Eyes glued to the floor, Maria walks into her Algebra 2 classroom on the first day of sophomore year at a new school. Earphones in, volume on high, dressed in blue jeans, one of her soccer tournament tees, a pair of worn out Jordan's and her hair in a messy bun. She wouldn't usually dress like this but she did, only because she set her alarm the night before for 6:30 am, but forgot to turn on her volume which led to her waking up at 7:45 am with the help from her baby brother who she heard crying in the next room. Maria got there at 7:58 am with two minutes to spare. She didn't know much of the kids at her new high school. She went to middle school with a few kids there but they didn't mind her one bit or even remember her. High school seemed to be some place where it didn't matter who you used to know or how close you were to them, it's much more about who you newly meet and what they rep. Maria caught on early to all this high school bull crap and learned this as a freshmen. The cliques weren't a big deal to Maria. To her all they were was a group of people to be alone with. Maria just didn't have enough trust to go around to be apart of something like that. Maria had close friends, a "squad" of her own. They proved to her how people come and go, and how plans fail and people change. Maria is the type to speak up for something even if it means standing alone, her friends never respected what she's about. It's not like she was different from everyone else. She's had boyfriends, best friends and bad grades.
Maria sat down at her desk and beside her to the right was a boy named Kyle. Kyle was a athlete, she could tell. He was toned, had mild acne, carried around a Nike bag, wore Adidas slip-ons instead of shoes, with a comb-over haircut and smelt like axe. To the left of her was a girl named Rebecca. Rebecca was no athlete whatsoever, though Maria could tell she was smart. Eyes glued to the board, pencil in hand motioning to everything Mr. James was saying, and three sharpened pencils on her desk. Maria sits down and to the right she receives a ¨Hey, I'm Kyle Matthews.¨ To the left she receives a, ¨nice to meet you, my name is Rebecca Woods.¨ Maria slowly looks up from the papers of equations handed to her by Mr. James and when she looks up at the white board she realizes they're waiting for a reply because they were both looking at her, but she couldn't notice because of how loud her music was. So she pulls out her earphones and replies to Kyle and Rebecca with, ¨Oh hi, it's Maria Ramos" then put her earphones back in. Mr. James looked my way and welcomed me. It was a silent welcome, almost like he knew I didn't want attention, which was great of him. The bell rang, class ended and as Maria was walking to her locker, she saw Kyle walk over to his group of friends with the same haircut and different color Nike bags. She caught Rebecca walking the other way and Maria couldn't see a group Rebecca was walking towards. Maria went on walking towards her locker.
Maria's locker was placed a couple lockers over from the boys bathroom, which wasn't a problem to Maria. She realized that Kyle's locker was across the hallway from from hers. Rebecca's locker was around the corner from Maria's. Maria saw Kyle walk to his locker and tried not to look like she noticed him.
He walks over and says, "Your the new girl in my Algebra 2 class right?"
"Yeah"
"That's cool, I have the same shirt from that tournament, so you play?"
Maria forgot what shirt she was wearing as she was distracted by Kyle's cologne and hazel brown eyes and looks down to see it and she says, "Oh,that's cool, how'd you guys do? in the tournament."
He replied with, "we made it to the semi's but I broke my shoulder."
"So you guys made it to the finals or?"
"Nah, because I broke my shoulder."
"Oh so because you broke YOUR shoulder, you guys didn't win?"
"Pretty much yeah." They both laughed.
"That sucks." Maria said while still getting over the laughing.
"Yeah, well how'd you girls, do?" said Kyle.
"We did great" replied Maria.
"How great?" asked Kyle.
"Gold medal great." answered Maria with a low-key proud smile.
"Nice, how was the view from left bench?" said Kyle with a grin.
She responded to him with, "Better than the view from the semi finals and a hospital room."
"My heart, My soul." said Kyle and they both laughed. The bell rang and Maria had to get to art and Kyle's next class was chemistry.
"Well I gotta get to Chemistry, catch you later Maria, glad we had a chance to talk."
"alright, yeah, me too." said Maria.
Maria thought to herself, "but, we just had chemistry."
