The Wallflower of Parkview High

Chapter Seven

"Hey!"

I jumped and nearly dropped my pencil when I heard someone speak and a thunk meaning that they had sat down next to me.

"W-What-" I stuttered, and looked up to see the girl who I had bumped into yesterday sitting there, looking at me.

"Um..."

"You're Noah Barlowe right?" she asked.

"How do you know my name?"

"I overheard it from one of Zander's friends."

Of course she did.

"I'm Alicia, by the way." the girl said, smiling at me. I didn't know what to say, so I just smiled back.

"What are you drawing?" she asked, leaning over to get a look at my sketchbook. I quickly yanked it away and shielded it from her view.

"Nothing!"

"Come on, show me. It's not like you're drawing nudes or anything."

"What?!"

"All I'm saying is that I'm pretty sure it isn't that bad." Alicia said. I sighed and pushed the sketchbook towards her.

"Ooo, who's this?" Alicia asked, looking at the girl I had almost finished drawing.

"That's my sister." I answered. Charlotte had been begging me to draw her ever since the dawn of time and I had finally gotten around to it a few weeks ago.

"Wow, this looks amazing! I could never draw like that!" Alicia exclaimed, staring at the drawing. I blushed.

"Oh, it's not that big of a deal, I'm pretty sure many other people-"

"Feel proud about it, I would die to have drawing skills that good."

"Alicia, please-"

"There's no need to be humble about it. In fact, I think you should use it to your advantage." Alicia said.

"How-" I began, but then the science teacher, Ms. Anderson, called everyone's attention. I saw Alicia give me one last smile before averting her attention to whatever we were learning next.

~~~~~~

"Noah, can I talk to you for a minute?" I heard Damien call, over the crowd of people making their way to their next classes.

"Why?" I asked as he grabbed my hand and pulled me aside where there wasn't a lot of people.

"Because, I saw you talking to Zander Arador these past few days."

"I wasn't talking to him, he was the one who wanted to talk to me-"

"I heard you ran with him in PE the other day."

"That was because I didn't have a partner and Mr. Greene told him to be my partner." I explained. Damien sighed.

"Noah, I'm telling you, he's bad news. If you end up in too many situations with him, you'll find yourself miserable."

I thought that over in my head a bit. Yes, Zander could be nice, however, he does tease and laugh at people sometimes. But making someone's life miserable the long they're around him? I thought Damien was going a bit too far when saying that.

"He isn't that bad." I told Damien. He sighed and looked down at the ground.

"That's because you've only been around him for a small around of time. When you're around him longer, you'll start to understand."

"Maybe..."

"Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that in case you ever have any sort of situation with him." Damien told me.

With that, he left me standing there, thoughts swirling around in my head.