"Teresa's POV"
"He's not the same Henry that I remember." I complained to my mom.
Once the first day back at school was over, I was utterly filled with joy. My first day had been complete hell. I had not only walked through the school doors wearing the wrong attire, but Henry had turned into a completely different person. He didn't read anymore, he was the star wide receiver and by the way everyone treated him, it was like he was the best thing at the place.
"I'm sure you're just thinking differently, It has been two years." My mother recalled as we sat on the couch that evening for dinner, eating Chinese take-out.
I rolled my eyes, "I doubt that Henry would completely change his entire life over the span of two years." I sunk lower on the couch, spinning my fork so I could grasp the noodles.
"People change, especially when they enter high school." she started, "and other times people change because they have to."
"What do you mean?"I muffled with a full mouth of noodles.
"Henry lives in a completely new town with a whole new environment. people change people, that's just the way life is, and maybe the kids that he hangs around now have changed him, maybe for the worse, or maybe the better." She explained. she patted my thigh before she gather her trash and headed towards the kitchen.
"Clean up your mess before bed." She walked over and gave me a kiss before heading up the stairs.
"Goodnight. I yelled as she stomped up the stairs.
People change people. The comment my mom had made kept floating around in my head like a loner cloud in the sky. If the people that Henry now hung around had changed him, then what will happen to me when I finally found my group of friends, or if I ever.
I kept asking myself the same question even the next day at school.
English moved slow as I was so tempted to turned and look at Henry. We haven't spoken a word since yesterday, which isn't so bad, but here and there my peripheral vision saw his head move towards my direction. It was awkward and uncomfortable, which is why I was so happy to here the lunch bell go off.
But without a friendly ally by my side, I walked alone through the hallways trying to remember where the cafeteria was located. I followed the crowd of students, hoping I was on the right track.
"Teresa!" A loud yell echoed through the hallway, I, like the rest of the crowd, stopped to watch Lola run down the corridor with her arms flying in the air "Teresa!" She stopped next to me and leaned over to catch her breath. With her hands planted on her knees, she looked up at me with wide eyes. " I was looking for you everywhere after the bell rang. Did you not here me yelling?"
"You were looking for me?"
"Por literalmente nunca. ¿Dónde estabas?" She seemed to ask me a question in Spanish, but I wondered if she always did that, spoke Spanish at little times like this.
She starred at me for a moment, waiting for an answer that I couldn't give her. "Yes! Caleb said he was looking for you everywhere yesterday, but he couldn't find you. Where were you?" She asked.
"I ate in the library, wasn't really in the talkative mood." I lied straight through my teeth. I couldn't find anyone to sit with, and my appetite was low from all the embarrassment I had adsorbed yesterday.
She linked my arm with hers and pulled me into the cafeteria. "Nobody sits in the library unless they're looking to be laughed at." Lola explained, she pulled me into the crowded cafeteria. It didn't even look like a table was open, some students were having to sit on the ground.
"So?" She started.
"So?" I asked back, wondering what she wanted me to say.
"I didn't get the chance to really talk to you so, where are you from?"
"Oh," I hoped I would only have to give her the short version. "I-"
"Out of state?" She asked. "What about siblings? Are you the only child? Ooo," She cooed over the short lunch line. Pulling me along, we stood behind Hallie and her friends. "How are your parents like? Mean, laid back, somewhere in between? My mom is kinda sorta laid back, but somewhere in the middle you know?" Her eyes got wide as she was about to ask me the next question. "Oh. My. God! I have to ask, how do you know Henry?"
It took me a minute for all of the words from Lola's mouth for my brain to understand, but as they did I couldn't help but notice Henry's girlfriend not too far in front of us. She might have been a little snobby, but she was appealing. Her skin was flawless, no blemishes or acne. Her silk hair hung loose above her shoulders, but still held its grace. It was no wonder Henry had fallen for her.
My train of thought was crashed when she had turned and met my gaze. She blinked a few times, sighing before looking down.
I brought my focus back on Lola as she waited for my answer. "Um, old friend." I grabbed a tray, adding on a nacho salad with fries and an apple juice.
Lola talked away, grabbing everything that stood in front of her.
