starstruck

freddie

Freddie is napping in calculus (again) when the fire alarm rings. She wakes up, groggy, not caring in the slightest bit about the possibility of her impending doom.

There is a moment in which she contemplates going back to sleep, but then she remembers her laptop, and how mad her mother would be if she lost it.

Ms. Findlay, the teacher, clears her throat and smiles in the way that is not really a smile.

"Come on, let's go," she says, waving her hands toward the door.

Freddie makes no move to the exit.

"Hurry," she scolds, most obviously the only one between the two of them who is actually (in that moment) scared.

Nodding, Freddie takes her sweet time grabbing her phone and laptop before leaving. Once outside, the cold air pricks the skin on her arms. Freddie wonders if it was superficial to bring only electronics, and not useful things like mittens and jackets.

She decides it is, and also that she doesn't care.

A strong wind shakes her. It must be sixty degrees, Freddie thinks. To her, that is the sort of cold that makes her eyes sting and her nose run. Speaking of which, she wishes she brought a Kleenex. Honestly, fuck her low resistance to the cold.

Suddenly, there is a warm hand on her shoulder. Freddie turns around, and it is a tall girl with tanned skin and wild hair that stops at her ears.

"Want my jacket? Don't worry, I love the cold." Freddie hugs her laptop close to her chest.

"I'd accept, but then you'd hate me forever. No one would love the cold in a tank top." The girl smiles, bearing teeth, most likely thinking Freddie is making a joke and is just one of those 'sarcastic types.' Her smile is familiar, and it gives Freddie freshman year biology flashbacks.

Elena, Freddie remembers. Always volunteered to dissect the frogs.

Freddie smiles back, reciprocating but not really. She turns towards the high school. Sure enough, a long plume of smoke is floating somewhere between the auditorium and the band hall.

Shit.

Like most times the fire alarm goes off, Freddie had (wrongly) assumed a stoner of some sort had just gotten a little too handsy in the janitor's closet. Guess not.

The girl, Elena, clears her throat behind Freddie. "So, you gonna take it?" Freddie eyes the jacket, notices it's a letterman, then raises an eyebrow.

"Seriously, I'm good. " She wipes her nose on the back of her hand.

There is a disgruntled sigh and then, "Well, I'm not wearing it either way, so..." Elena places her jacket on the pavement, ludicrously close to Freddie. She crosses her arms over a strappy romper that hits right above the knee. There are already goosebumps on her arms.

She's being ridiculous, Freddie thinks. "You're gonna regret this," Freddie says.

"Not if you wear the fucking jacket," she replies, watching the smoke inch its way into the sky. Her voice wobbles, as if she is personally offended by Freddie and her not taking the fucking jacket.

"Not wearing the fucking jacket." Freddie is thinking about how much she wants to wear the fucking jacket.

Elena is still smiling, in a cocky turned bitter sort of way, but the guy that sits behind Freddie (and probably cheats off of her tests, if she's honest) is looking at them funny. He's standing a few yards away, by Ms. Findlay, probably wondering how two people could be so stubborn as to tough it in winter Florida weather.

This does nothing but convince Freddie not to take the jacket, despite the redness of her nose and the pricking on her cheeks. Elena, however, does not seem fazed by the cold. She is standing, in all her glory, like some sort of stoic statue jutting against the silhouette of a burning school building.

If it wasn't her school, with her hallways, and her lockers, Freddie might comment about the aesthetics in this moment. Of course, that is her school, and now she is watching the firemen as they try to put out the fire.

She pulls out her phone, deciding to call her mom, because there's no way school's still in session. Elena notices, turning her head. The jacket is still in a heap between them.

"What're you doing?"

"Nothing," Freddie is getting annoyed.

Elena seems like she is going to say something, but doesn't, and Freddie is glad. There is no point in superfluous conversation when superfluous people could very well be dying.

Three calls and two and a half urgent texts later, Freddie's mother is nowhere to be seen. Half of her class has left, most to the McDonalds across the street. Ms. Findlay is arguing with someone on the phone. Elena (unfortunately) is still here.

Then, by some sort of miracle, her mother calls back, promising to be there in ten with a cookie. Elena still has not moved.

Freddie, being Freddie, is tempted to ignore her, but there is this inescapable feeling in her gut telling her to do otherwise. Swallowing her pride, she asks, " Need a ride?"

Elena shifts, facing Freddie, and smiles. A real one. "Yeah, that'd be nice, actually. You know, we only got one car, and my mom's working till six and my dad, well he's-"

"Don't need your backstory, just take the ride."

"Oh, Okay."

Freddie kicks the ground, and thinks about running in the school to grab her backpack from the math room so she could do her physics essay. Then she realizes there probably won't even be school tomorrow. Bummer.

Elena has picked up her jacket and put it on, and Freddie manages to feel relatively bad. She congratulates herself for feeling Normal Human Emotions, and then remembers that she is giving herself a glorified participation ribbon, and that those are lame.

Thirty minutes later (her mom is never on time) a red Sudan pulls up, and Freddie smiles and jumps in. "Ride's here," she calls from the passenger seat.

Elena slides in, and Freddie says, "Hope you brought another cookie."

AN-
Ahhhhh thank you so much for reading! Sorry for typos/swearing if that bothers you xxx also, is this story boring? Like too mundane????? I can't tell lol