I keep my eyes locked on the ground as I zigzag in and out between the streams of students making their way to lunch. I'm headed towards room 301, history, in the opposite direction of the lunchroom.
Mr. Arden always leaves his classroom open for us when he is at the teachers lounge during lunch. He has a simple "my door is always open" policy, which he takes great pride in. Rumor has it that, during his first time teaching a class at the school he removed the door to his classroom completely to emphasize his words. But after a few dozen complaints from the entire teaching staff and a minor, indirect threat from the principal he had allowed the janitors to screw it back on.
Taylen is seated at our usual spot in the front of the classroom. She's the only one beside me in the whole classroom, as always. I like it this way; it gives us some kind of privacy to talk free from our hearts. Lunch in Mr. Arden's classroom is my sanctuary, my safe haven and the highlight of every intolerable weekday.
I drop my book bag on the table and take a seat in the free chair next to her. I sight in relief as I pull my phone from my back pocket and place it, with the screen facing upwards, on the table before I pull out the lunch my mom has made for me.
"I'm starving," I admit as I unwrap my sandwich. My mouth is practically watering at the sight of the tuna and lettuce sandwich.
"Me too," she sighs. "It feels like I haven't eaten anything today, when in reality I've been stuffing my face like a pig. I'm definitely getting fat before graduation." I shift my eyes from my sandwich to my best friend. Taylen is shooting a glance down her own body and I frown at her actions. I still can't believe that she constantly worries about gaining weight. Taylen is so skinny and yet she still manages to maintain her curves in all of the right places on her body, as if her body fat was just automatically traveling to the right part of her body to enhance her beauty. If any of us have the rights to be self-conscious it's me; I am nowhere near as beautiful or skinny as Taylen.
"Shut up, you're beautiful!" I exclaim.
"Says you," she snorts as she shoots an envious look down my body. I can't help but frown again. There is nothing about my body that I would hesitate to give up for something on hers. She is perfect in all the right places and I'm as clumsy, big and out of place as an elephant in a porcelain shop.
I open my mouth to argue with her, but I'm interrupted by the sound of my phone buzzing against the wooden desk.
"Someone is popular today," Taylen smiles as she glances at my phone. I manage to quickly grab it before she gets a chance to read the message on the screen.
"It's nothing," I mumble as I try to hide the blush that's slowly creeping its way onto my cheeks. I glance down at the screen on the phone, in my hands, before my eyes meet hers again.
"If it was nothing you wouldn't be checking your phone every third second," she states with a smug look on her face. "You haven't stopped staring at that thing all day, now spill it!"
"It's just some guy who added me on Kickster last night," I admit. I try to play it off as nothing but Taylen is gaping at me before she regains her vocabulary.
"And you accepted?"
"Yes," I mumble as I try to avoid her glare.
"Cassidy, you're not supposed to accept friend requests from strangers online!" she exclaims.
"So?"
"What do you mean 'so'? It could be dangerous," she states, as if I'm not aware of the risk already. "He could be a pedophile or a rapist or a murder." I roll my eyes as she keeps ranting on and on about the consequences of talking to strangers online.
"It's not like I'm giving out any of my personal information," I tell her in an attempt to calm her down, but it seems as if my words have the opposite effect on her.
"That's not the point," she states in a serious tone.
"Then what is the point?" I ask her. "That I'm only supposed to accept friend requests from people I know? I've only ever gotten one and that was yours." I don't think Taylen realize how much it sucks to be me; Cassidy Williams, the lord of the nerds or whatever they call me behind my back. "It's not like he's going to hurt me. He's harmless," I promise her.
"What if he tracks your IP-address?"
"I doubt that anyone would go to that much trouble to rape or murder me," I snort.
"You never know, this world is filled with creeps." Taylen is gesturing with her arms in every direction, as she tries to convince me that chatting with a stranger will for sure get me raped, murdered or kidnapped. She gets distracted from telling me a story about a girl her cousin once knew, by a small, but loud, group of students as they enter the classroom. "When you talk about creeps," she mutters. I shoot a quick glance over my shoulder to see who she's talking about.
Justin Bieber and his two best friends walk across the classroom and take a seat at their usual tables, in the back of the classroom, without breaking their conversation or bothering to lower their voices.
"I don't get how they can be all over him like that," Taylen mumbles to me, with her eyes locked on the brown haired beauty. "He's so fake."
"They're all fake," I sigh as I glance back at them over my shoulder.
"What are you staring at loser?" Ryland interrupts their conversation and settles his icy blue eyes on me, from across the room. All three guys are staring at me; awaiting my answer.
I snap my head back towards the front of the class and lock my eyes on the table in front of me. I can still feel their eyes burning holes in my back, urging me to say something, but I don't want to answer. "Are you mute or something?" Ryland snickers.
"Go to hell," Taylen snaps at him, which only results in a full-blown laughter from Ryland, but when it dies down the guys return to their conversation.
"I hate them," I whisper to Taylen, who squeezes my hand in comfort. Then my phone buzzes in my hand and I'm reminded that I never got around to reply to hero's last chat message.
Hero56:are you online?
Hero56:or are you just ignoring me? As much as I want to break down crying in the middle of the classroom I can't resist the smile that spreads across my lips. As little as I know about this stranger, I feel as if we have some sort of connection. Maybe it was the last words he wrote me last night or just his constant, and slightly annoying, persistency when it came to chatting with me that leave me longing for his chat messages. To be honest I think it's a mixture of both; it's been so long since the last time someone insisted on talking to me and finally having someone, besides Taylen, so willing to connect with me is heart warming and more or less addictive.
Princess123:as tempting as ignoring you sounds I'm not, I answer him.
Hero56:good - how's your day so far? I'm about to type up my usual answer to the worn out question, but then I realize that I'm probably never going to meet this stranger, ever, and that leaves me with a golden opportunity to share my real feelings with someone, who wont be able to use them against me.
Princess123:it stinks, yours? Just as I hit send the second warning bell rings, as if on cue, and Mr. Arden enters the classroom.
"Phone's away kids," he demands as he starts writing down the class schedule for the day on the board. I slip my phone into my back pocket before I dig out out my class notes from the bottom of my book bag. "That includes you Bieber," Mr. Arden calls from the front of the class and just as he does my phone vibrates with a new chat message.
YOU ARE READING
Met Online
Fanfiction| Hero56 is requesting your friendship - do you wish to accept or deny? | Cassidy Williams can't remember the last time she felt accepted and loved. Judged? Sure. Humiliated? Everyday. Lonely? Constantly. However that all seems to change when Cass...
