•͟U͟N͟D͟E͟R͟S͟T͟A͟N͟D͟ ͟c͟a͟r͟t͟i͟u͟z͟i͟•͟

XII

These Walls -Kendrick Lamar/Anna Wise/Thundercat

JORDAN:

Lithia Springs High School: Mableton, Georgia

"What is going on with them?" Travis asked, "Nobody just up-and-leaves like that. Especially not a group of four fucking people."

I looked over at Symere's previous table to see that it was now repopulated by him, Montero who was incredibly close to him, as well as Lithia Springs' up-and-coming couple, Summer and Nayvadius. Symere, expectedly, had gone and told a presumably decent amount of his friends about the events of Saturday morning, as his whole friend group spied me and Caleb down this morning on the way into school. It was so bad that this bitch-ass nigga named Sheyaa, felt the need to threaten to beat my ass. Like, bitch, I ain't scared of your British sounding ass; get your ass back over to the Queen (sorry to the surprising amount of readers from the United Kingdom, y'all are pretty cool)

Symere seemed so much happier than he was earlier; his face was scrunched up in his adorable little smile that he was projecting on Montero and Rakim. Comparing it with the look that his face gave the last time I was with made me feel sick internally, and only deepened my guilt. I had effectively ruined Symere and I's relationship, and I found it highly unlikely that I could salvage it, especially after Rakim's in-depth direct message sent via Instagram to me that detailed how and why I would be rejected if I was to even so much as look at Symere again. It upset me way too much, because I missed him already.

As a part of my incredibly fucked up coping system, I felt that the best way to move on from Symere was to replace him. The only issue was that I didn't know many outside of my small social-bubbles provided by Caleb, which there were few of. As Caleb and Travis continued to discuss their speculations as to why they had suddenly been abandoned by four separate people, I looked around the cafeteria in a callback to how I did on my first day. My eyes first landed on these two girls sitting alone. One of them wore this hot pink jumpsuit almost, and I instantly recognized her as this girl named Nicki, a friend of both Summer and Nayvadius. Next to her sat this emo-looking white girl. She wasn't terribly emo, probably no more than Symere was, but just carried herself as if she was on the verge of suicide. I assumed that this was Summer and Nayvadius' other friend, Billie, who I had heard mentioned on Friday just for the fact that she was white.

Neither Nicki nor Billie was my type though, so I continued my search. I found this group of smarter looking, preppy girls that didn't look too bad, but a good percentage of the good looking ones had braces, so that was almost an instant turn-off. My eyes crossed over Symere's group, but didn't settle on them, and then eventually landed on this smaller group of people. I instantly recognized one of the people as Jonathan, the asshole who had beaten up Montero for being gay, but he was surrounded by a bunch of attractive girls and guys.

On his left and right were these two guys, one with a bunch of scars on his forehead, and another with amazing looking dreads, and this really cute face. Across from the trio sat three other people; two girls, and one dude. One of the girls looked like a whole ass supermodel, but not the best one at that, but the other girl, she was uh-different. She sat next to this more scrawny looking kid that looked somewhat similar to her in the face. She was so pretty though, and her hair was just, I don't even know how to say it. It was just- perfect, that's the word.

I didn't want to make a move yet, but rather just move onto her over time. I felt that I moved onto Symere too quickly, and maybe that was the reason why it didn't work out. Hell, I moved onto him quicker than an Uzi fires rounds. The girl I was looking at stood up, and walked to the water fountain, and that was when I recognized her: Willow Smith, TikTok star. Willow Smith was what Charli D'Amelio was for Connecticut, but for Georgia. Everyone across not only Atlanta, or Georgia, but the entire south knew who she was. I remembered people in Charlotte talking about how Willow Smith wouldn't get off of their for-you-page, and to think, I was going to fucking high school with her now.