"Follow me nuevo amiga." We sailed though the crowd of student. We passed by the cafeteria out into the hallway where a another door stood. Lola opened it with her back as we stepped outside on the school's patio. Students looked different than the ones from inside. One table had kids wearing dark makeup, smoking as they sat in silence, and another looked to occupied to even eat, playing a video game on the laptops. We continued to walk until we reached a table occupied by Kayleigh and Caleb.
"Can you just hurry up?" Kayleigh argued. Caleb searched through his pocket for something, pulling out a credit card and handing it to Kayleigh.
"Bye loser." Kayleigh shot up from her seat, grabbing her expensive handbagand rushing in, her skirt, just like Hallie, inches away from showing too much.
"There it went again, one of Kayleigh's, I'm-popular-and-you're-not tantrums." Caleb rolled his eyes, continuing to eat his black-spotted banana.
"Do you guys have any classes with each other?" I asked.
"10th grade makes me eligible with no classes with that brat."
I thought about this for a minute, how are they twins, but not in the same grade?
I guessed by the look of my face, it hinted to the table that I was confused. "It's complicated, amigo." Lola said giving me sorry eyes. I nodded my head slowly. Obviously what ever it was, they, or he, wasn't ready to tell me.
There was an awkward silence that hung in the air before Lola spoke another word. "Nice shirt Caleb, looks good on you." Lola had complemented.
"I can make anything look good." He helped himself to a bite of his Lola's pizza.
She swatted at his hand, "how about next time you use your daddy's card for good use." Lola mimicked Caleb's masculinity and sarcasm.
I set my salad on the table and took a seat in between Lola and Caleb. "Don't mind Caleb, I promise not all people in this school is as flirty as he is."
"Ha. Ha." Caleb spoke through the mouthful of Lola's pizza.
"Thanks for letting me sit with you guys, I thought I was going to have to suffer through another day with lunch in the library." I laughed at myself, taking a fork and stabbing at my salad.
"Well you picked the right losers to sit with," Caleb uttered, trying to grab at another one of Lola's tatter tots. "We call this The Patio of the Forgotten." Caleb announced, using his hands to gesture towards the people that sat around us.
"That is true. If you were looking for socially awkward, in-ordinary, easily forgotten people to sit with than you have marked the spot." Lola exaggerated. " But, I promise where not that bad." Lola smiled sheepishly.
"She isn't wrong, after all Lola is 15th in the nation when it comes to gymnastics, but she can be a little clumsy on the beam." Caleb, pretended to whisper to me so that Lola couldn't hear. "And Caleb is amazing at crashing into people and making even the stupidest of the stupidest look better on the football team." Lola and Caleb seem to always tease each other, but it made me feel comfortable around them.
"That sounds just like my cup of tea."
"But if I'm being honest, you could do like, 85% worse." Caleb started, "For instance, you could have sat with the incredibly beautiful and future stars at the popular table, or hung out with the Pokémon playing, video gaming, future doctors nerds table. Just imagine how terrible you would have been with them." They spent the whole rest of the lunch time joking and teasing the other clicks at their tables. I gave them the basics of me: age, hometown, and siblings. I wasn't even aware until now that I actually had friends again. Maybe they were unique and didn't really hang in the spotlight, but I was 100% okay with that because they didn't mind how shy I was, or how I kept to myself.
It turned out that me and Lola actually had P.E. together after lunch, how'd I not see that? We stayed down on the bottom floor turning a few lefts and rights down a narrow hallway. By the time we got to P.E. everybody, expect us we're in our gym clothes.
We hurried to the locker room and changed quickly. "I didn't see you in class yesterday." I told Lola as we got dressed, pulling over the white Lovelorn shirt and pulling up the red cotton shorts. "Stupid practice yesterday, honestly I don't know why I still play." She explained. I stuffed my school clothes back into my bag and ran back out before Mr. Pope could notice.
Unlucky for us, he noticed. We had gotten lectured at, but honestly it was a long way from the cafeteria. Me and Lola went over to a group of girls she knew. We ended up playing dodge ball, basically saying all the girls stood in the back talking in groups as the guys really played.
