Kook Year {Kiara x Sarah (Outerbanks AU)}

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟙

Another Friday back at the Kook Academy.

Kiara slumped in her desk, chewing her lip as she gazed at the beautiful clouds the drifted carelessly over the beach through the classroom window.  A couple of boys were out there surfing the waves.  The swells were huge today.  What she would give to be out on the surf right about now.

"Miss Carrera," the teacher called her.  "You're listening I hope?"

"Always," Kiara tilted her head and put on a sarcastic smile.

"Then would you care to start off our class with a brief summary of the topic of global warming?"

"Global warming is basically the long-term heating of Earth's climate system. Changes have been observed since the pre-industrial period, between 1850 and 1900, due to human activities- primarily fossil fuel burning.  Burning nonrenewable resources increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere, hence global warming," she replied matter-of-factly.

The teacher pursed his lips, "very good Kiara." He took a breath in and then clapped his hands together, spinning around. "Now then, let's move on... Topper! Do you know how we could go about fixing this problem we've created?"

Topper quit fiddling with his pencil, "uhh... stop burning coal," he answered with a questionable tone.

"Excellent!"

Kiara rolled her eyes. That was hardly even a question.  She could literally bullshit a better answer off the top of her head than Topper could formulate a sentence.

Tapping her pencil on the desk, she looked out at the ocean and then to the clock.  Only half an hour left before she could head home and grab her board.  More often than not, Kiara found herself watching the seconds tick by throughout each and every school day.  She dreaded the Kook Academy, and the fact that she had to come back every Monday made it even worse.  Sure, she was friendly to pretty much everyone in the school, but no one was anything more than an acquaintance to her. She had no real friends-no fake friends-no friends.

But she didn't necessarily want to be friends with anyone anyways.  It wasn't like any of them were funny enough to earn anything but a faulty laugh from her, and none of them had an interest that aligned with herself.  She didn't know anyone at the Kook Academy who surfed, fished, played music-nothing! All these preppy privileged kids cared about was how much their clothes cost.  She had made a mental note that every single one of these kids had their own agenda and only cared for themselves.

Espeshailly Sarah Cameron.

Sarah Cameron was Queen Kook.  Everyone on the Northside loved, adored, and worshiped her.  She seemed nice enough; she went to beach cleanups (never sober), got good grades in class (despite cheating every now and again), and seemed to care about others (besides that one boy that she supposedly cheated on).  Not to mention the girl was drop-dead gorgeous. But it wasn't like Kiara was expecting Sarah Cameron to just invite her to sit at her lunch table.  Just like everybody else, Kiara assumed that she was more than likely shallow, fake, and selfish.

Kiara pulled her eyes away from the clock and rested her head on the desk, covering her face with her arms.  When it came down to it, being lonely was better than being made a fool of. It was better to have no friends than to have fake friends that don't care about you or anything you're interested in.  Right?

Kiara sat up, glancing around the room.  Not one of these people did she know anything about besides their names.  She had never felt so alone in a room full of people.  She was wrong. Being lonely was worse than having fake friends.  But it wasn't like she hadn't tried to make friends at the school.  It was just that she was an outcast-so different from the others that not one of them would consider being her friend.

Riiiiing!

"Have a lovely weekend everyone!"

Kiara shoved her doodle-filled notebook into her bag and followed the stampede of Freshmen out the door.

"Sorry. Excuse me," she muttered as she wove between students clustered together in the hallway.

"I'm so hype for the Kegger on Saturday," Kiara heard a girl say as she slipped by. "It's gonna be at Topper's place right?  I'll admit, he throws a pretty nice party-for a freshman," they laughed.

Kiara sighed inwardly.  She tried to tell herself that she wasn't disappointed, that she wasn't mad that she wasn't invited to go.  But deep down she wished she had been.  Despite however much, she tried to convince herself that she was glad she wasn't, she was tired of spending countless weekends alone.

Kiara began to quicken her pace as she felt tears welling up in her eyes, desperate to get away from the crowd when she felt a tap on her shoulder from behind.  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and regained her composure before turning around to behold an unimaginable sight.

Sarah Cameron stood with her arm extended, a pencil clutched in her hand. "You dropped this."