Pretty Smile | Charlie Conway

(2) haze

⁕PRETTY SMILE⁕

↧02. HAZE

No one said a word, nor even laughed at the group of people either. They just stared at the boy who just spoke. Yet, the moment her brother snorted, the whole hockey team burst into laughter.

Everyone in the room began to laugh at the team and Molly even chuckled a little at them. The rest of the team got themselves off of the floor and up beside the boy in front. Molly laughed, but felt a little bit bad for the people in front of her who put their heads down in embarrassment.

The Dean proceeded to introduce them to the entire school community which immediately stopped the varsity hockey team's laughter and silenced them. Her brother watched the hockey team intently, glaring at them the entire time, even as they left the auditorium to start their classes.

Molly stopped Rick in the hallway, pulling him aside.

"You have a major attitude problem," she told him as he scoffed and rolled his eyes. She put a hand up to him, stopping him from making remarks.

"If it continues, I really am going to strangle you in your sleep."

With that, Molly walked away and towards her first class of the day which was history. She had already taken a previous course with the history teacher so when she walked in, Mr. Grant greeted her with a smile.

"Hi Mr. Grant!" She addressed him as she went to take her seat, continuing to talk to the teacher about her summer and how she went to NYC and saw many historical things there. That put a smile on Mr. Grant's face.

Molly always sat in the third row, third seat back and everyone knew that so, everyone was courteous of leaving that seat open for her in the classes. If someone sat in the seat (which usually never happened) she usually would just glare.

Molly wasn't one of those girls to call you out for it, but she was friends with the ones who would.

Today, Molly went to sit in her seat, but the moment she turned into the row and moved her head to look at the seat, she saw that it was taken. The boy that greeted everyone embarrassingly in the auditorium was sitting there. He was sitting in her spot.

Molly gulped, not really knowing what to do, so she sat in the seat behind him. She didn't address the boy, instead she began talking to one of her friends in the class until the bell rang.

Just when it rang, Tessa Whitner ran into the room, breathing so heavily that you could see her chest rise and fall. She huffed and began walking towards the seat that was left open beside the third row, third seat as that was left open for her since Molly always sat there.

But when Tessa saw who was sitting in Molly's seat and how she was sitting in the seat behind, she raised an eyebrow.

"Ms. Whitner, please make your way to a seat as we need to begin shortly," Mr. Grant told Tessa when he got up from his desk, a textbook in hand.

Tessa didn't respond and sat besides Molly in the second row.

"Is that the kid from this morning sitting in your seat?" she whispered with a small laugh.

Molly shrugged her shoulders, slightly annoyed. "Yeah, it is."

Tessa proceeded to laugh, looking at Mr. Grant to make sure she didn't get scolded for talking. "What happened this morning was so embarrassing, I couldn't imagine coming to classes after that."

Molly snickered a little. "I felt second-hand embarrassment when that happened and of course, Rick had to be the usual asshole and make the whole auditorium laugh which probably made it worse for them."

Tessa chuckled, a hand over her mouth, until sitting straight since Mr. Grant began his lesson.

Throughout the whole class period, Molly spent the whole time daydreaming instead of listening to Mr. Grant explain the lesson plan for the year and the syllabus. She traveled to a place of her own, a place where all of the stress of school and being popular could just fade away.

That was until the first bell rang and everyone began to get out of their seats to go to the next class. Molly got up and grabbed the books off of her desk and slung her bag over her shoulder.

She wasn't paying attention to where she was going, so she bumped right into the boy who was sitting in front of her, making the books in her hands fall onto the ground with a hard smack.

She groaned and began to kneel down to grab them, but the boy had gotten there quicker and was already handing them to her.

"I am so sorry, I wasn't paying attention," said Molly with an embarrassed flush on her cheeks, keeping eye contact far astray. She grabbed the books out of his hands.

"Oh no, it's fine," he said. Hearing him talk for the first time immediately drew Molly's eyes to his face. For the first time since this morning, she actually found him quite cute.

His hair laid perfectly on his head and he had eyes that glistened in the artificial school lighting. Molly began to stutter, "Uh...t-thank you for picking u-up my books, I gotta go!"

She began to walk away and ran out the room and down the hall as far away as she could from him. She felt the unusual flutter in her chest, causing her breathing to quicken. She felt slightly light-headed and once she made it to her algebra class, she sat down in her seat, third row, third seat back, and put her head down.

She tried to slow her breathing as much as she could. She could feel people's eyes on her, so the moment she calmed down, she picked up her head, swished her hair back behind her shoulders, and straightened her back. She needed to make an impression and people couldn't think that she wasn't okay.

Her algebra teacher began the class with an introduction, roll call, and a syllabus review. The whole time, Molly thought about that new kid that sat in front of her in first period.

The whole time, her cheeks flushed and she felt as if the room was a thousand degrees. Her palms were sweating and her eyebrow furrowed and it was all over this random kid she didn't even know. She didn't even know his name either.

Algebra class went on for centuries and by the time the bell rang, everyone was slumped in their seats and got up like they were zombies. Ms. Harold, the algebra teacher, told everyone to have a good day and put a pep in their step which no one listened to.

Meanwhile, Molly spent the rest of the day in a haze. Even during lunch, she was off, sort of like she was on another planet, even her friends had noticed, and that was all because the same boy that she shared first period with, she also shared lunch with.

Tessa, Molly's best friend, went up to her friend and sat beside her, leaning in, seeing how in thought she was.

"Molly? Are you okay? Did Rick annoy you to the verge of tears again? Cause if he did, I will punch him!"

Molly just shook her head, signaling 'no', as Tessa raised an eyebrow at her best friend. She never acted like this.

"Molly, did something happen?" She asked and Molly shook her head the same as before.

Tessa just stopped talking to her and proceeded to talk to the rest of the group of friends at the table. All of Molly's friends glanced at her like something was up, yet they didn't say a word about it.

Molly looked over her shoulder and saw the boy from first period at a table with some of his teammates that she saw on stage that morning. He was laughing at something that the long-haired boy said to the group.

Molly wondered the whole lunch period about who he was, because unfortunately, she didn't even get the opportunity to hear what his name was when the teacher was doing roll call that morning.