Down The Hall

Chapter Four

"As you guys can see we have a new student," the teacher said raising his hand in my direction. "Lucy, will you please stand up and introduce yourself."

All the kids in the class turned their heads to the back of the classroom where I was assigned. I smiled uncomfortably and stood up, cracking my fingers behind my back to ease some nerves. The teenager's judgy looks were like daggers to my self-confidence, breaking me down as I tried to form a sentence.

"I'm Lucy..." I paused not knowing what else to say. What the hell am I supposed to be saying about myself? "Ummm, I'm excited to finish the rest of my school year here."

That was all I had.

People didn't care for what I had to say anyway. Honestly, I didn't care myself. I sat back down in my seat to let everyone around me know that I was done. Most of the class looked away but a few eyes remained. One pair of eyes were no other than Henry's.

When my eyes landed on him, a quick sarcastic smile came across my lips making his eyes narrow. I couldn't stand him already and it's only been an hour. One of his friends noticed and whispered something to him, to which he replied with a head shake left and right.

"Yes, well thank you, Lucy. We are glad to have you here," the teacher said and began teaching.

The unit the class was learning was the unit circle, which my teacher at my other school made us memorize down to our last brain cell.

I opened up the packet the teacher gave me at the beginning of the class and started to take the notes that were on the whiteboard. Not even half of the way through he all of a sudden stopped filling in the circle and turned around to the class. I waited to take note of what he was about to say but instead, he called me.

"Lucy, you know the unit circle, right?"

Surprised that he called on me I sat up straight in my chair and answered, "Yeah, I know it, but-"

He cut me off, "Good. Do you want to come fill out the rest of it? It will make you feel a lot more comfortable with the class. I already filled in one section, you can go from there."

I looked around at all the dead-faced classmates who had most of their heads down in fear of being called on. I nodded and got up from my seat once again in front of everyone.

"It's not like I can say no," I laughed awkwardly taking the marker out of his hand.

I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. My face was hot, my body burned, and my hands felt like they could melt the marker at any second.

"All you have to do is fill in the rest of the circle," the teacher said clarifying, "That means the coordinates, degrees, and pi's for quadrant two."

"Okay," I said trying to sound confident but there was a shake in my voice.

The whole time walking up and standing at the board I couldn't get myself to turn around and look the class in the face. How is this supposed to make me feel "a lot more comfortable with the class" I thought.

I started filling it in, my hand shaking as I did. 120 degrees, 2 pi over 3, -1/2 over... I was so nervous my mind wasn't thinking about what came next but instead what everyone else thought. What was it? I tried to recall all those times I had to write it down to win contests in math but my mind was blank. I could hear snickering behind me.

"Square root 3 over 2," a familiar voice called out from behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Henry with his arms crossed and a smug smile on his face. His hair was more flat than fluffy from this morning and his hidden muscles flexed under his white shirt which couldn't be seen from just his regular posture. He looked almost nothing like the other teenage boys in the class.

"Yeah, I know," I said before turning back to write it on the board.

"Do you?"

A few of the students laughed while some others ohed. I turned to the teacher in disbelief that he said that out loud. How can he just let kids say that to others? So much for feeling more comfortable.

When I noticed that he wasn't going to do anything, I quickly finished quadrant two and made my way back to my seat. The rest of the class my eyes were on the back of Henry's head, hoping that he could feel the disgust I had for him. Wishing that I could burn a hole into his head and just be done with him.

***

Why do lunch lines have to take up 15 minutes of lunch? I thought to myself as I was, well standing in the lunch line for what felt like forever. All the foods in one small area at once made me feel like I had to puke. I ran my hand through my hair and let out an annoyed sigh. Where am I even supposed to sit? I should just skip lunch and go to the bathroom.

As I left the line and made my way up to the double doors leading out of the cafeteria a girl suddenly pulled me into her spot in line. This caused a few people to throw their hands up in anger at me skipping.

"It's Lucy, right?" A cute girl with long ginger hair and freckles asked. I recognized her from math class.

"Pretty rememberable from that embarrassment in front of the class," I joked, trying to sound at least a little interesting.

"It wasn't that bad."

I lazily swung my head to her with the expression 'really' written all over my face.

"Okay, it was. But at least people know your name now."

"You could barely remember."

"Not the point," she said ending that conversation and moving on to the next.

"Where were you going?"

"You know."

I wasn't going to tell her I was heading to the bathroom to camp out or that I didn't have anywhere to sit.

"Ohh, I know," she smiled. I think she somehow did know. "You're sitting with me."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked trying not to seem rude, but I genuinely wanted to know why she was being so nice. There had to be something in it for her.

"Because you seem nice and are very pretty. How can I let a pretty face sit alone?" She teased. A smile spread across my face, the first real smile since the beginning of the school day.

"Smooth. Very smooth. And what about you? You look pretty lonely."

"Me? Lonely?" She pointed to a table filled with a couple of people. Her gold bands rattled against each other causing quite a clean sound. "They bring lunch from home."

"There's enough room for me there?"

"Now there is," she said bumping into me. "Or maybe not, you haven't even asked what my name is yet."

I was so caught up in the conversation that I forgot to even ask. I turned my body to her and jokingly pleaded, "Please tell me your name so I can sit with you."

She pushed up her round gold glasses that gently brushed her mascaraed eyelashes and smiled, "It's Sarah."

Finally, I had a friend.