opia; matty healy.

2%

Matty's attitude has not disappeared. As soon as class starts, he's making comments, which honestly, are quite funny – but a little irritating after a while, and especially when you want to focus on the class. We're sat at the back of the room and I'm trying to work on the questions we've been set for the lesson. I've got the textbook open beside me as well as an exercise book. The textbook suddenly closes and I roll my eyes, looking over at a grinning Matty.

"You're ignoring me," He says.

"I'm trying to do my work." I tell him honestly, picking up my pen again and trying to find the page in the textbook that I was on. He makes it very easy to be a mix of comfortable and uncomfortable around him, easy to talk to and fight back with playful remarks, but sometimes he'll have these eyes as if he's trying to read me.

"But I was talking to you." I look back up at him and he's pouting. If he wasn't so annoying, I may have found it slightly playful, but I only roll my eyes again. "I wanna know if life in LA is really like the movies. Do you have the rich, snobby white kids with famous actors for parents, and then the drug dealers who wear daggy white pants and hats on backwards? And oh- surfer dudes, I bet you had those at your school-"

I expect the teacher to have noticed Matty's non-stop talking by now, but the rest of the class is deep in conversation as well and we don't faze her at the back of the classroom.

"Matty," I sigh, "There are no cliché cliques like that at school. Life is very normal in LA. You know those films are specifically marketed to attend to stereotypes in an attempt to appeal to overseas audiences, right?"

He sits back in his chair, "That sounded very sophisticated, Issy."

"Don't call me that." I tell him, once again attempting to find my lost textbook pages.

"Why not," I see him smirk from the corner of my eye, "Issy?"

I try to ignore him, but he continues to get closer, leaning his arm on his desk now with his head in his hand whispering "Issy" over and over. I can't help but feel a lot of pent up anger build up over the top of my limit.

"Cut it out!" I say a little louder, surely gaining attention from students in the class, but I don't look. My eyes are on Matty's, his wide with amusement and surprise. He raises his hands and returns back to his own textbook, pretending to read it.

When the class ends, I pack my things and walk out after he's already left. I see him waiting beside the door, leaning on the side of a set of lockers. He doesn't say anything but walks next to me. I'd have found myself walking aimlessly otherwise because I'm not sure at all where my next class is.

"This way," He says this quietly, but I hear because he's very close.

I look up at him to find he's not looking at me anymore, so I follow his lead as he swerves through the rest of the students in the hallway. He stops out the front of an open door, smiles and walks away. Although I'm confused and embarrassed that I snapped at him, I'm glad he doesn't say anything more.

Walking into the room, I find a seat beside a girl with silver hair and a short fringe and we exchange a smile. The classroom isn't a normal class with rows of desks; instead it's filled with rows of computers and a single teacher's desk at one end of the room.

"Is it your first day here?" The girl asks, and I nod, "You're not Isabel, are you?"

"I am," I laugh softly, puzzled as to how everyone knows who I am.

"Oh!" She smiles brightly, "I'm Chelsea. I'm friends with Eri and George and everyone!"

"Right," I smile back politely, "Right... that's cool."