|| NOAH ||
The weekends went over quickly. After the time a dropped off Brad at his house, he gave me a goodbye hug before I left. He seems to feel a lot more comfortable and was giving me all of these physical contacts, and the craziest thing is, I don't mind them.
Right now, I came to have a small meeting with a few people in the school's library. I sat alone on one of the tables while others huddled together when the teacher who's hosting this meeting was speaking. "Today, we're here to discuss having a small field-trip," he started.
A few murmurs erupted from the students; one of them raised their hand, "a field-trip to where?" She asked.
"TopStar high," he said. Everyone looked at each other confusingly but shrugged it off.
I, on the other hand, felt very unnerved. "For the love of everything good, why'd it have to be there?" I impulsively said without meaning to.
"Yeah, why?" Another student added.
"Well, there has been a sudden change in plans for the upcoming choir and band concert. Recently, we just received a notification that our auditorium had an accident. Apparently, an anonymous group of pranksters had sabotaged the stage with... a canned product called s-sustroming?" he shook his head in annoyance. surstromming? Isn't that a Swedish thing? Who would be able to get such a thing? And why would they even have it in the first place?
"First of all, what exactly is surstromming?" Someone asked.
"Fermented herring preserved in a can for multiple months or maybe even more. It's kinda known for its pungent odor," I said nonchalantly. I must say, they looked at me in horror, one of them nearly gagged.
-
After a while, the bell had rung and we began packing all of our things. Heading towards my first class, I see Annabel walking along the halls and caught up to her side, "Hi Anna," I greeted with a smile.
"Hi Noah. I forgot to ask, how did Saturday go after the party?" she said.
"It went okay. Brad had breakfast with my family, hung out for a little while, then brought him home because his parents were getting worried," I giggled, "...oh, and I gave him my hoodie because I wanted to conceal the smell of alcohol before he met my parents," I added.
"I see, that would somewhat explain why he's unexpectedly wearing an expensive hoodie all of a sudden," she said.
"Say what now." Before we could enter our first class together, coincidentally we passed by Brad who was indeed wearing the hoodie I gave him.
"Sup Noah," he grinned and waved at me happily. I felt myself dabble in embarrassment about the fact that he's wearing my clothes, especially in public! But I was also mostly a bit unnerving that such a brand is being worn here in school. "Oh gosh..." I placed my palm on my face.
Brad let's out a chuckle and pats my head, "aww, what's wrong?" he smiled.
"y-you're wearing the hoodie I gave you," I said, peering through my fingers.
"cute ain't it? don't worry, I'll give you one of my shirts too, " he laughed. I couldn't tell whether he meant it in a joking or serious matter, either way, I was really flustered, a passerby was staring at us as well.
"w-well, we're gonna be late for class. See you later," I said awkwardly. Grabbing Annabel's hand, I waved goodbye to him who was looking back at us with a gentle smile. As we walked into our math class, I spoke, "Hey, umm, during my meeting a while ago, plans have changed and our choir performance is taking place at TopStar," I said sadly.
Annabel looked at me with sympathy, "yeesh, that sounds bad," she nodded.
Before junior year here in Wolverines high, I used to study back at TopStar, and so did Annabel. During my first days of freshmen year, I didn't exactly have any friends but her. It was more like people I just acquaint to. It took me a while to realize that the school ran with horrible stereotypical cliques. There were preps, mean girls, jocks, nerds, and nobodies. I don't know how, but I got lucky being classified as a prep, putting me high up in the hierarchy. It's as if everyone was instantly placed onto any of those categories, but if you were to be referred us a nerd, jocks would identify you as prey, and preps would look down upon the nobodies, thinking as if they were royalty. Sadly, being very smart and shy at first made Annabel look like a nerd. The first time we talked to each other was when we were paired up for an assignment, she was nice, sweet, and kind, and I knew that those interactions between us showed that she was a genuinely good person. Alas, because of her status, she gets teased by Ari and other chicks sometimes, but would weirdly occasionally get wolf-whistled by a random jock. Then something unexpected happened. I overhead from some rumors that the same guy tried asking her out to be her girlfriend but in secrecy. Being a bit naive, Annabel agreed and the relationship between the jock and the nerd began, but only lasted for a while when the word spread out about it. It was early in the morning when there was yelling in the middle of the front lounge area of the school, Damian interrogated the guy, practically putting him on the spotlight, asking if he legitimate was having a nerd for a girlfriend. All of us crowded including Annabel and I as we all watched both of the two boys in the middle. Damian was laughing maniacally as he questions, "are you serious, how pathetic can you be? Are you that desperate that you'd stoop low to ask a nerd out?" he called out loud, others joining him.
The other guy had his fists clenched, then what he said next caused my anger to rise and Annabel to cry, "it was all just a joke man! I wasn't actually dating her... I- I was gonna dump her when I fool her into liking me!" he said, making it seem as if it was all an elaborate plan to humiliate her.
Annabel then found out about what had happened. She broke down from the news, and I felt such empathy for her.
It wasn't her fault...