Lady in Red [Max Mayfield]

[2]

Mike and his friends were talking to Max with so much animation. I could tell she was liked amoung the friend group. I can hear my name thrown into the conversation by Mike, and Max sneaks a glance at me. Unaware of what to do, I give a little wave, putting my hand down seconds later, realizing how dorky I looked. Max doesn't return it though. She kinda just nods. It makes me feel stupid. I decide that was a good time to dip into school, so I turn around and started walking.

"Alex! Hey Alex! Where are you going?" Mike yells after me

I pretend that I can't hear him and head into school. I have no idea where any of my classes are, so I speed walk to the office. I stumble into a small office, smelling of freshly printed papers. I walk over to one of the desks, but the woman is on the phone, so I wait.

After a while she looks up at me with her blue eyeshadow and says "Excuse me, cant you see I'm only the phone? You need to walk five feet over to the other desk. She obviously isn't on the phone. Don't be lazy, go on with it!"

Wow. First day is starting off just nicely. I walk over to the other secretaries desk and spit out "Excuse me? Hi I'm new here. My name is Alex Kinney. I don't have my schedule yet."

The lady looks me up and down, doesn't answer, and continues typing. I stand there awkwardly for a few minutes until she stands up, walks into the copy room, and hands me my schedule.

"Um, thank you" I say as rudely as I can. I walk out of the office only to run into Dustin.

"Oh hey Alex! How's it going? Long time no see, am I right?" then he lets out the weirdest chuckle i've ever heard.

"Yeah. Uh I'm good" I respond.

"That's good. Hey is that your classes? Let me take a look" he says. Before I can protest he takes the paper out of my hand. "Okay let's see. Language arts with Mr. tezie. Wait that means you're in a seniors class. Only seniors usually take that class!"

I nod and say "Well yeah I took a seniors course up until I left school and moved couple weeks ago. So they switched it over I guess"

"Cool cool. Oh wait! You have the same lunch period as all of us!" he shouts. I assume he meant Mike, Will, Lucas, and Max. I don't think Max likes me much, but some people don't.

The bell rings, fortunately cutting our conversation short. "Well uh I better go. Don't wanna be late" I say quickly.

Dustin nods and walks off in the other direction. He is so odd. I guess he's nice, but he's just weird. But that makes me sound like a hypocrite considering my friends and I used to call ourselves the losers club. I mean who purposefully names themselves the losers club? God I miss them. Sometimes I say their names to myself just in case I forget. Sounds stupid, I know, but I feel like I have to. Beverly, Bill, Ben, Stan, Eddie, Richie, and Mike.

Eddie and Richie are dating, and they're so cute together. Took them like four years to get together though. 

Bev's dating Bill but we all know that Ben's got the biggest crush on her. I'm pretty sure Stan is in love with Bill, but I won't say anything. I don't want to make him uncomfortable.

As for Mike, him and I used to date. Scratch that, I'm pretty sure we're still dating? He kissed me before I left for Indiana. I'm supposed to call him tonight, but I'm not sure I can now, knowing that I thought Max was pretty this morning. Maybe I just noticed that she was attractive, but I don't like her. Yeah, that sounds right.

I was snapped out of my train of thought when someone runs into me.

"Hey, watch it" a voice says. I look over and see a girl with beautiful, orangish hair staring at me. Her eyes widen just a little when she realizes that she knows me.

"Hey, uh sorry." I say. I can feel my hands shaking. I'm so pathetic.

"Yeah sorry. You're Mikes cousin, right?" she asks

"Ehh. Always called him that because he was just a really close family friend" I reply. Max nods her head understandingly. "Hey uh do you know where room 145 is?"

"Oh shit yeah. That's the class I'm going too. Mrs. Poopie?" Max asks with a slight giggle.

"This paper said Mrs. Choopie." I say like a dork, not realizing it was a joke. I'm so stupid.

"No it was a jo- nevermind" Max says rolling her eyes.

"No, the joke was good! Did your five year old brother make it up or something?" I ask. It wasn't a good joke either, I just wasn't sure what to say.

Max looks down quickly, and coughs. "We better uh get to class"

I nod slowly. I feel bad. What did I say? Is she mad that I insulted her joke?  Although it does sound like something Richie would say. I follow Max down several hallways until we make it to our history classroom. Max walks quickly to her seat without glancing at me.

I wobble over to the teachers desk, announcing quietly to her that I'm new, and need a seat. She looks up at me with the biggest smile I've ever seen and says, very loudly "Well hello there!! Alexa, is it? I knew you were comin' soon!" I can feel all the eyes in the classroom turn to me.

"Um it's alex" I say, trying not to sound rude

"Oh, okay. Well you can sit right there in that open seat, next to Maxine" ahe replies. No, not max. That's what I was afraid of.

"It's Max. No one calls me Maxine" Max speaks, rather loudly. I see the teacher roll her eyes just a bit as I walk to my seat. She sits back down and tells everyone to go back to what they were doing. I look at the clock and realize there's still ten minutes until school starts.

I set my stuff neatly on my desk, and put my backpack on the back of the chair. I see out of my peripheral vision that a pair of eyes is glued to me. I look over at Max, staring at me. I'm about to smile at her when she looks away, a bit..flustered? No. I'm just imagining things.

But maybe, just maybe, I'm not?