any breakfast or lunch. In just a few days, she went from never using that card to not being able to do without it. She wouldn't have been able to afford this room, nor would she have been able to afford a meal at school today. All the money she had from before she moved to England had been spent on Jason's birthday gift and she was yet to receive her first paycheck from the nursing home. So, everything she had earned after her move wasn't hers to spend yet either. Meaning that right now she didn't have a single penny to her name. When she passed the hotel lobby and got out to the front, she saw that the same car that had picked her up Friday evening had been parked out front this morning.

The driver had been anxiously waiting for her outside the car, wondering whether he should continue waiting for her or have the front desk call up to her room. He didn't want to wake her or disturb her rest, but he had been asked to drive the young miss to and from school and her part time job. School would start in about 10 minutes, but she still hadn't come out. Considering they had at least a twenty-five minute drive, there was no way that they could still make it in time for first period. He started to think that maybe he had gotten the pick up time wrong and she had been free for first period, so he was just checking back the messages containing the details of her schedule when Jenny had rushed out of the glass revolving doors.

Jenny quickly closed in the distance between herself and the driver. Slightly out of breath she greeted him and apologized for being late. "I hope I didn't make you wait for too long out in this cold. The mornings tend to be quite chilly." The driver quickly opened the car door for her and let her get in as he replied. "Not at all. I am just glad that you are here now and that you are okay. I was afraid that something had happened or that I had made a mistake." After the driver too had boarded the car, he turned his head over his shoulder and asked. "Miss, considering you ran here, I assume we are still going to try and make it for first period?" Without any hesitation and without trying to rush the driver she replied, "Yes please!". The driver nodded his head as he tipped his hat. "Very well miss. I will do my utmost to make sure you will miss as little as possible."

And indeed he did. The high end car rushed by the other traffic and passed street after street in a matter of seconds. While Jenny felt a little worried seeing the scenery pass her by so quickly from the windows, the driver seemed as relaxed as if he was driving no more than 30 km/h. While a million things passed through Jenny's mind, among which the fines this ride would earn them, but she didn't dare to disturb the driver either as she couldn't have him lose his focus from the road to answer her questions. So, she sat quietly as she said some silent prayers and glanced at her phone from time to time to see how late it was. In a little over fifteen minutes they passed the gates from the school and she was delivered at school. The driver had shaved off ten minutes of their estimated time of arrival, making her miss very little. She thanked the driver for his efforts and ran up the small steps into the school and hurried over to her classroom.

She knocked on the door before opening the door and interrupting her English class. After apologizing for her tardiness, she quickly took her seat and jotted down what was written on the blackboard to catch up on what she had missed. After she had written down the last sentence, the teacher wiped the board to make room for the new materials, which Jenny had partially missed from being focused on her backlog. Luckily, her friend Max was kind enough to share his notes with her as he slid his notebook onto her table while the others were tested on the homework. With that the evidence and consequences of her tardiness were slowly being wiped away and by the end of class she was all caught up and had even managed to answer her own questions from the teacher. Then she heard the school bell and the teacher voicing out the liberating words, "You are dismissed."