I leaned against the one of blue lockers in the hallway, crossing my arms and looking down to my feet as I waited for my best friend, Victor Stone, to finally get out of class and retrieve his locker belongings. My foot tapped the seconds I had to wait out, 57,58,59,60, One minute less he had to get ready for the next period. My tan hand gripped my arm, my eyes wandering to the detailed scale like marks I had drawn up and down my forearm during class. English, my last period, had been so boring, and my short attention span did not help either.
"Hey, Logan!" I looked up to see Victor, my large and dark best friend standing in front of me, waiting for me to get out of the way of his locker.
"Yo dude, it's been.... 1 minute and 12 seconds since the bell rang! You're late man." I replied, sliding over to the locker beside Victor's. Victor and I weren't much alike in looks, but we were very similar in personality. His skin was much darker than my Latino tan, and on top of that he was taller and bulkier, while I was average and lanky. But, all of our physical differences were put aside in video gaming, we always joked and were super chill with each other then.
"Aw dawg, you got to be kidding me! Sorry about that I guess, got held up by some traffic." Victor explained, spinning the dial on his lock and clicking it open. We both chuckled at the word traffic, we knew what that meant, Richard (or Dick, literally the weirdest nickname ever) and the other star players on the basketball team had their entourage of adoring fans following them out of class once again. Victor's face suddenly became crestfallen as he pulled out a history textbook and a messy notebook with loose leaf papers sticking out from it.
"Dude, what's wrong?" I asked, Victor sighed. "I just don't understand, I'm great at basketball but whenever there's a game I'm usually benched. This..." My best friend trailed off, "It's loco." I finished the sentence for him, but it wasn't in a joking manner. Before we could continue out conversation, the bell for next period rang. Our dark mood began to lighten up.
"Okay man, I'll see you at lunch then, I guess." Victor said, holding out a hand for a fist bump.
"You got it." I replied, our fists bumped and then pretend exploded, it was corny, but cool. I waved as Victor travelled off to his next class.
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A girl with red hair and green eyes stood at the front of the room, multiple posters that had something to do with music plastered behind her. She wore a white crop top with black tribal print and a red skater skirt along with white flats. This girl, it was the first I'd seen of her, but her skin color was a lot like mine, and her accent definitely made it sound like she was from a different country.
"Okay class, this is our new student, Star Fire, she's recently moved to America all the way from Venezuela!" Our music teacher, Mr. Wolfe very enthusiastically introduced the new girl. At the word Venezuela, everyone else in the tiny music classroom looked back at me. Blood rushed to my face, just because I was Puerto Rican did not mean every person who came from South America or any islands around it was my best friend! What did these people expect from me?
"Hola, ¡mi amiga!" Or something? That's literally all the Spanish I know. Not kidding.
The new girl, Star, seemed to notice everyone's gaze turn towards me and waved shyly, hoping we could become friends. I was too embarrassed to wave back, I simply stared on and the girl quickly returned to rubbing her arm nervously. "Okay! Okay class! Now it's time to start, don't forget to give Star a big welcome to our school!" Mr. Wolfe pulled the attention of all the students off of me, and back to him, I sighed and allowed my shoulders to slump in relief. The teacher went on to explain some musical review from last year, 8th grade, while the new girl, Star, made her way to the wall of the room and sat by herself. I couldn't help but feel bad, it was obvious she had just bought those 'hipster' clothes to fit in (and I couldn't deny she looked pretty good), I should've just manned up and waved back earlier... I knew that wouldn't happen though, I wasn't much of a man anyway.
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"Ey man! Whatchu got in there? Tofu, like always?" Victor greeted, saying the word tofu as if it were some kind of toe fungus. He sat at an otherwise empty lunch table, the sound of people's various conversations filling the room.
"Yeup, what d'ya got? Carnivore's galore?" I teased back, seating myself right in front of Victor and eagerly ripping open my brown paper bag lunch, I actually had no idea what my mom had packed me this morning. Victor grinned at my statement, "Course man, a leftover burger from last night's barbecue." He explained, biting into a beef patty with bread buns above and under it. I rolled my eyes and reached my hand into my lunch bag to find tofu chicken my mom had probably not warmed up for long enough... I made a disgruntled look as I bit into the first tofu chicken strip. "Having a problem?" Victor chuckled at my disliking and then held out his burger as if it were an offering, "Want some of my delicious meat?" He joked, then burst out into laughter. My hand automatically went to my forehead to rub my temples, "Bruh." I replied, but a little laughter escaped from my mouth as well.
Once Victor finally settled down and I compromised my undercooked tofu chicken strips for salad and and apple we both chowed down, too busy eating to make fun of each other's dietary choices anymore. After stuffing my face with salad I took a break to chew, my eyes wandered around the cafeteria, people sat all around at different tables with their friends, and only a few people were still in line for hot lunch from the school cafeteria. Sometimes I wondered why people even paid to get the school lunch, it was just reheated food that had probably been sitting there since 1997 or something.
In line, I noticed a girl with pale skin and Ebony hair balancing a large book on her lunch tray, too caught up with making sure her book stayed on the tray to pay attention to anything around her. She wore a black turtle neck that was very fitting and dark purple skinny jeans along with her black doc martins. Before I knew it, I found myself staring into her concentrating purple eyes instead of chewing the salad in my mouth.
"Hey, that's the girl you've been wanting to talk to right?" Victor interrupted my study of the girl, chewing up the last of his lunch. I looked back at him, and then snapped back into reality, "Yeah, I guess. My grades have well.. Kinda been slipping, I heard she was really smart so I was hoping to get some tutoring from her." I explained, running a rand through my dark hair and swallowing my salad. "Well then why don't you go ask her now? She's about to pass by us." Victor suggested, nodding towards the approaching girl. My mind went on freak out mode, she was about to pass our table, now was my time to ask about the tutoring! Thoughts frantically raced in my head, trying to remember her name. Reina? Reba? Rory? Ramona..?
"Rachel?" I called out to the girl, who seemed startled at my sudden greeting. She broke her intense concentration on the book and lost her balance, causing the lunch tray to tip over and topple into the ground. "A-Ahhh!" She exclaimed as her entire lunch fell to floor, the tomato soup that was supposed to go along with the grilled cheese for lunch that day splating all over her dark jeans. For a moment, she just stood there in utter shock right in front of me, trying to process what had just happened. I didn't know what to say either, I kinda just stared at the tomato stains on her pants, the words I needed earlier caught in my throat. Only a few kids in the cafeteria noticed, luckily, but it was still embarrassing to have soup on your jeans, I imagine.
The girl, whose name must've been Rachel, regained her senses and quickly swept up the book she was balancing earlier in her arms. She glared up angrily at me with her deep purple eyes, I was still too shocked to say anything. "Jeez, you could at least apologize." She muttered half to herself, half to me, and then angrily stormed off towards the girl's bathroom. "I--I..." The words struggled to come out even after the girl had left, I was in a complete daze. "Logan?" Victor pulled me out of my phase, "Are... Are you okay?" He asked tentatively, I nodded slowly. "Maybe uhm... Maybe next time?" My best friend struggled to reassure me, but it was okay, I didn't need his help. This was on me.
//I actually have a lot of parts done for this already but I was too afraid to post them >\\\< thank you gingeveeva for giving me the confidence ^3^
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Coming Together
FanficGarfield Logan is pretty average. His grades are average, his looks are as well, and his "boyish" habits are quite normal. The only unusual thing about him, it seems, is his amazing artistic skills. And... Maybe the strange dreams he has about that...
