•Lover•
Once I arrived at my new school, I parked my car and walked in. I had a few minutes to kill before the first bell rang, so I decided to walk my schedule a couple times, just to make sure I didn't get lost.
The bell rung about 10 minutes later, and I walked into my first class.
My anxiety started kicking in as I watched the desks fill with students. This school was way bigger than my old school.
I took a few deep breaths as the teacher walked in and introduced herself.
The whole class was mainly just going over the rules and expectations and the different things we would cover this year. Aka, a snooze fest. It was nice though, not having anything to worry about for my first class.
During the last five minutes, our teacher let us talk amongst ourselves.
"Hey, you're Lover, right? The new kid?" a girl asked me.
"Yeah" I nodded, smiling softly.
"I'm Betty, it's nice to meet you" she smiled.
"You too" I kept smiling. God this is awkward. She was super nice, but I feel like I should be saying something more.
"I assume you don't know anybody yet?"
"Nope" Okay seriously Lover, just say something, anything. Stop being so awkward.
"You should sit with me and my friends at lunch"
"Really?"
"Yeah of course! You seem really nice, and I know what it's like to be the new kid and have no clue who to sit with"
"Thanks" I kept smiling, hoping that would make me seem more confident and less like I couldn't come up with a single good reply that was more than a word.
Shortly after, the bell rung.
Okay, that was awkward, but not too bad. She seems really nice, and I have someone to sit with at lunch. Everything's going great.
As I was walking down the hall to my second class, I noticed this girl leaned up against the lockers, and she didn't look good. She looked super pale and like she was gonna pass out.
"You okay?" I asked softly as I walked past her.
"M'fine" she said a voice that clearly told that she was not fine but wanted to be left alone.
I didn't want to bother her since she clearly didn't want to be, but I also didn't want to just leave her. So, I walked slowly to my class, glancing over my shoulder every couple seconds.
By the time I got to class, the hallways were pretty much cleared, besides the tall green-eyed girl leaned up against the lockers.
"Good morning" the teacher smiled at me.
"Morning," I smiled back, before adding "hey, there's a girl out in the hallway, I don't know who she is, but she looks like she might pass out or something, and I just wanna make sure she doesn't hurt herself if she falls"
"Thank you for letting me know, I'll go check it out real quick" she nodded before walking out of the classroom.
I couldn't help but watch the whole interaction, which really wasn't much. My teacher asked the girl if she was okay. The girl nodded and said she was fine. My teacher asked if she was sure. The girl rolled her eyes and said yes more boldly before walking away to what I assumed was her next class.
Once my teacher started heading back towards the classroom, I sat down, deciding to just forget about the girl. She'll probably be fine.
•Time skip to lunch•
Once lunch time rolled around, I walked into the cafeteria, scanning the room for Betty.
"Lover, over here!" I saw her waving from a nearby table, and I quickly walked over.
As soon as I sat down, all of her friends started greeting me and introducing themselves.
It was a bit overwhelming at first, but once everything settled down, I felt much more at ease.
All of the girls were really nice, and I really enjoyed talking to them. They instantly made me feel welcome, and I quickly got more comfortable around them, meaning I came up with better responses than I had earlier.
Everyone kept talking, but I started to drown them out when I saw the same girl from earlier walking down the hall outside of the cafeteria.
She didn't look any better, still pale and weak-looking.
"Hey, does anyone know if she's okay?" I point to the girl.
The table went silent for a couple seconds before Betty spoke up.
"That's Reputation, she's um..." She looked around at her friends as if she needed help describing her.
"I wouldn't talk to her if I were you. She can be kind of mean, and she doesn't really like people" one of the girls chimed in.
"Oh...does she have any friends?"
"No, I don't think so. Everyone she's ever talked to has ended up leaving her within a few weeks because of how mean she can be"
Despite them saying that it was because she was mean, I sort of felt bad for her. Everyone deserves to have friends. Maybe she's only mean because nobody really likes her and she'd rather be mean than forgotten about. Maybe she has something going on. Maybe people have hurt her, and that's why she doesn't like people.
"Lover?" Betty waved her hand in my face, and I realized I had been zoning out.
"Hm? Sorry"
The subject was changed and they all started talking about typical high school girl things like tv shows and the popular cute boys.
I nodded every now and then, but I couldn't stop thinking about that girl.
It was probably just me being my extremely empathetic self, but something told me that there was more to it than "she's just a mean girl."
The bell rang, I said bye to my new friends, and headed toward my next class. For the rest of the day, I just couldn't get her out of my head, but I don't know why, because I hardly knew who she was.
