Touched

Touched *15*

"Hey, look! It's a freak!"

Fern gritted her teeth and charged forward through the hallways, ignoring those stupid seniors. Of course, freshman were known as "fresh meat" and now she knew why. She thought Maya was the enemy of her life, and now these douches too.

Whatever. All that mattered now was that she was late to third period.

-- (4 periods later)

Maya felt all the eyes on her. She was used to it. But now that she was walking arm and arm with Sam (she'd complained that she was "scared", so he'd easily slipped his arm through hers), the most popular guy in school, maybe the universe, she didn't feel so lonely anymore.

"So this is the cafeteria," Sam told Maya, breaking her out of her stupor of insane fear.

"You're new here too. How do you know where everything is?"

"Back in middle school, we took a lot of field trips here just to know what the school was like." Maya didn't respond. "It's a really good school," he added, as if that were the reason for her silence.

"Uh huh," Maya said distractedly. Sam noticed she kept looking around worriedly, as if she were being followed.

Sam decided she was just nervous.

"So...uh...I wanted to ask you something," he said.

Maya ignored him.

"Mai?"

"What?" she said, annoyed.

"I...just wanted to ask..." Sam cleared his throat. "Do you...you..."

At that moment, Fern dashed forward, about to be late to her 7th period class. she spotted Sam and Maya talking, and crept behind a door to spy.

"Do I what?" Maya snapped. She'd only used Sam for making her grand appearance on the first day, and now he was really starting to annoy her.

"Do you...want to go...out? With...me?"

Fern took a sharp intake of air. WHAT?

Maya was about to refuse when she spotted SOMEONE'S tacky gold belt sticking out from beneath a door. Typical Fern. "Of course, Sam," she replied. "When?"

"Well...we could go bowling tonight?"

"No." Maya sighed. It was pretty obvious this was his first time really asking out a girl. It was her first time being properly asked out, too. "Let's have dinner somewhere and get to know each other better."

"How about the Rose?" The Rose was a semi-fancy restaurant that was a pizza buffet, not unlike Cici's.

"Cool." Maya half-smiled. Truthfully, though Sam was nice, he was a little dull. "How about tomorrow night? Your dad can drive us."

Sam was mystified by her sudden impoliteness, but he nodded. "Uh...okay."

"Great." And with that, she walked away.

Fern felt tears - actual tears - welling up in her eyes and she darted into her classroom.

The bell chimed loudly, signaling the beginning of 7th period...and the end of Fern's patience.