Chapter 57

                                    

                                          
Clay Jensen sat at his desk with his laptop in front of him late one night. With it being his Junior year in high school that was about halfway over already, the teenager knew he would have to start applying to colleges soon. In truth, the boy already knew where he wanted to go after 12th grade, based on a conversation he remembered having with his younger brother so long ago. The two brothers had been so close, that they had planned to go to the same college, even if they wouldn't attend at the same time. Sadly, that isn't the case now. But even with Anthony gone, Clay still planned to follow through on his half of the promise by applying to the college that the two siblings had talked about attending.
                          
Sighing to himself, the 19-year-old sat up straighter in his desk chair as he looked at his computer once more. The screen showed a college website that listed what the campus had to offer, class-wise, living-wise, and what was around the campus. The website also listed things an application to the college would require, such as transcripts, good grades, and a couple of other things. Clay continued navigating through the webpage a bit, distracting himself from the essay he had to write for his english class. Usually the boy was on top of homework assignments like this. But it turns out that he had procrastinated until the last minute, and was currently looking at possibly having to pull an all-nighter since he hadn't even started the assignment yet, and it was due the next day.
                          
Eventually, the teenager finally managed to finish his essay assignment right around 3:30am. Once he saved the completed assignment, the boy closed his laptop and decided to hit the hay for a couple of hours before he would be woken up by his alarm for his daily early morning run. Even though he did feel like skipping it today because of how much sleep he's missed out on already, the 19-year-old was committed. And that meant not missing a single run, no matter how much he wanted to at the moment. After getting changed into his pajamas, and after quietly completing his nightly routine, Clay climbed into his bed and quickly fell asleep with ease.
                          
The next day, school couldn't even bother to go by decently quick for the tired teenager. He had managed to leave early enough to make a pitstop and grab a coffee from Monet's, but that caffeinated drink had already begun to ware off now. Even though today was not his day, Clay kept doing what he always did as he continued walking his girlfriend to every single one of her classes before he'd run as fast as he could through the school and to his own respective classes when they weren't any that the two teens shared together. The Jensen boy had made it through most of the day pretty ok, but now his tiredness was beginning to hit him again as he sat in the back of one of his afternoon classes.
                          
Currently, the 19-year-old was in his usual history class, but this time around, the teacher seemed to be droning on and on as Clay found himself not being able to focus on what was being said or done. All the teenager could really focus on was the clock hanging on the wall and how much time was left before class came to an end. Throughout the history class, the Jensen boy had managed to do just fine, up until his exhaustion got the better of him, causing the boy to give in as his head soon hit his desk with decent force as it resulted in a loud thud. As soon as the noise sounded, all eyes turned towards the boy who was now wide awake and beginning to get a headache. Some students looked like they were trying to hold in their laughter and smiles while others just looked amused at the funny distraction that caused the teacher to pause his lesson. In the end of things, however, Clay ended up being sent to the principal's office for basically falling asleep in class and not paying attention to what the older man had been teaching.
                          
Once school finally ended for the day, the Jensen teen headed home to work on his homework before spending some time with Harley and Allison while Matt and Lainie were still at work. His assignments didn't take that long to complete, and pretty soon, the 19-year-old found himself watching Barney with the 1-year-old girl and his older sister while the trio also played with some of various, colorful toys together. Clay smiled to himself as his niece would start dancing in her place when any type of music began playing on the tv program. Sometimes the boy would make her smile or giggle by copying her movements as well. Seeing this, Allison smiled to herself. She was glad that the two got along really well together, and she was gratefull for her daughter having someone like Clay Jensen as her uncle. While Harley was mesmerized by something the kids and dinosaurs were doing on the tv, a small knocking sounded at the front door.