***
The biology room was made up of ten different lab stations with two or three students assigned to each station. Lola took a seat next to her lab partner and Mr. Ross, and old boring man, pointed me to another seat. I introduced myself to one of my lab partners. The quiet girl with braces was named Alyssa and the guy seated next to her was the total opposite. His name was Jacob Plummet and he spent the entire class period goofing off and cracking jokes. There was this one scary moment where he was trying to cut the frog open, but failed when his knife went flying, stabbing the cabinets. I know that it was bad that he almost killed somebody with his dissecting knife, but I think I will end up loving biology class.
***
The parking lot was almost empty by the time I got out. I had just gotten done picking up some of the work I had missed from the first week I wasn't here. Most of the cars still there were for some of the football players and cheerleaders that stayed for pratice.
"New girl, wait up!"I knew exactly who that voice belong to.
I slowly turned around and saw Henry jogging in my direction. He wore a smile on his face with sweaty hair that made droopy curls fall down his face. He looked like he just got down running a marathon, but he still managed to look good in his joggers and sleeveless white shirt.
"What do you want?"
He leaned his head back. "Okay, I know you're still a little salty about what happened, but I want you to know that I'm sorry." He apologized.
"I don't want your apologies, honestly you didn't hurt me, you just acted like a complete..." I trailed off, trying to think of the word without cussing, but Henry found it for me. "Asshole?" He scratched his neck, squinted as he looked up at me.
"Yeah." I nodded, folding my arms.
"Teresa, here, in Austin is a lot different than back home in Florida. People don't open doors for you, or smile when they pass you in the hallway, unless you make them." He explained, he kept his hands firmly placed on his hips.
I huffed.
"When I got here I managed to find a good group of friends."
"So that's what you call them? A good group of friends." I gestured bunny ears as I spoke.
Henry shook his head, "You just don't understand Teresa."
"What's so hard to understand Henry? Sure, it was a little weird hearing that you reading is stupid, and that your a star wide receiver, but people change, especially after two years."
"Then why are you so upset?" Henry asked, oblivious to how I felt.
I huffed again, "your so called, 'good group of friends' laughed at me and you did nothing except join in. The Henry I knew wouldn't have done that."
"I had to, you're new, and they don't know you like that. They make fun of anybody that walks by them, I had to do it to save my ass."
"Oh, sorry didn't mean to be a burden on you."
"I didn't say that."
"But that's what you're implying, right? Henry I don't even know you anymore."
"It's been two years Teresa, of course you don't know me anymore!"
"Missed time shouldn't change things between us. It hasn't for me!" I rose my voice, trying to control my breathing and the pain that continued to rise in my chest.
"Well it has for me Teresa, okay? You have no clue what I'm going through now, My family rules this freaking place, I couldn't exactly walk in with my nose in a book." Henry chest went up and down, the frustration in his voice clear as day.
"And how am I suppose to know that?"
"If you would just listen instead of argue with me, I could tell you!" He snapped. Henry took a moment, trying to control his anger before he spoke. "My dad has this high position on this technology thing, my step-mom does nothing but lay on her ass all day, and my step-sisters, well they mean everything to this place." He explained. "If I were that awkward, bookish, girl-allergic, anti-sports kid again, than I would never be able to fit into this snobby town, this...snobby school!" Henry gestured all around him, rubbing his eyes afterwards.
I looked down at my feet, not knowing how to reply to his words.
"It's complicated, which is why we can't, you can't just do stuff like what you did yesterday." He ordered.
"Sure." I spoke, brushing past him.
"Teresa." He called out my name. I stopped in my tracks.
"I understand your situation, but that doesn't give you a right to acted like a piece a trash."
Henry sighed, his Adam's apple moving up and down as he swallowed. "Tomorrow, come over my house for dinner. Were having lobster and side rice."
I furrowed my brows, "seriously?"
"Please, I can show you why I'm no longer that Henry you knew, and that I'm sure you miss."
I was already mad as his actions yesterday, but lobster and rice sounded better than another Chinese takeout or pizza hut. "Fine." I said.
"Great." He patted my shoulder before walking away.
I continued to look his way as he jogged over to the field.
AUTHORS NOTE
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QOTC: "Never forget who was there for you when no one else was."
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FOLLOW!!!!!
P.S. B-day was 5 days ago!