I banged my head against the locker door, metal assaulting my obsessively styled fringe. Groaning, I took a step back, eying the annoying locker before me. The green lock was shut, known combination refusing to work, adamantly locking me out.
Glancing to my left, I saw Zack and Rian practically skipping down the hall, intertwined hands swinging between them. A smile cracked my face because, locker troubles or not, those two really were adorable.
They’d been together since just after the start of last year, when Zack finally grew the balls to ask out the little nerd he’d been crushing on since second semester of freshman year. It had taken excessive amounts of persuasion and prodding on my part, but the final product seemed to be worth it.
Rian was one of the white kids whose parents seemed to be secretly Asian, considering anything below an A complete failure while forcing the boy to learn eight languages and drown in extracurricular activities. So that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the buzz cut boy did have straight As, and speak Spanish, French, and Latin, along with being the captain of the drum line. Something that he was embarrassingly proud of.
He was also a germaphobe, obsessively cleansing his hands before even thinking about touching anything soon to go in his mouth. He refused to touch bathroom door handles, since they were ‘the dirtiest object in any building’ and stayed approximately ten miles away from anyone who so much as sniffled, or had slightly puffy eyes.
I wasn’t sure how Rian justified swapping spit with Zack, due to the aforementioned trait, but they sure did it often enough. More so than I'd like, not that I had a say in it.
Zack and Rian were, basically, the only couple I knew where there wasn’t a specified dominant partner. Despite his childish, stupid tendencies, Rian loved nothing more than throwing his arm around his muscled boyfriend and treating him like a spoiled princess. And Zack could often be seen carrying Rian around the back field during gym when he was too lazy to run, ignoring the angry shouts they received from the gym teachers. Everyone knew they didn’t really give a fuck what their classes did, anyways.
“Having trouble?” Zack called, pulling his boyfriend into his side as they stood before me.
I grunted in response, spinning the dark green knob angrily, harsh tug acquiring nothing.
“Let me try,” Rian commanded, pushing me out of the way and snatching the paper designating my locker number and combination. His swift fingers manipulated the lock, swinging to 24, 26, and 20, before pulling it open with a smug grin.
“What kind of locker ninja are you?” I asked, shooting him a half annoyed, half grateful look as I shoved my beaten black backpack into the crammed space, too lazy to bother pulling out any of my books. It was the second day of school; all I had so far was a pencil case and notebook, anyways.
I’d learned - after the stumbling disaster that was first year - that teachers are idiots, and want exactly the opposite school supplies as demanded by the back to school list. So I waited until the end of the first week of school when I knew what every meticulous Mr. or Mrs. wanted, time and money unwasted.
Rian shrugged, grabbing Zack’s hand and whisking him away just as the bell rang, calling over his shoulder, “I’m just that awesome.”
I tried to ignore the fact that Zack had loudly confirmed just how amazing he was, seeing as, though couple was quite cute, it did get old.
I spun around, heading off towards French, seventh period occurring stupidly just after brunch. Whoever thought up the schedule for the first two days of school was an idiot, in my mind. The classes were in a ridiculous order that really helped nothing and completely contradicted the normal schedule. But, hey, who cares what I think.
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Three hours and one extremely interesting lunch later – by interesting, I mean Zack refusing to shut the fuck up about football tryouts and jockstraps – I strutted through the door of G6, eyes mindlessly scanning the room.
I spotted Brendon chatting with Spencer across the room, striding over and collapsing into a chair next to them. They each flashed me a smile, throwing ‘Hey’s and ‘What’s up?’s as Ms. Garcia attempted to call the class to order.
The restless kids all shifted their attention towards the front of the room, eyes zeroing in on the well dressed, middle aged teacher commanding everyone to, “Quiet down!”
“Alright.” she called, once deeming the noise level in the room somewhat manageable, “we’ll be getting our seats today. Gather your things and stand at the side of the room while I tell everyone where you’ll be sitting!”
A collective groan resonated through the room, students simultaneously stripped of our right to sit with our friends. It was a bit stupid, because, no, we were not in first grade anymore, and a bit admittedly genius, because, yes, we tended to talk less when placed with complete, awkward strangers. Or, in some cases, befriended those strangers, and helped all hell break lose.
“Matt, Sam, Lilly, Vivian.” Ms. Garcia called, pointing her blue ballpoint pen to the kids allotted desk before moving on, assigning seats. I leaned against the wall, ears half tuned in for my name, pencil absentmindedly spinning through my fingers.
