With Me | Chris Sturniolo

2

Two weeks and a whole lot of painkillers, I found myself back at school.

With nothing to do while I recovered from my newly bruised ribs, I made it my mission to learn the school map. With new confidence, I walked down the halls like I owned them. I tossed my hair over my shoulder so that I'd look hot, like I was being filmed in slow motion.

As I walked, I could feel eyes on me. I like to think it's because of my outfit, but deep down, I knew it wasn't.

Fellow students were looking at me because one, technically I'm still the new girl, and seeing as I didn't even make it to my first class on my first day, many of them hadn't seen me before, or two, they're still talking about the Chris incident. In a school this big, I'm sure more interesting things happened the last two weeks.

I make it to my classroom and take a seat in the middle row. There are a couple other people here, but most students were wandering the halls, enjoying their last few minutes before suffering through history class.

I pulled out my notebook and dated the top of the page. I tried to underline it in red ink, but the ink didn't come out. Stupid pen. Didn't even work when I tried to scribble it. I'm so distracted by trying to get the pen to write, I jumped when a hand covered my eyes.

It happened quickly and I reacted automatically. My hands grab their wrist and pull it away with a twist. I applied pressure, knowing I could break it if I twisted it more. Jumping out of my chair, I turned around and face them.

"Ouch! No need to go all crazy on me" Nate said, rubbing his wrists.

"Sorry!" I said, embarrassed. "Next time, don't sneak up on a girl"

Fortunately, the bell didn't ring yet, so only a few people were giving me confused looks, most of them were on their phones.

"You have a good grip. That's weird because you've cute, small hands" he joked

I don't know much about Nate, but he was starting to grow on me. If only he wasn't friends with Chris, I would've considered being friends with him. The bell rang, and instead of responding, I stuck my tongue out turned to sit back on my chair.

"You could do way better" a voice to my left says.

A pretty girl in the desk next to mine, gave me a disappointing look.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I don't mean anything by it" she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "Someone pretty like you and with a great dress sense, could do better than stooping as low as that player"

Nate stood at the back of the room, talking to Matt and other guys. Almost every girl in the room, except the girl beside me, was gazing at them.

"Thanks. But me and Nate? Ew, like never. I don't want anything to do with him or his friends, especially Chris"

She looked at me and her eyes widened. "Oh my God! You're the girl who told off Chris a couple weeks ago! I knew there was a reason I liked you, other than you're cute shoes"

"You saw?"

"I didn't have to. Everyone was talking about it. What happened? Rumour going around is you dropped out of school and moved out of Boston in fear he'd seek revenge"

"I'm not scared of him. Annoyed? Yeah. Irritated? Of course. But scared? Never"

"We'll be great friends" she smiled at me. "I'm Callie, by the way"

"Sabrina"

"Let me see your schedule. Maybe we'll have some classes together" she squealed. "We have chemistry together, and then we can go for lunch"