Shadows

10. But it's worth it

A soft tugging at my hair wakes me up, I peek up from my arms to see the source.

Xander, seated next to me, has his head rested on the palm of his hand, he's staring at a strand of my hair that he's twirling around his finger.

"Uh, mornin?" I mutter.

He looks at me, "you still have thirty minutes, go to sleep."

"What? Oh." My ears tune in to the cafeteria bustle again. Lunch time.

Then I frown, "you didn't tell me I fell asleep."

"You looked so peaceful."

"I feel like you just don't want to admit that you were afraid I'd lash out at you."

"You could say that."

I chuckle at that, then look around the empty cafeteria. At the beginning of lunch, I was walking to the cafeteria before being stopped by Spencer, who begged me not to leave him with these idiots who don't appreciate him, he said none of them are as willing to join his crazy excursions as I am, which kind of got a betrayed look from Lance, but after watching them fight about subjects ranging from who's the most annoying to why Xander always gets to be the driver-

'Because if Axel drove the car, he'd get mad and kill us all, if Lance drove the car, he'd doze off and kill us all, and if you drove the car- you'd run us off a cliff to see if the car could fly. Conveniently killing us all.'

I just told all of them to come along.

I have to admit, the atmosphere was tense due to the fact that everyone everyone at the table was afraid of the guys, oh if they only knew- and it was awkward introducing the guys because everyone knew who they were. However, we were blessed with a Spencer, who like myself I'be been told, had a warmth and enthusiasm that instantly engulfed everyone.

After a while everything felt normal, Axel talked with the athletes, who regarded him with reverence, and caution, girls secretly drooled over his muscles.

Lance was somewhere in his head, occasionally being interrupted by someone, at times he participated in the conversation, but mostly in his head. His mysterious nature was admired.

Xander scanned everyone at the table, his dominating nature came into play. Everyone knew he was richer and more powerful than all of us, which led to a little resentment and fear towards him, but the weird thing is that their eyes were also filled with admiration, for it was well known that Xander isn't like your typical rich kid. He always got annoyed when someone was bullied, he doesn't comply with rules unless he agrees with them, and has a ton of guts- this one time, I heard, a teacher had told the class, 'anyone who does not agree with me can leave.' And guess what? He shoved his books into his bag, saluted the teacher, and left. Just like that. The class was empty after a few minutes.

He made witty jokes, actually smiled- and when he had something to say, everyone shut up to let him talk. He impressed everyone with his linguistics, talked with the bilingual kids in more languages than I can count, and was generally, you could say, charming.

And Spencer, oh little Spencer just looked plain happy, everyone obviously loved Spencer and was drawn to him, he seemed to be the most open and cheerful. He finally found people who 'appreciate him'.