Alex's POV
The bell bluntly interrupted our pre-period conversations and marked the beginning of a long-dreaded class. Latin.
Latin had always been the worst period of the day. It'd just been boring. I mean, I sat with a few pretty popular people, but I feel like that had just made it even worse. The fact that I sat with people who distracted me from learning secretly bothered me, but I would have never said that. I tried to act like I fit in with those people at my table, like I could actually understand or even slightly relate to what they were talking about, but saying that it was like a foreign language to me would be an understatement (no pun intended). I knew that if I had chosen a different seat in the beginning of the year, it wouldn't have been like this. I could've actually looked forward to this class, or at least not hated showing up to it.
Everyone slowly shuffled to their seats, preparing themselves for another presumably unexciting day in the classroom.
"Don't get too comfortable!" Ms. James, our teacher, called from the front of the room. "I've organized a new seating arrangement, so I'd like you all to stand up where you are and move to the back of the room."
This statement triggered an uproar of quiet remarks, but I couldn't concentrate on what they were saying because of the pure relief it had brought to me. I stood up and grabbed my backpack from off of the floor, picking up my notebook before I headed toward the back of the room. I was one of the first ones there, so I picked up my hair into a tight ponytail while I waited for the rest of my peers.
Once we all formed an obviously-segregated line (cool people on the left, uncool on the right; I was dead center) in the back of the room, Ms. James walked to the first clump of desks, assigning people to each table. Everyone waited patiently for their name to be called; this was the high school equivalent of being drafted for the NFL.
Once Ms. James had gotten to the third group of desks, I had given up all hope. Each group was composed of four tables, and the eight students that had already been selected for the previous two tables had almost all been people that I secretly I hoped I could have sat with. The only people left now were people who I didn't know in the slightest, and popular kids, which was even worse.
"Alex!" she called from the front of the room. "You'll be sitting here. Her hand rested on an empty desk, and I noticed that nobody else was sitting there yet. I was the first one at my table. I looked at the faces of the people remaining in the line to see who showed a disinterest in sitting at my table, but everyone seemed disconnected from reality. I'm getting way too into this, I thought. It's just a seating chart.
The first person she called to sit with me was a girl whose name I didn't know. She looked more like she was being called for an execution than to find her new seat, which slightly bothered me, but I tried to ignore the immediate loathing that tugged at my stomach. I wanted to like the people that sat next to me; that was the whole point of getting a new seating arrangement in the first place.
I didn't really pay attention to the other two students that were assigned to my table, but I knew I was disappointed. I knew none of these people and I immediately regretted the seat change ever happened. I was completely out of it, feeling sorry for myself and angry at the universe, until she announced an unfamiliar name.
"Sam!" I heard her call. Who was Sam? I may not have known the other students' names, but I at least recognized that they were in my class. I didn't remember anyone by the name of Sam at all. I stuck my neck out to catch sight of the "new" kid.
My heart skipped a beat, I swear. I watched as he set his binder on the table, slipped his backpack off, and sat down. His slim stature looked too fragile to belong in a school like ours, where fights happened on a regular basis and half of the students were almost seven feet tall.
My heart dropped as I realized that his table was the one farthest from mine. The most interaction I would ever be able to have with him would be to look at him, and even that was hard to do without making it obvious that I was staring. I looked down at my pencil and glumly rolled it between my fingers with my head rested on my hand, not really caring much about what happened in the class anymore.
"Okay, class..." she called, trailing off toward the end of her sentence. She glanced at her map, turning it upside-down in confusion. She looked at the boy sitting next to me and back at the map, and laughed.
"Whoops." She placed the map on her desk. "Sam and Derek, you two switch. I think I was holding the map upside-down."
Sam picked up his stuff and moved toward our group, but I knew that he wasn't going to sit with us. There was nobody at our table named Derek.
But there was.
The boy sitting diagonal from me picked up his stuff and moved to the desk in which Sam was previously inhabiting, and vice-versa. He was right there. Right there in front of me. My heart screamed in happiness as I continued rolling my pencil between my fingers to persuade everyone that this last-minute seat change hadn't affected me any more than it had affected them.
"So, I'm Sam." He gazed at us and smiled, and I swear when he looked at me his eyes twinkled.
A/N:
Sooo, yeah! First chapter, I'm really excited for what's gonna happen later! Pleeeeease upvote and comment any ideas (I'm really into plot twists, hehehe >:D) and I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! It's my first story so I'm kinda new to this, and I'm totally open to constructive criticism! THANKS LOVES!!!!
