There Is No Never Ever [MAJOR EDITING]

Chapter 11: Lunch Trays and Battle Scars [EDITED]

I was finally cheerful again. I thought it would take longer for me to reach this point, but it took only a few minutes and a bit of normalcy to make it happen. So it made perfect sense that something abnormal would appear and ruin my cocoon of safe, habitual, ordinary. I followed Destin into the cafeteria and smacked unpleasantly into another person--a person I really did not want to see--but that wasn't even the worst part. When I hit him, the lunch tray in his hands went flying right into his chest, smothered him in pizza and grease, and then clattered to the ground noisily along with a bottle of brown pop, which thankfully didn't explode.

I didn't get the same luxury from my victim. Nobody except a few students seated near the incident would have noticed if he'd left it alone, but instead, he growled, "Watch where you're going!"

That gathered everyone's attention. I was so shocked and humiliated, I couldn't even manage "I'm sorry." He was staring down at his shirt, but then he looked up. First I saw anger and annoyance, then recognition flashed across his simmering green eyes. Shit.

"Cassie?"

I stood, awkwardly staring at Taedyn, who was now staring at me. The anger still seethed behind his eyes. I refused to glance around the cafeteria and see everyone whispering.

Instead I finally summoned up a few words and mumbled, "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Excuse me."

Then I walked towards a tense Destin, who was watching Taedyn with careful eyes probably to see if he was going to blow up at me. Destin was good that way. The ever protective big brother.

For a moment it seemed like Taedyn was going to glower at me forever, but then he bent to clean up the mess I had caused and the cafeteria erupted into the normal frenzy it had been once more.

"Don't worry about it." Destin smiled, trying to make me feel better. "It's just a grease stain. I'm sure that guy has a lot more shirts he can change into."

If only he knew. "So where are these friends you were telling me about?" I changed the subject, shaking off my embarrassment.

Destin grinned, obviously excited. "Over here. Come on."

He led me over to a table situated on the right end of the middle row of the cafeteria. There were three people sitting there, conversing animatedly among themselves. Destin gestured for me to take a seat and, when I did, he sat down next to me. He cleared his throat and the conversation stopped.

"Guys, this is Cassie. Cassie, these are the guys." He introduced us.

All three of them nodded.

"This is Kenden, Zeik, and Kohda." Destin pointed each of them out.

Kenden was big and burly, with dark brown hair and golden brown eyes and looked a little too old to still be in high school. I didn't want to speculate on the reasoning. Zeik had dirty blonde hair and silvery blue eyes, and he was muscular also, but smaller than Kenden and looked younger. Kohda was tall, thin, and had a sturdy frame. He had blonde hair and baby blue eyes. I didn't know any of their ages, but Kohda couldn't be much older than Zeik if he was older at all. All three of them had a considerable tan and wore a laid back clothing style: jeans or shorts and a t-shirt.

Perfect, more guys. At least these ones didn't have fluffy tails and turn into moon howlers at night. That would be way too bizarre and way more than I could handle. A young girl walked up to the table. She had tightly curled dark brown hair that sat atop her head and appeared almost red, like Mahogany. Her skin was black, her eyes were a beautiful burgundy, and her features were so stunning that I almost believed they had to have been chiseled by an artist.