Jaded

[37] New Faces

And only 2 more days left. No problem, I can do this.

Nelson returns the sheet, gives me a thumbs up, and swings an arm around Rai to drag him away. Hiro, left standing at my lunch table, glances around awkwardly.

I'm about to offer him a seat but he quickly mumbles a hasty goodbye and scampers away, red shoes swinging around in rhythm with each step. Just like that, it's only me again.

Sure, the table is pretty big and there are other people, but they're small groups at either end that I have nothing to do with. Stupid Vanessa and her student council. If she didn't have a meeting today, I could have been having lunch with her.

Instead, it's just me and my baloney for the next hour. Granted, it's crazy good baloney.

I get more and more lost in thought with each bite I take as I run through all the possibilities of club recruitment. With only 2 days left, my options are sort of limited. The most effective way would be to buy people off with Mama's baked goods, but VP Ewing would shut that down super fast (since bribery is supposedly frowned upon in this fine establishment).

I mean, if anything there's always the option of grovelling to every passerby. Hm, not looking forward to that. Let's see, what else is there?

Pretty soon I've bulldozed through both sandwiches and every recruitment idea conceivable with 20 minutes still left on the clock.

Boredom is not a concern though, because if I thought Rai and Hiro were the biggest surprise I was going to get today, I was hugely mistaken.

Just as I'm finishing up with my cookie, a girl with long blonde hair pulls out the seat across from me and plops down. The first thing I notice are her two messy braids, made of silky locks the colour of freshly harvested barley and tangled with the loopy parrot green tassels of her bubblegum pink floral scarf.

The second thing I notice is the smell of morning grass and... newly baked bread, I think. Great, now my mouth is watering at the thought oven fresh bread loaves.

When I actually study this girl closely, it's obvious there's a theme in her appearance- flowers. And with all these flowers incorporated into her look, from her earrings to her socks, it feels like she walked right out of a Claude Monet painting.

I'm so utterly captivated that she waves a hand in front of my face. She giggles when I flinch and says, "what'cha thinking about Maddy?"

If she's calling me Maddy then she clearly knows me, but I have absolutely no idea who she is. I would definitely remember someone so... flowery.

Think Jade think, put that brain into overdrive. It's Einstein time, go go go.

Nope. No matter how hard I focus, nothing's coming to me.

She giggles some more and flicks my forehead, right where my eyebrows are knitted together in concentration. Then she turns around and gestures for a guy standing nearby to join us.

When he approaches, it's like the lid of a pressure cooker has blown off. It all comes rushing back.

The guy, he's the same one from one of Ryan's crazy parties last year! He's the only guy I've ever met that's not only managed to make a nose ring look that good, but also totally rocked a flower crown- at the same time.

He was frantically looking for some girl at the party and I think I helped him find her. But that girl... hmm, I can't seem to match her up with the one sitting in front of me right now.

When the guy sits down next to her, flower-girl smiles wide and says, "you're trying to figure out who I am, aren't ya?"

I nod. "Him, I've remembered," I say, pointing to the guy who, unlike at the party, is not wearing a nose ring or a flower crown. He's sporting a baby blue button-up underneath a turquoise cardigan. He still has those amazing black curls though.