The Summer Anthology ✔

Story #26- I'll Stay This Time

Written by user ClairEwritesBooks

As I walked to school, I could clearly see that summer was over. The sky was a grey-black colour, the grass seemed yellow and dead. It was cold too.

The first day of school was always the hardest. Everyone was always nervous and trying to impress everyone else. It's even harder when you're the new kid.

* * *

"Welcome to class. I'm Mr. Arnold. You will stay silent in my class. If you talk without my permission, two hours of detention. Are we clear?" The stern old teacher had stood before our class lecturing.

No one talked. Everyone was too afraid of detention.

"I said are we clear. You can talk now," He muttered angrily. This made everyone whisper a 'clear' before returning to the quiet.

It was an odd group, our class. Mostly girls, the only boys were myself and about seven other worried guys.

"Dante!" Mr. Arnold said, glaring at me

"What?" I said, almost falling out of my seat.

"He's doing attendance you idiot." A boy called from the other side of the class

"Ten minutes at lunch for the both of you. Two hours the next time," Mr.Arnold said, before he continued with roll call.

The boy stared at me angrily, I stared back. I tried my best to give him the coldest scariest look I could manage. He turned away, I could tell that it had worked.

Mr.Arnold droned on for the rest of the class about area. Finally, when he was finished we got to leave.

I found my way to my next classes easily and sat for the next two periods listening to excited teachers talk about how they could not wait to begin the year. Sure...

When it was lunch, I made my way to Mr.Arnold's classroom to sit through ten minutes with some stupid guy from math class.

"Welcome to detention." Mr.Arnold said.

I sat, staring at the old school clock. I watched the little red hands tick slowly, they seemed to take forever just to make one full minute. Tick, tick, tick...

"You're free to go." Mr.Arnold said to me and the boy.

I walked outside and exhaled, one detention over with.

"Hey, I'm sorry for getting you a detention," The guy said, walking down the hall and starting to descend the three story stairs.

"It's fine," I called.

I decided that the guy from math class wasn't a jerk, that he could actually be an okay person.

I also decided that I would explore the third floor of Brooklyn Public High School, just because I could.

The hallways were lined with lockers, all of them full sized and blue. There were washrooms and water fountains. There were no people, everyone including the teachers were at lunch. I probably should have been at lunch as well.

Then I saw her, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was not pretty, that would be a complete understatement. She was beautiful, too beautiful to be sitting on the floor of Brooklyn Public High School.

I decided to talk to her, how could I not?

"Are you okay?" I asked, kneeling down beside her.

"Yeah, I'm good." She said, she was reading a book.

"Why are you sitting on the floor?" I asked, it was the only thing that I could think to say.

"I'd rather sit on the floor than go downstairs." She said, pulling a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Her hair was curly, I don't mean wavy, I mean full on gigantic tight brown curls.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Well why aren't you downstairs?" She narrowed her grey-blue eyes.

"I got a detention." I said, smiling sheepishly.

"Nice." We both started to laugh.

"They're not my people. All they care about is looks and clothes. They don't read books or do anything progressive." She said, frowning.

"You like books I take it?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I love books. Do you?"

"I like books, yeah." I said. It was true, I did like books. She was pretty much the only one that I would ever admit that to, I don't know why.

"I'm Katy Fredriks." She said, holding out a hand.

"I'm Dante." I said, taking her hand.

"No last name?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I don't really like to tell anyone my last name."

"Okay, I guess it adds to the mystery." She said, smiling as she finally let go of my hand.

We talked until the end of lunch, I realized that I hadn't eaten anything so when I went back to my locker I grabbed a snack.

I was really starting to like the idea of Katy Fredriks.