The Teenage Guide To Popularity [COMPLETE]

Chapter 5: Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Monday mornings were always very gloomy in Newton High. Most students were still too tired from their weekend escapades to worry about the on-coming school week. The very first classes of the day promised yawns, droopy eyes and barely-there answers. Carter and Leigh were no exceptions to this reality. They walked through the halls with sleep in their eyes; quiet, grunting responses, their lips still pushing through night-time dryness from underneath the gloss.

Carter had been especially unsteady the past few days, all due to Kiran's 'what about you' question. It wasn't that much out-of-character; he had always been a rather random person, but after that quick-yet-notable comment, the randomness had taken a turn for the worse. Though as she approached her locker, she decided to follow through and not make a thing of it - focus on her mission instead.

Today she would do something grand to advance in her popularity game.

"So what are your plans for today?" Leigh asked, opening her own locker and pulling out the books required for the first two classes of the day.

"I have an idea, but we won't be able to eat lunch together today."

"What? Why?"

"I'm going to sit with them, at Ashton's table."

"What's that going to do?"

"Something, I hope." It wasn't a very genius idea, but for the moment, it was all Carter could do. If she was going to become the most popular girl in school, she had to do it in a quiet, sneaky way. 

"I know that in all those movies the popular crowd has a special table, and the cafeteria is divided up, like goths sit with goths, band geeks sit with band geeks, or whatever else... but this is real life. No one is going to care where you sit," Leigh exclaimed, using a rather annoying matter-of-fact voice. 

"Leigh, do you even go to this school? It's like a world filled with movie clichés."

"Wrong. There's no way you'd find someone as awesome as me in a dumb movie," said Leigh, flipping her hair. Carter knew she wasn't being serious. Leigh was probably the least self-obsessed person at Newton High. 

"Are you serious? You're like a carbon copy of every main girl's best friend in every teen movie ever made."

"Yeah? Well... those characters are always better than the leads anyway," said Leigh, smiling.

As the two girls finished taking out their books from their lockers, a couple of people smiled and greeted Carter. It wouldn't have been unusual, since she wasn't a recluse, but she didn't exactly know these particular individuals. 

"Did you know those people?" Leigh asked as they began heading down the hallway. 

Carter only knew them by face. One was a girl who was on the cheer-leading team, and the other was a guy on the basketball team. He also a part of Aiden's posse. "No, not really."

"Maybe they saw Aiden talking to you the other day."

As if speaking his name magically made him appear, Aiden approached them. He ignored Leigh completely and focused his unnervingly attractive smile on Carter. "Hey."

As dumb as he was, he had the horrible ability of mentally knocking a girl over. Carter had never considered Aiden as anything more than a boring Popular before, but now that she looked at him, really looked at him, she was overcome with an odd sensation. It was pure lust, but it was strong. He was, in every sense of the word, beautiful. His face could have been chiseled by the hands of the Gods, and suddenly she became aware that the way she had described him to Kiran wasn't an exaggeration. It was highly important for her to keep her composure around him though, so she averted her eyes and pursed her lips a little, hoping it would give off an indifferent impression.