Chloe

Keats

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

Ah, the wonderful sound of locker doors slamming. I opened my locker, throwing my backpack in, grabbed my books and shut my locker. I started walking to my first class when I saw Wes talking to some guy by the door of the school. He looked a little older than Wes. After waving, he shut the door. Wes approached me.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked.

"Nothing really. Who was that?" I replied.

"My friend Drew. He graduated last year," he explained.

"Cool. I should probably go now; my history teacher will get pissed. I hate her," I said.

"Good luck," Wes laughed.

I walked into the classroom. The teacher was standing at her desk.

"Ah, Ms. Brooks, you decided to join us. Take a seat."

I quickly went to a random seat in the back.

"Alright, we will be starting a review unit on wars. Today we will be watching a video about ‘World War I’," The teacher said. She turned on the projector, turned off the lights and started the video. I wasn't paying any attention. I hated history. I hated all of school.

"Isn't this boring?" Someone whispered. I looked to my left. It was someone I didn't know. Even though it was dark, I could see him clearly. He had longer hair, falling into curly ringlets at the ends. His eyes were near impossible to choose one color.

"Yeah," I replied.

"I'm Keaton," he said.

"Chloe."

The teacher came over to us.

 "You two need to stop talking and watch the video," she snapped.

We gave each other a look that said ‘I hate her’ and continued to watch the video.

+ + + + +

By the end of the day, Keaton was practically my new best friend. We realized after history that we had almost all of our classes together.

I zipped up my bag and shut my locker door. When I turned around, Keaton was there.

"Long time no see," he said sarcastically. It had been almost an hour since we last saw each other.

"I know, right?" I said, also sarcastically. We walked out of the school.

"Do you want to come over?" Keaton asked.

"Sure." I answered.

We walked off the campus and down the busy main road. We turned down Keaton's street. His house was pretty big. We went inside. Wes was on the couch, doing something on his phone. He looked up.

"Hey Chloe, I see you met Keaton," Wes said.

"Yeah, we have almost all of our classes together," I replied.

We put down our bags. Keaton led me outside.

"So, what do you want to do?" he asked.

"I don't know. Maybe we could hang out on the beach?" I suggested.

"Sounds good to me," He said.

We walked down the beach access path on Keaton's street. There were only a few people there. We sat down in the sand.

"So, how come I've never really seen you around?" I asked.

"Well, I just moved here a few years ago, so I'm still fairly new around here," he explained. That made more sense.

"Where did you move here from?"

"Sequim, Washington. We moved here for my dad's job about three years ago, he needed to live near L.A."

Suddenly, the pieces fit together. There was a new guy in sixth grade, it must have been him. I could never remember his name, I had always just remembered that it started with a K.

"So, tell me about youself. What's a lifelong dream of yours?" he asked.

I thought for a minute. "I've always wanted to go to London," I replied. "You?"

"I don't really know. Just to be successful in life."

I looked out at the ocean. This was such a beautiful beach. We sat in silence for a few minutes.

My phone vibrated in my back pocket. I took it out. I had a text from Stephanie. It read, ‘Where are you? Mom wants you home’

"I gotta go, but I'll see you tomorrow." I said.

"Alright, see ya later." he said. We walked back up to the house.

"Wait, before you go, give me your phone." he said.

I handed him the phone. He gave me his. I knew what he was doing, so I put my number in his phone as well. We gave our phones back to each other. I grabbed my bag and walked home.