Started in the Hallways

03

October 19, 2023
Sage's POV

Aria walked into choir, and went to her usual seat. Which is behind me. She doesn't talk to anybody. She said she talks to three people only, and none of them are in choir. She used to talk to Londyn, she's in choir, but one day that just stopped.

She looks sad sitting by herself. She's just sitting there reading a book. I don't like how she's afraid to talk. Plus, the person who was sitting next to me just randomly moved away on the second week of school. Maybe Aria will come over here and sit with me?

"Hey, Aria," I said.

She removes her eyes from her book. "What's up?"

"Wanna sit next to me?"

"Heck yeah," she exclaimed.

She sat at the desk next to me. She puts her red backpack with stars underneath. "I thought someone else sat next to you."

"They randomly moved away on the second week of school."

"Oh, I never noticed."

"I didn't either until last week. Anyways, how come you don't talk to Londyn anymore?"

"It's a long story."

"Spill."

"Basically, at my old school, everyone knew everything about me since it was a small town and word got around easily. Somehow, she knows people from my old school and she got information about me, and she started using it against me."

"Like what?"

"I'll explain that bit later."

"Anyways, that's such a weird thing to do. Did you do anything in particular that made her do that?"

"No, she just randomly started doing that."

Hearing her say that makes my blood boil. Who would do that? Especially for no reason.

Suddenly, Londyn comes into the picture. Standing like she's all tough.

"Are we talking about me?" she questions.

Aria just looked down to her feet. I'm assuming she can't handle confrontation.

So I spoke up. "What makes you think we're speaking of you? Your name tastes like shit honestly."

"I don't know. I just heard the name, "Londyn." Which is me?"

"London is also a place. Not everything's about you."

"Look, I get that your popular or some shit like that, but that doesn't mean you get to spoil my fun and speak up for someone like her."

"Yeah, but one, I'm not even that popular, so what you just said was irrelevant. Two, even if I was, it doesn't stop me from having my own fun and defending someone who did nothing wrong."

She just rolled her eyes and walked away.

"Thanks," Aria said. "I was not about to deal with that."

"Of course. As long as I'm here, no one like her is allowed to talk to you."

I love talking to her, not gonna lie. But why does someone like Londyn feel the need to mess with her like that? That's just weird.

The more we talked in choir, the more I realized that we have a lot in common. We like reading, math is our strongest subject, except she's better at it than me. We both find music as our happy place. And we're both kinda introverted.

It's kinda confusing. I'm an introvert, kind of an extrovert at the same time, and yet I'm claimed as a popular person in our school. Why do labels like this still exist? It's getting pretty old.

The more I heard her voice, I kinda got butterflies. I don't know why. I guess because she's slowly becoming my best friend and I don't want to say something stupid to mess that up since we just met yesterday.

Class is starting, which means "Everyone hush before Ms. Clarke duct tapes our mouths."

"So, I have a huge announcement," she states. "Which comes along with good news, and bad news. Who wants to hear good news first?"

Everyone raised their hand. Obviously we want to hear the good news first.

"Okay, so at the very beginning of December, we will be going to Washington DC for three days to sing the national anthem for the Washington Nationals baseball game, along with singing in a choir competition at the Atlas Performing Arts Center."

Everyone got excited. This is our first overnight trip of the year. I feel like it's going to be our only one.

"Wait, three days?" asked Grayson.

"Yeah, first day we will get there around 10 am, chill, and then we'll be singing at the game around 1 pm. The next day will be the competition, which is going to be at 2 pm."

"So what about the last day?" I asked.

"Last day, you guys will pick which two museums we visit that day, and afterwards, we go home, which we'd return at around 11 at night."

Two museums? Compete in a competition? And sing for a baseball game? This is gonna be the best trip ever.

"Wait, so what's the bad news?" asked Amber.

"Yeah, what could be so bad about this?" asked Natalia.

"This is something you guys probably won't like," Ms. Clarke said. "It's a weekend trip, leaving on a Friday, so that's the only day you guys are missing school."

Everyone was pretty disappointed. I feel like it would be better to have that trip in the middle of the week so that we could brag about competing against people, while there's other people still at school, doing work. At least we're missing one day of school.

"I will have permission slips printed out by next week. The cost is only $150, which is just for the hotel rooms. The county is covering food, transportation, ect. Please have the permission slip turned in any time before thanksgiving break."

"Are you going on the trip?" asked Aria.

"Heck yes, are you?" I asked her.

"Obviously!"

"It's gonna be amazing!"

I'm so excited for this trip. Especially knowing that Aria's going too.