Me vs. The World

Chapter 1

The bell rang shrilly, but I as I ambled down the hallways, I was oblivious to this fact. Suddenly, I noticed that the hallways had emptied around me, a couple of stragglers running to their classes, late on their very first day. My very first day at this school was not starting too well. I quickly got to my class and walked in, attracting the attention of my whole new English class. 

"You must be Olivia Reed," Ms. Kern, I think, inquired, mercifully turning to face me. 

"That's me," I replied, hoping that I was right about the fact that all my teachers knew I needed help. 

"You can take a seat here, you haven't missed much."

"Okay," I mumbled, taking a seat next to a tall blonde boy in the second row. 

"Hi, I'm Simon Rey," blonde guy introduced himself, "And you're Olivia."

I smiled at him and turned back to Ms. Kern, who was talking animatedly. Shoot, I'd missed what she'd said because I hadn't been watching. I made a mental note to ask someone what I'd missed, watching carefully to make sure I didn't miss any more. 

"I'm not sure if you all have noticed this by now, but you're seated by your last names. You guys will have these partners for this whole unit, so take my advice and get to know your partner really well.  Okay, I have a simple exercise to start of today with. Describe yourself in one word, then write on word about your partner based on what you think about them. Share with your partner, then get to know each other until I get your attention. And trust me, it's not as easy as it sounds."

I got out my binder and took out a sheet of paper. Ms. Kern was right, there was no way I could describe myself on just one word. After ten minutes of biting the edge of my pen and drumming on the table, I finally wrote "happy" and quickly put down "friendly" for Simon. I turned to him to let him know that I was done, and saw him looking at me, eyebrows raised.

"What?" I asked.

"I've been saying your name for at least a minute, but you completely ignored me."

I'm going to have to tell him. "I'm deaf, actually."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"You are the most immature person I've ever met. First you ignore me, then you have the audacity to cook up some story about being deaf? That is low."

Is he being serious right now? Why did I ever think he was 'friendly'? Well, fortunately I have an easy way to ignore him. I turned away and didn't look at that stupid idiot Simon for the rest of class. This day was not going good, and it was only the first day.

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