“Alex, Isabella, Jessica, Jack.” the woman spoke, gesturing to four desks in the back left corner of the room. It wasn’t until a sassy Ryan with a cocked eyebrow jabbed me with a pen that I realized I was Jack, that was me, and I was supposed to be cramming my legs under a desk by now.
Jolting into action, I moved towards my newly appointed seat, gracelessly pulling out the chair. I hooked my ankle around the metal leg as I sat, bringing it back as I fell into the cracked dark blue plastic.
Dropping my notebook and led stained pencil case onto the fake wood surface, my eyes scanned my table mates, names unrecognized.
A pretty, tall girl with curly blond hair was across from me, leaning back in her chair and chatting to the pony tail Asian with blue glasses beside her. I wasn’t actually sure which girl was which, but I could figure that out later. Hopefully.
My eyes the fell on the familiar boy who would be my desk partner, none other than Alex Gaskarth. He seemed to be popping up everywhere lately.
“You’re in my Science class, too?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow as my eyes swept his body. Black skinny jeans, Foo Fighters shirt and tight gray sweatshirt. I approved, very much.
“No shit.” he replied, grinning as he kicked a Converse onto his knee, chair scooting back to accommodate for the space taken by his leg.
I nodded in response, ankles hooking under my chair as my eyes flicked over to the whiteboard, absorbing something about egg towers. Right.
“That makes, what, three classes together in a row?” I asked, mentally counting off the periods we seemed to share.
“Mmm… yeah, I think so.” Alex responded, biting the corner of his lip in concentration, my sight stuck on the movement, “art fourth, gym fifth, and science sixth. There ya go.”
I opened my lips to reply, cut off by the teacher throwing straws, paper clips, and rubber bands into the middle of our table group, declaring that we had to make a tower able to support an egg. Once again, not first grade. Apparently no one told her that.
It was supposed to be a ‘team building’ exercise, or… something. Whatever.
The two girls immediately grabbed all the supplies, rushing off into a hurried discussion of what exact structural shape would best support and egg without allowing it to fall or get damaged in any way, shape, or form. Rocket science, egg towers are. Obviously.
Alex just looked at me, smiling when I cast a curious gaze at him, stating, “I like your hair.”
I laughed, mumbling a thanks and ducking my head as my fingers immediately went to perfect the arrangement of my bleached strands, feeling my cheeks heat. The boy beside me didn’t need to see me blush.
Soon enough, I was getting a thick pink straw thrown at me, with specific instructions to cut in half. I muttered something about being ordered around to myself, complacently straightening up and pulling out my scissors.
My family had gone back to school shopping the week before, stocking up on necessary pens and pencils, other assorted odds and ends. The only scissors we could find small enough to fit in my pencil case were actually blue fabric scissors, a little girly. The blades were thin and menacing, though.
I snapped them down on the pink plastic, noting the way they only left a small dent. Brow furrowing, I tried again, squeezing the two ovals together and pressing with all my might. Which achieved nothing.
I sighed, instead pulling back the blades, left hand gripping the straw while my right sawed. It was slow progress, but, eventually, the blade broke through the last of the stubborn material. And sliced into my fingers.
I swore, dropping the scissors and split straw, watching as twin lines on the sides of my first two fingers bled red.
Alex jumped up, blond streaked head searching the room until locating a box of tissues. He grabbed a few, hop-jogging back over and tossing them at me.
“Thanks,” I said, pressing the flimsy white material to my fingers, watching as the blood seeped through.
“Fuck, that’s bleeding a lot,” he exclaimed, appearing much more alarmed about the situation than I was. I always had a random cut or scrape on my body, thoughtless nails scratching off a scab every other day. Pointless blood and stupid pain wasn’t out of the ordinary for me.
“Eh, it’ll be fine,” I replied, pulling back the tissue, watching with a fascinated eye as the blood seeped from the miniscule slashes, bright liquid pooling at the edges.
I ignored Alex’s worried gaze, kicking my feet onto the desk before me, teacher occupied on the other side of the room as I once again sent the white Kleenex to soak up my blood, right hand squeezing it around my fingers. The girls were still working urgently, barely paying mind to my almost crisis.
Everyday accident, nothing mistake. That’s all it was.
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Well that was by far the best reaction I've ever gotten to the begining of a story. I'm glad people are as excited as me! I hope it can keep it good. I don't really have anything important to say so thank you all for commenting and please comment again!
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Rose