Maria

Lars

I walked out of French and headed straight towards maths, when i noticed Lars staring back at me. Unfortunately, my best friend Chloe was not in my class and so i struggled without the genius to help me. I ducked her my down and tried to walk past quickly, but Lars had noticed me and walked over.
'Hey Maria, could you please point me in the direction of room 323?,' he asked in his low deep voice.
'Um.. sure sir,' i managed to squeak out,
'Darl, I'm seventeen, I'm not old enough to be your grandfather,' he exclaimed, which caused me to burst into a fit of giggles. The quizzical expression on his face set me off even more, and while he looked at me weirdly, I beckoned him in my direction before dropping him off. I was just about to walk off when Mr. Tyson called me from inside the room and i was surprised to hear his voice before i realised that i was in that class and walked in red faced. This time, Lars burst out laughing and i blushed even more before realising that the only seat was next to him and i slid in coyly.

Mr. Tyson was starting quadratics and these always seemed to confuse me. There were too many equations and i honestly just got lost in all of them. After Mr. Tyson finished his boring explanation i took out my notebook and started scribbling, secretly texting Chloe for a crash course on quads after school. I vowed not to take any notice for the rest of class and just sat there chewing on my I love London pencil staring into space while day dreaming about how my small win with the school board would take me to great heights when suddenly, Mr. Tyson's voice broke my dream.
'Miss Gonzalez, what is the answer to the quadratic expression on the board?'
I chewed on my pencil and looked at the board. I just stared at it until the rest of the class stopped looking at me and started to focus on their own work.
'Miss Gonzalez, you can stay back after class,' Mr. Tyson said in a bored voice as he had often said to me before, a voice interrupted him.
'x=3 and x=3 sir.' I heard myself say in a squeaky voice. 'It's a repeated solution,' i didn't even know I knew the answer.

'There are two answers all the time sir. It's just sometimes, there are two imaginary solutions and now, there are two of the same solutions.' I finished proudly, wondering where she could have got the answer when i turned to see Lars in the seat next to me with a smirk plastered on his face. He was the one who had given me the answer. I didn't know whether to feel cautious or happy, but i chose to go with happy as Kendall was in this class and at least he had saved her from the embarrassment of not knowing the answer.

After class, I hung around, waiting for Lars, so that we could walk to the canteen together for lunch, I mean I owed it to him to at least be nice after he helped me with his equation.
'Hey Maria, who are you waiting for?' Kendall asked me on her sickly voice, I turned to look at her and rolled my eyes in front of her face,
'definitely not you,' I said before turning on my heel and walking out with Lars.
'Wow, snarky,' he said and we both burst into a fit of laughter.
I walked up to the canteen line and squeezed myself in right next to Chloe. I sidled up to her and whispered in her ear that we had company.
'Chloe this is Lars and Lars, this is Chloe,' I said matter of factly hoping they would get along. Lars greeted her and held his hand out for her to shake, except Chloe just looked on past me to the guy behind me and greeted him. He looked just as confused as I did. I just shook my head thinking that maybe Chloe had maybe started to develop astigmatism. I didn't exactly want to point it out considering that she was quite sensitive to her health problems. Lars walked up closer to me, breaking Chloe's weird behaviour and he told me in a hushed voice that he wasn't hungry and had to leave the canteen. I just nodded understandingly, and before i could even blink, Lars was gone.

Chloe and I sat at our usual table and looked at our trays. Today I had two slices of Margherita pizza with an olive salad on the side and a brownie. Today's menu, also included a carton of milk. Chloe had a fish burger with a lettuce salad, a slice of cake and orange juice. I took my carton of milk and switched it for her juice. We shook hands and started eating our meals. Right as I bit into my pizza, the cheese got stuck in my mouth and half on my pizza and I couldn't really talk, but that's when Kendall decided to come to my table. She looked at me as if demanding an explanation, which I had no ideas why she would do, but I just sat there staring at her face like an idiot, the cheese not leaving my mouth, I chewed as if my life depended on it (which it did, considering it was Kendall) and she finally decided that she couldn't take the fact that I was sitting silently anymore, so she slammed her petite manicured, little fist on the table, causing the cheese to snap off the pizza and right into my face.
'Um...yes, what do you want?' I said awkwardly, wiping my face with the napkin and putting the pizza down on the plate.
'Maths...you answered the question right and none of us even knew what was going on...' She said sternly. I didn't need her to further explain what was going on, she was calling me dumb.
'no way, u understood maths? Maz...' Chlo said flabbergasted. I shot her a look before replying,
'Oh yeah, Lars taught me, I'm not actually advanced.' I shuddered a little, Kendall being close was frightening.
'Who the hell is Lars?' She said making that face that girls generally make when they are pissed off.
'Ooh, I know the guy in the green jacket over there,' Chlo pointed out a little too eagerly.
'Calm down, Chlo, that's not him,' I said, but before I could finish that sentence, Kendall had already zipped off to go and yell at a poor freshman.
'What are you talking about Maria, that was the only guy you showed me.' She said sternly this time and even I was taken aback by her tone.
'You saw him this morning, with your blank stare and when I introduced him to you at the canteen?' I said but she denied ever having seen anything. I shook my head, trying to explain when a junior boy in a jumper too big for him and baggy pants came up to me handing me a detention slip. It was a detention for being late to class. I was shocked, I had taken Lars to class, there must have been a mistake.

I stacked my disposable tray in the dirty dish pile, threw my cutlery in the dirty cutlery box and ran to my French teacher's office. I knocked three times on the door handle outside his office. Monsieur said that if we knocked three times, then he would come right away, as he knew it was a senior student, if it was a double knock, he would know that it was either Madame Abel's students or Madame Chan's students.  Monsieur Dubois came out lazily and once he noticed it was me, stood up straight and furrowed his eyebrows.
'Um...Monsieur Dubois, you gave me a detention slip, but I was just taking the new student to class, I mean Lars was your new student,' I said
'No, Miss Gonzalez I cannot do that, as there was no new student,'
'Sir, I've had a really rough day, but I swear he was here and he asked me to take him to class. I don't even know what's working with me today,' I said almost breaking down, tears staring to form in my eyes. Monsieur Dubois' expression softened and he looked at me piteously and said
'Alright, I'll excuse you this once, but I think you need to go and see Mrs. Haberdash, the guidance counsellor, you have been acting a bit off,' he said trailing off.
'Alright sir,' I said, I was willing to accept anything as long as it wasn't a detention.
'Alright Maria, bye bye now,' Monsieur said before turning into his staff room and clicking the lock,