The Program

Chapter 7

A/N: I told you I would get better about writing! ;) Enjoy the new chapter!

*Mariella's POV*

I returned to my locker after American History to only find Connor leaning against it, checking his phone. "Hey. You're kind of blocking my locker," I said as though annoyed. I smiled to show him that I was only joking.

"Oh, right. Sorry." He moved out of the way and leaned on the locker next to mine, still looking at his phone. I yanked my locker open, dropped off my new textbook, and collected my lunch. When I closed my locker, Connor was still completely immersed in his phone.

"I'll take that," I said snatching his phone out of his hand.

"Hey! I was using that!"

"You can have it back if you promise to not be completely obsessed with it."

"Ugh, fine." I handed his phone back to him. "So, I guess we're off to lunch now," he said awkwardly.

"Yup." He guided me to the cafeteria.

We walked up to a table that had three people sitting at it, two guys and one girl. They looked to be our age. One of the guys had obviously originally been a brunette but had bleached his hair blonde and had blue eyes. The other guy had his naturally black (or it could've been a dark brown...I'm not very good at making that distinction) hair and brown eyes. The girl had red hair and green eyes. "Ok, so these are my friends: Austin," he pointed to the guy with the bleached blonde hair, "Jack," he pointed to the guy with the dark hair, "and Skylar." Skylar waved at me when she heard her name. I smiled back. "Guys, this is Mariella. She's the new student from Arizona."

"Oh, ya! You're in my Biology class! I sit behind you," Jack said. I suddenly recognized him. He in fact DID sit behind me in Biology. He patted the one seat that was left at the table, which so happened to be next to him. I took it and smiled apologetically at Connor.

"It's ok. I'll go find a chair that no one's using," he said. He put his stuff on top of the table then went off to find another chair.

"By the way, I would watch out for that kid that sits next to you, Ethan?" I nodded to show Jack that I knew who he was talking about.

"Why?"

"Because he's a total ass. He tries to get with literally every girl in the school," Skylar said, cutting Jack off. "Aside from you, I'm probably the only girl in the entire school who hasn't gone out with him. Besided the teachers and other staff, of course."

"Huh, well thanks for that bit of information," I said. I opened my sack lunch and took out my apple.

I had just taken a humongous bite out of it when Connor came back over with a chair, "Hey guys, what's I miss?" He sat down in his newly found chair and started working on his lunch.

I looked across the table, where Austin was sitting, and noticed that his eyes were absolutely bulging, almost as though he had suddenly recognized me for the first time. "OH.MY.GOD. You're the girl from American History who told Sarah off!" The words came in a rush so it took me a minute to realize that they had come out of Austin's mouth.

I choked down the last bit of my apple and replied, "Yeh, why? And how did you know that?"

"I sit next to you! Did you not notice? I sit in front of Ashley. She's the girl that was passing notes with Sarah when you were trying to talk."

"Oh," I suddenly noticed that the other three occupants of the table were staring at my with gaping mouths. "Why is this such a big deal?"

"Sarah's only the biggest bully in the school!" Skylar said. "By the way, I think this is the first time I've EVER heard so many words come out of Austin's mouth in a two minute span." Jack nodded in agreement.

Connor leaned in a bit closer to me and said in almost an undertone, "She's also the reason I got in trouble last year." My eyes bugged out a bit at this new piece of information. Don't ask him about it, I thought, It's none of your business anyways.

Skylar must have really good hearing because she said, "She doesn't know! Connor you should have told her-"

Connor practically leaped across the table to cover Skylar's mouth before she could say anything else. "Don't you dare tell her! She doesn't want to know anyways." Skylar made a pouty face as Connor sat back down in his seat.

I looked over at the table in front of Austin to see that he didn't have any food. "Hey, Austin." He looked up from his phone. "Are you hungry or anything? You can have some of my food." He shook his head. "You sure? I have Nacho Cheese Doritos." His eyes practically bulged out of his head and he snatched them out of my hand as I pulled them out. "Fine, you can have them. But I have to get at LEAST one." I put my hand out and he placed a full size chip in my hand before digging in.

I laughed and we finished lunch, talking about random things and our summers. Plus a TON of questions from Skylar about the U.S. Austin sat in silence for the rest of the lunch period, but I'm not sure if it was because he was stuffing his face with chips or for some other hidden reason.

A/N: I am very happy with this chapter. ESPECIALLY the new characters :) These characters MIGHT not seem very important now, but try to remember them because they are going to play a major part in the story later! ;D I'll try to update again soon!