The Story Between Us

2 ⌘ The New Lad

Tai looked up at the sign above the classroom that said '11-D' without much encouragement. She sighed as she turned her gaze back to the hallway where her two friends had left. They were lucky, they'd go to the same classroom for the rest of the year. Instead, she...

She closed her eyes in annoyance. She just hoped that Harry or one of the boys would be inside the room, otherwise she would die slowly.

Trying to avoid suicidal thoughts when classes were just starting, she decided to enter the classroom.

This one was different from the one she had had last year. Normally the desks were for one person. This year's ones were double like the laboratory tables, placed in three rows, so most of them were already almost occupied.

She liked to be almost always in the middle of the room, avoiding being at the back if she didn't want to fall asleep, as it was enough to spend most of the classes daydreaming. And she flatly refused to sit up to the front. Why did she want to have teachers keeping an eye on whatever she was doing or writing?

Fortunately, the front desks were already occupied. But it was near the third row that she stopped dead. Did life really hate her enough to play that kind of tasteless jokes on her?

At the fourth table, by the window, a certain blond was lying on his arms with his phone in front of him and headphones plugged in.

Beside him, the place was empty.

No way, not in a million years, not even if they paid her twice the fortune she had in the bank, would she sit there.

Tai looked for another available spot. At the table on one side, the one in the middle row, Arizona and Anna were talking without realizing her presence. Tai turned her gaze to the end of the room again, when she noticed that behind Alek the table was unoccupied.

Standing by the window, fifth place... it wasn't so bad. Maybe that way, she'd be able to bear the fact of seeing the mane of golden hair in front of her every day.

She smiled at the approach, but hadn't reached the fourth desk when Arizona stood in front of her, imposing. Tai took a step back, not because she felt intimidated, but because she didn't understand Arizona's reaction. Only until Arizona placed a hand on the table where Alek was resting did she understand what she meant.

Awesome. Arizona could have that spot, the one Tai wanted was the one in the back.

Tai sighed heavily as she realized that Anna had moved along with her flashy backpack to the table where she had planned to sit. She wasn't an idiot to sit for the rest of the semester with a person who she was sure would make her life impossible for not being to her liking. Tai had never known why, but she didn't want to delve into that.

There wasn't much to choose from. There were only seven rows back, and sitting in the sixth was almost the same as sitting in the last. So Tai looked to her side, where Anna and Arizona had been sitting before, and dropped her bag.

Ignoring the fact that Arizona was still staring at her as she sat down, Tai pulled out her sketchbook and opened it to where she had left her pen.

When Arizona noticed that Tailime had disconnected from the world, as she always did, she turned to face Alek. With an innocent smile, she touched his shoulder.

"Hello, Alek!"

The aforementioned abruptly raised his head with his eyes half open, expecting to see the teacher near his place. But it took him a while to understand that the new tutor hadn't yet arrived, so the students were still out of their places. Only until he heard a giggle over the electric guitar playing in his ear did he turn to his right.