For Worse or For Better (Shawn Mendes)

First Impressions

I knew you were trouble when you walked in.
-Taylor Swift

"You'll be okay, trust me. Freshman year is super easy. And it's harder for me, I'm a senior!"

I stare at Zac.

"Sorry, not helping am I?" He pauses. "Just be yourself." 

"We've been here three days and I haven't made any friends." 

"You will, I promise." Zac gives me a kiss on the forehead and strides off down the hall.

He turns to me at the end, winks, and disappears behind the winding turn.

I take a deep breath and step into the principal's office.

I'm greeted by the smell of brewing coffee and freshly made donuts.

I take in the beautiful scent and look around.

The principal is a small, frail man of about sixty, with huge blue eyes framed by thick glasses and tufts of white hair.

He smiles a somewhat toothless grin and gestures to a chair.

"Care to sit?"

And only then do I notice the extremely handsome boy in the room.

He's slouched down, sprawled out on the small couch in the corner of the office, his legs flung over the arm of the sofa.

His brown hair sticks up perfectly, as if he styled it to look like he didn't try to style it.

He's wearing khakis and a red sweatshirt, that squeezes the muscles in his biceps.

A smirk plays on his gorgeous face, as if plastered there for everyone to see.

And when he picks his head up from his phone to look at me, I notice the intensity in his squinted brown eyes.

I take a step back, startled, but his eyes soften as he looks me up and down.

"Is that her?" He asks, his voice tinted with disgust. "Not exactly what I was expecting."

I choke a little at his rudeness. "Um, excuse me?"

When he speaks, I notice his voice is extremely unique. I can't quite place the accent, and his voice is not deep. It's high, but it's not high.

It's weird.

It's perfect.

The principal steps in, breaking off my staring contest with the boy.

"You must be Skylar Healy; I'm Mr. Ross." The principal smiles shakily and sits down.

I send him a forced smile, nothing on my mind but the boy at hand.

"Well, I hope you will find that this school is very welcoming. Your brother will be very pleased with the senior class and I'm hoping that the freshman class will be just as well."

I find myself staring at the brown haired boy as Mr. Ross speaks.

He tells me about rooms and rules, when the library is open, and when my lunch period is. He gives me a schedule and an ID and continues to inform me of the "laws that I will be expected to abide by."

But I'm not really listening.

I'm studying this boy.

With the brown hair.

And the brown eyes.

How can he sit here and play on his phone, right under the principal's nose?

The boy looks up at me and catches me staring.

He raises his eyebrows and I immediately look away, blood rushing to my face.

"Skylar?"

I zone back in and glance at Mr. Ross. "Oh, um, yes?"

He smiles, his eyes flickering to the boy and then back to me.

"This young gentlemen will be showing you around. He will take you to all your classes today and tomorrow, until you're ready to be on your own."

At the sound of him, the boy picks his head up ad slips his phone in the back pocket of his khakis.

"Do I-"

Mr. Ross interrupts him. "Yes, you do have to. And you will be as kind and as respectful as possible to Skylar. Isn't that right?"

The boy huffs. "Whatever gets me out of detention." He's kidding me, right?

Mr. Ross doesn't respond, but gives me a somewhat sympathetic look. "Good luck," he says.

And somehow, I know he's not giving me luck for school.

He's giving me luck for having to spend time with this asshole.

"You are taking her to Room 210 for Spanish first." Mr. Ross says to the boy.

Who nods curtly, gets up, and saunters out of the room, his arms swaying back and forth.

Mr. Ross winks at me and begins to fill out paper work, giving me no choice but to follow the boy.

So I shoulder my backpack and walk out of the room.

The boy stands leaning against the wall as if in a modeling pose for a magazine.

His head is turned away from me, his back pressed against the wall.

His arms are crossed.

One leg is bent up, his foot on the wall.

I find myself staring, just standing there, waiting for him to say something.

But he can't see me.

Or so I think.

"Didn't your parents teach you that it's not polite to stare, Newbie?"

I jump a little, surprised that he knows I'm standing behind him.

"There's really nothing here worth staring at." I retort.

Right as I'm thinking that's the stupidest come back I could've possibly used, the boy lets his foot drop to the ground and he turns to me, his arms still crossed across his thick chest.

He starts to walk toward me, a furious expression on his face, but out of no where, a body slides in front of mine and puts a hand on the boy's chest.

He has close cropped blonde hair, falling in curls over his tanned forehead.

"Go to class, Mendes." He says, pushing the jerk backwards.

The boy from the office, he called him Mendes, walks away, glaring ferociously at me.

The boy who just saved my life and my reputation rounds on me. "You, my friend, won't last a week in this town."