Social Suicide

Chapter 1

Penny Resendez

There's something going on today in school, something I'm clearly missing. Kids are talking in whispers and looking around like they're waiting for someone important. I don't have the slightest clue for who. This doesn't usually happen to me. Usually, I have Adda, my gossip-obsessed friend, here to fill me on the school's daily drama, even when I don't want to hear about it, but because she has a doctor's appointment I'm forced to wonder around seeing everyone on their toes. I hate being kept in the dark about things when they cause this much disruption. You can tell this isn't about any school official or something boring like that since there's even tension among the popular's of this school. No, whatever it is people are waiting for it has to be about something big.

Then again these people are known for being extremely dramatic about everything, Pineview High School lives and breathes drama. It's not completely stupid considering they have people like Nathan Wright, a guy whose entire family holds some type of powerful position in this town, leading them at the top of the social ladder. Okay, I guess it is completely stupid. Nathan Wright and his little group of equally stupid friends are all the big deal in this school and their families? They're the big deal for everyone else in town. It can get really old, really fast when you've grown up listening to how "important" they are ever since they started arriving here one by one. Yeah, whatever people are freaking out about most likely won't have any actual impact, at least not on me. Still, I can't help but watch as people scurry around from class to class in the morning looking ready as ever for something to happen, it's almost hilarious.

"Jesus, it's like they're all in a race to see who gets to the drama faster." Santiago, my best friend since first grade, comments as we look for a place to sit during lunch. In the beginning of the year, we usually call dibs on a lunch table and keep it for the rest of the year. Since we're seniors were supposed to be sitting in the Senior Lounge, a fancy word for the side of the cafeteria that has cushioned seats with colorful tables compared to the uncomfortable chairs and plain gray tables. But as was expected all the popular seniors, along with their not-seniors-but-still-popular-friends, ended up taking all the seats leaving people like me and Santiago to try and claim a table that isn't near a garbage can every day, which underclassmen keep taking from us. It's a small school, with a small cafeteria, there is not a lot of spots to choose from.

"How is it that those pubescent little kids keep beating us to our table?" I ask him genuinely confused. I'm having a stare down with one of the freshman sitting there when Santiago blocks my view of the kid with his body.

"Stop that Penny, you look like a maniac. We're just gonna have to sit on the table by the windows."

I scoff at his suggestion, "You mean the one with the pretty view of the school wall? Yeah, that's what we seniors should be looking at all year." Who even puts windows that face a wall?

"Oh come on, it's only because it's raining. We can eat outside tomorrow." He grabs my elbow and starts dragging me to the table in the corner of the cafeteria. Sitting down across from me he raises one dark black eyebrow at me, I hate it when he does that it makes me feel childish.

"See? Not so bad," he says patting the table like that's gonna make it appealing.

"This is a disgrace. A disgrace I tell you!"

He rolls his eyes, standing up to get his lunch. Unlike me, Santiago doesn't mind waiting in line. I prefer to wait until it's all clear, I'm very indecisive about the cafeteria food, I don't need people rushing me when I'm trying to choose what to eat. In the meantime, I take out my government homework that I forgot to do last night and my phone to google the answers. I'm not a B-plus student without hard work. By hard work, I mean doing only half of my homework the night before and then quickly finishing the rest at six in the morning the next day. When my phone turns on I see I've missed a text from Adda.