After my encounter with Liam, I was relieved to see that nobody in my second class had tattoos on their necks or an overwhelming amount of metal in their faces. I crossed my fingers, hoping that Niall and Liam were the only ones I had to worry about. As my third class came around, I stepped into the classroom and there sat a tattooed and pierced boy, in the back row. He had no vibrant colors in his hair, but he did have lip ring on the right side of his bottom lip, just like Liam. His ears were stretched, but no bigger than a dime.
I felt like these kinds of boys were multiplying by the second; Almost like bunnies.
During attendance, he spoke his name and fed my curiosity. Louis, and the only reason he spoke it was because the teacher called him Lewis and he corrected her. When my name was called, I smiled and said, "Here!" not wanting to repeat English class. The class, Algebra 3, flew by quickly and I didn't talk to Louis until five minutes before the bell when I felt him pulling at my hair.
"How do you get your hair to curl like this?" He spoke, with a smirk. I turned and raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I washed it and it dried like this." I replyed, my annoying Emma voice had filled my ears and made me cringe on the inside. He only smirked and continued pulling at the lock. He'd make it straight, then releasing it and watch it bounce back into a curl.
"I wonder how it keeps its shape, even if I pull on it..." His curiosity was a disease. My mind wondered to what the logical reason would be. When the bell rang, Louis and I walked out together. He wasn't a very chatty guy, I was perfectly fine with that.
We followed the flow of hallway traffic to the lunch room, where Louis departed me without a word and made his way to a table. I spotted Niall and Liam sitting at that table. I knew that they were friends, with identical appearances. I was going to head straight into the line for food, but someone grabbed my wrist and stopped me. The hand around my arm belonged to Liam, he motioned to sit in the chair next to him. I hesitated, but eventually sat down and listened to their conversation, something about a party. It was almost as if I blinked and a fourth boy, with jet black hair, was sitting across the table. He had a septum piercing, nothing else, to my surprise his neck wasn't covered in tattoos, but a tattoo with four different skulls played on his collar bone from his shirt. His rolled up sleeves gave me a clear view at the different colored art on his arms.
"So, are you guys going to introduce me to this beauty?" My eyes broke their concentration on his body.
"This is Emma," Niall nodded at me, causing the boy to smirked, his hand shot up to a wave.
"I'm Zayn."
Then, as if it never ended, another boy walked up. He had much more hair, longer than the other boys. His was curly, pushed up on top of his head, it was messy but in a purposeful way. He had a lip ring on the left, an eyebrow piercing on the right and a brooding look on his face. Tattoos, of course, danced up his neck, and down his arms, shown by unbuttoned sleeves that were pushed up. Under his shirt, I could see a hint of more tattoos and I didn't expect anything less.
He sat down at the table and started to complain about something. He acted as though I wasn't even at the table and he continued to ignore me until lunch ended. I felt hurt by this, all the other boys made an effort to introduce themselves, whereas he avoided eye contact and conversing with me.
I walked to my last class of the day, both Niall and the brooding guy were in it. During it, I learned his name was Harry, and the 'get to know you' activity taught me that he didn't really care. He gave off that tone so it wasn't hard to guess, and I'm almost positive he doesn't like me in the slightest. He must have been having a rough first day and maybe I should give him a second chance. I spent the whole class deciding on what to think; Was he really just an asshole or was he having a bad day? I came to the conclusion that I didn't know him well enough to know what was going on.
Almost as quick as it started, the day was done and I was free. I gathered my things and sat outside, waiting for my Mom to come and pick me up. I stared at my unanswered texts to my old friends and bit my lip to avoid emotion.
"Hey, Emma." A voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I watched as Liam and Zayn came over and sat with me. "How was your first day at Winchester?" Zayn asked.
"It was alright. I just really miss my old school, y'know?" I sighed, putting my phone in my bag.
"I'm sorry. You have us boys, we will make you feel as welcomed as possible." Liam smiled, wrapping his arm around me and squeezing. I couldn't help but blurt out the first thing on my mind.
"So, is Harry always like that or was it just a bad day?"
The boys froze for a second, looking at each other before Liam finally spoke up. "Harry is an acquired taste. Once you get to know him and he gets to know you, I'm sure you two will be good friends."
I shrugged and stared off into the distance, watching kids getting picked up and leaving. Zayn and Liam had a full conversation while I spaced out. It took someone pointing out my phone buzzing in my backpack to notice it, I was quick to whip it out. Instead of an old friend, my Mom's caller I.D flashed on my screen.
"Okay, I gotta go. I'll see you guys tomorrow!" I departed, rushing down the line of cars until the familiar sedan came into view. I slid in the car and put my bag at my feet, undoing my tie. I realized that I didn't exchange numbers, so I won't be able to talk to them tonight. Maybe that was for the best, afraid of what conversations may arise.
"How was school today?" My Mom asked, pulling out of the school lot.
Don't even get me started.
"It was okay. I have really nice teachers but I still miss Utah." I spoke, adjusting the vent in front of me.
"Make any friends?" She asked. Lie.
"Yeah. I made a few." I smiled, a blush slowly creeping onto my face. I hoped my Mom wouldn't see, she would ask questions and freak out if she knew I was starting to hang with the wrong crowd. But instead, she just smiled and turned the radio up. A song by someone who sang too fast was playing, but I drifted off into my own world.
THREE IN THE MORNING
I woke myself up with a moan. I covered my mouth quickly and flew out of bed, opening my door silently and listening for my fathers signature snore. After a few seconds, I heard a loud rumble and instantly relaxed. I closed my door and went back into bed. I grabbed my phone from my nightstand and pressed the lock button, the bright screen blinded my eyes. The time flashed across the top, 3:04 AM.
I was confused about what had woken me up, why I was covered in a sheer layer of sweat. I recalled the dream I had just had, but I couldn't recall what had occurred. I stumbled into the bathroom and filled the cup on my counter with water, guzzling it down at once. My throat was like sandpaper, my head was cloudy.
When I returned to my bed, I shuffled through some apps on my phone. No texts, no Instagram DM's and no Snapchat's. I was beginning to lose hope, would my friends ever reply to me? Instead of making myself sick with worry, I shut off my phone and turned over in bed.
**
This chapter was uploaded sooner than I wanted it to be. I had plans to set specific upload times, but I figured I'd take this update to talk to you guys about something.
I used to not really care about this in the past, but now that my story has grown three times the amount I expected, growing everyday. So, I figured I would take this authors note to inform you guys that:
NEGATIVITY WILL NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE COMMENTS.
I warned you guys that chapters beyond the ones I have revised are terribly written. But, I've started to get some hurtful comments for some of the things I wrote. (in middle school) I was 13, these are the works of a tween, who thought of unrealistic actions and really just didn't know how to write.
From now on, any heated or negative comments will be deleted. If I continue to receive hurtful comments, I will stop reading them. Which also means I will not interact with my audience the way I promised myself I would. That's my favorite thing to do, is read your comments and reply to them.
On another note, I want to thank you all one more time, for the support. But, if you want to support me more, please vote my story, add it to a playlist and maybe even follow me here.
So much love, as always