The morning went by quickly. Justin showed me to all my classes, but he still insisted upon walking me to all of my classes, not that I could really say no. He was waiting for me outside of my classroom at the end of each period. I'm pretty sure he was leaving his classes early. "How are you always waiting outside my classes?" I asked him on our way to lunch.
"My class is right next door," he said with a shrug before pulling my arm. I blushed realizing that I had just turned left instead of right.
"Seriously though, are you leaving your classes early," I didn't want him getting in trouble because of me.
"Oh," I let it drop as we got in line for lunch. It was really too loud to have a conversation, but that didn't stop Justin.
He leaned closer to me so he could speak right into my ear. I shivered as he brushed my hair behind my shoulder. "The mac and cheese is really good here, but don't ever try the Chinese food." I smiled and nodded as I grabbed us each a tray.
Both mac and cheese and Chinese food were an option, so I took Justin's advice and stuck with the pasta and mini corndogs, hoping Justin hadn't forgot to warn me about them. Justin took his choice of food and led me to the cooler where I grabbed a bottle of water and followed him to the register. I probably could've navigated the kitchen area on my own, but I would have had no idea where to sit once I entered the cafeteria, so I stuck with Justin.
I typed in my pin number which I kept in my phone, I was never very good at remembering numbers, and followed Justin to a table. I took the seat opposite Justin and hoped he would introduce me to his friends, so I wouldn't have to. Unfortunately, someone taped his shoulder from behind, so he turned around to talk with them. I looked over at the three other people at our table, but they all seemed caught up in a conversation, so I decided to wait before talking to them.
I stirred my pasta around and smirked when I thought of what my mom would say. 'Don't play with your food!' such a typical mom thing to say.
"Hey Emma," Someone said as they plopped down beside me. I turned to see the girl from my science class. I think her name was Caitlyn.
"Hi," she was nice to me in class. She asked me to sit with her and let me look at her notes from the day before so I had at least a little bit of an idea of what was going on.
"Typical guys," she looked over at Justin's back since he was still turned away talking to another guy. "He invites you to sit with him and then ignores you."
"Oh, I don't really mind. He's been really nice to me and he helped me find all my classes this morning." I replied, happy to have someone to talk to.
"Oh really?" her voice changed from a hint of anger to curiosity.
It must be a boring town if she finds this interesting, I thought, but only nodded as a response to her question.
"That's good!" she seemed oddly excited.
Maybe Justin is normally mean to people outside of their group. Maybe he's a bully.
"Hey, there's my girl!" I turned to see Vince walking towards me with a smile on his face. He sat down next to Justin who turned around to see what was happening. Vince reached over and took my hand. He placed a kiss on it, but didn't release it. "How's my babe's first day?" He squeezed my hand but didn't let go.
I'm sure the look on my face was rather entertaining as I stared at him with confusion. "And what does that make me?" A blonde haired girl said as she sat down next to me. Oh crap! I silently hoped that either the girl sitting next to me wasn't really Vince's girlfriend, but that was unlikely, or that she wasn't the jealous type.
"You are my Allygator. She," Vince brought both of his hands to the one of mine he was holding and started to massage it, "is my baby girl." He finally released my hand which I pulled back into my lap.
"Relax Emma; he's just messing with you!" Justin told me, but I hardily found his words comforting.
What 'Allygator' said however was a lot more reassuring. "Sorry, I shouldn't have encouraged him. I'm Ally," she told me. "That's Vince, who I'm hoping you've met before otherwise we kind of look like jerks."
"Yeah, our first meeting was only slightly more uncomfortable." I told her. Vince gave me a sad look, so I stuck out my tongue. Everyone laughed and I felt that I had just passed some sort of initiation into their group. I already felt comfortable around Ally, and well, I wasn't sure I'd ever be completely comfortable around Vince.
The rest of lunch was fine. Justin had not forgotten to warn me about the mini corndogs; they tasted just fine. Ally and Vince were both nice, well Ally was. Besides the pet name, they didn't seem much like a couple, which was probably good because no one likes to be around gushy couples. They didn't even use Ally's pet name again.
