Maroon Sweater (Immortalanex fanfiction)

16.5. Aleks' Chapter

Today's Song: I Wanna Be Yours - Arctic Monkeys

See end of chapter for more notes

//

I've had approximately two girlfriends before meeting Phoebe. One in first grade with one of my classmates who broke up with me two minutes after we became official. The second in sixth grade when all the girls and boys were just starting to hit puberty, and boys stopped teasing girls, a loud, popular, and undeniably pretty girl asked me to be her boyfriend. We dated for four solid months before she broke up with me to date someone who was in eighth grade.

Then, eighth grade. I met Phoebe. She's a new student. It was the middle of English class, I was pretending to study, my earphones sliding between my hoodie sleeves and the buds in my ear, covered by my hands, listening to music. It was an incredibly boring day, snowing out, shitty weather, shitty moods. The work in front of me was too easy, and complete in a matter of minutes. I wanted to sleep, but our English teacher had a zero tolerance to sleeping in class.

The door opened, in stepped a girl with shoulder-length brown hair, rosy cheeks, and warm hazel brown eyes. There was nervousness around her, yet when she introduced herself and offered a small smile, you could see the confidence behind her eyes. She knew she was pretty. The popular circle of girls sitting at the back of the classroom were smiling back, telling the teacher to let her sit with them. She ignored the few boys smiling at her, and sat down.

My name is Phoebe. I came from England, and moved here because my parents were fed up with the rainy weather there.

Every girl liked Phoebe, every boy had a crush on Phoebe. She was that type of girl. We had a few of those in our school, they made the small but impressive circle of the most popular girls in school. They were the Cool Girls. They had a natural beauty about them, their hair never needed the expensive treatments they so often enjoyed to look so shiny and healthy, their skin remained smooth and clean despite all the junk food they ate everyday. They were tall, athletically fit, their smiles made babies stop crying. They dressed cute, but not trashy, not trashy enough to be called trashy, they liked shopping but would never drag their boyfriends along. They aced classes effortlessly but are nice when you feel dumb around them, they're caught up to every superhero movie, and enjoy games, but not to the point where they out-do their boyfriend. They were the Cool Girls, every boy loved them. They were perfect, but not too perfect so as to outshine them. Subtly gorgeous. Every male's fantasy wet dream girl.

That's the kind of girl Phoebe was.

It only took a few hours for the entire school to become fascinated with her. She was a Cool Girl, she was hot, she had a cute British accent, and when you spoke to her, it felt like she was only talking to you.

I wanted to dislike her. I always hated the Cool Girls. They were overly confident, they knew what to expect, and they walked in a straight line, they never did anything rude or shocking or evil. They were a safe path. I should like them, but I always prided myself in liking Different Girls. But Phoebe was a Cool Girl. And I was crushing on her hard.

Really, really, really hard.

English class, it turns out, wasn't the only class we were in together. She was in pretty much all of the same classes as me. The most prominent being art, where she sat directly to my right. We were currently working on a project, the theme being the seven deadly sins. Apparently, every year, the eighth graders were given this project, and every year there would be a 100% A result. The pressure of getting on A on this project doubled every year, as more and more fear of being the first to get a lower mark built up.