Justin and I had both afternoon classes together. First we had History where, unfortunately, the teacher decided to make me stand in front of the class. I had been able to avoid that all morning, but my afternoon wasn't off to a good start. "Class," he began right after the bell rang. "We have a new student." Most didn't even look up. I had either had a class with them already, they had heard about me from someone else, or they just weren't interested. Of the people that actually looked up, only about two of them looked interested. "Tell the class about yourself, Emma." He told me before going to sit behind his desk.
"Um," I felt my cheeks change colors. "My name's Emma. I moved from South Dakota and now I live here with my grandma." I assumed that was what most people would know about me. I looked over at the teacher hopping that would be enough, but of course it wasn't.
"Anyone have a question for Emma?" I silently groaned and looked at the faces ahead of me hoping none of them raised their hands. But, because luck most definitely was not on my side, the entire class was now interested and half of them had their hands up. "Quinn?" the teacher said and a girl in the front row lowered her hand.
"Do you have any siblings?" she asked staring intently at me.
"Yeah, a brother he's a freshman in college."
"Jordan?" the teacher chose the next student. This time it was a boy seated on the left side of the room.
"How long have you been here?" he asked before winking at me.
I tried not to roll my eyes as I answered his question, "about a week."
"Kelly?" I was disliking the teacher more and more the longer this went on.
"Why did you move?" she asked in a fake high pitched voice. About four other hands went down. This was the question everybody wanted to know the answer to.
My eyes grew wide. I didn't want to tell them the truth; I didn't want their sympathy. My face was warm with blush when I peeked over at the teacher. He stood up quickly and spoke before I could. "That's enough for today I suppose. Now I should probably do what I'm paid to do, put a DVD in!" The class cheered and I quickly walked to the back, taking the open seat next to Justin.
A few minutes after the film started, Justin pushed a piece of paper in front of me. I looked down quickly to realize it was a note before checking where the teacher was. He was sitting at his desk, eyes closed and feet up. I looked down again and read Justin's surprisingly neat scrawl. 'Are you okay? You seem a little weird? Do you want me to take you to the nurse?' I smiled at his thoughtfulness. He was really sweet. I pulled out my pen and quickly wrote below his handwriting. 'Yeah, I always am, and no, thanks.' I pushed the paper back and he smiled at me before reading the note.
I didn't expect to get another reply, but when he slid the note back onto my desk I quickly read it. 'You're not weird!' I didn't know how to reply. I debated not replying, but when I looked over he seemed to be expecting a response so I quickly jotted down the first thing I could think of. 'Well, you don't know me that well.'
I got the paper back a lot faster than I thought I would. 'You're right, I don't know you very well, so why did you move?" I tensed up. Of all the people I didn't want knowing about my parent's death, he was the one that I couldn't have knowing. He was really nice to me, and maybe it was because he was just a nice guy or maybe it was because his mom put him up to it, but it wasn't because he felt bad for me. I didn't want to be the girl that only had friends because they felt bad for her. That would be pathetic.
A hand on my arm jolted me out of my worrisome thoughts. I turned to see Justin looking at me with a mask of worry again. I shook my head. He nodded and rubbed my arm a couple times before turning back to the projector screen. I relaxed, slumping back into my chair and zoning out with my eyes glued to the screen.
Full Copyright 2013
Last Edited 2018
Author's Note:
Hey guys,
I'm back, the last few weeks have been hectic, and the next one will be too, but I'll try and write as much as possible. I got Microsoft office on my laptop now so the chapters should have better editing and I'll probably write more because I can write wherever I want. Unfortunately, school has started, so I probably won't update every three days like I've done in the past. I have no idea how often I'll be updating, but I won't leave you hanging for a month at a time without telling you.
Thanks so much for sticking with me,
Devin4862
P.S. Tell me what you think about the school, Justin, Emma, Vince, Ally, Caitlyn, coach, the History teacher, grandma, predictions?