The Masks We Wear

Chapter 1| A New Beginning

"You don't have to change a thing, the world could change its heart."

~ Alessia Cara

~Chapter 1| A New Beginning~

{ S C A R L E T T ' S P O V }

"Watch where you're going Scar," a guy with rimmed glasses said, as he bumped me to the ground. I, for one, didn't respond and silently got off the ground, collected my binders and papers and rushed to my next class; Geography. As I timidly dodged and ducked the swarming army of students rushing to go to their classes, I whipped out my phone and looked at the time. It was already eight-eleven, which meant that I precisely had four minutes to get to class. Not too bad right? Well, unless somebody~

Splat! I felt the cold liquid run down my back before I actually registered what happened. "Oops, sorry, didn't see you there, Scar." A blonde cheerleader sneered, as she threw the what used to be a medium-sized slushie into  a trash can. She flipped her perfect curls into my face one more time as she sashayed away, leaving the pungent smell of her perfume behind. I looked down at my clothes and sighed. Looking at this state, I was going to get a cold if I didn't clean it up soon. Dodging students, I began to frantically speed-walk to the girls washroom, foolishly hoping that I could clean myself up and get to class in time.

Ring! No such luck. I should've known that I wouldn't make it to class in time. As I entered the female's washroom and quickly cleaned up myself with paper towels, I ransacked my mind for excuses of why I was late. Hopefully, I would have a sympathetic teacher as my homeroom teacher, I didn't even get the time to check my schedule yet. As I finally finished getting the sticky blue liquid off my shirt, I grabbed my binders and hurriedly rushed to my home room; room 302.

Taking a big breath, I pushed the door open with my left hand, just as the teacher was in the midst of talking. With my face flushing, I stammered;

"Um h-hi my n-name's Starlet. I-I mean Scarlett. S-sorry, I faced s-some trouble on t-the way h-here." I squeaked out, trying to draw less attention to myself, with no luck. I almost wanted to slap myself. Who got their own name wrong?

Thankfully, the teacher just smiled sympathetically.

"That's fine, Scarlett. My name's Mrs. Colfer. You can go sit there with Freya." She pointed to an empty desk with an empty seat beside an auburn haired girl.

Trying to ignore judging glances of students around me, I took small shuffling steps towards the desk, and dropped my backpack as soundlessly as possible to the floor beside my desk. I carefully took out my newly-bought geography binder, and forced my eyes to travel to Mrs. Colfer who was pointing to a world map. After around twenty minutes of hearing Mrs. Colfer talk about South Asia, my ears started to drone out her voice, and I began to tap my pen against the desk aimlessly.

"This is boring, isn't it?" A voice said, causing me to flinch. The auburn haired girl, what was her name again? Right, it was Freya.

Freya grinned. "My name's Freya, if you didn't know that already." In my mind, I couldn't help but wonder why she's talking to me. Most people won't be caught dead talking to me.

Smiling shyly, I whispered; "My name's Scarlett. Scarlett Quentin." Waiting for the disgust to enter her facial expression, I looked up and saw... Nothing. No disgust, no sympathy, no expression except for her neutral expression, which was, well generally a pretty happy-looking expression.

"That's such a pretty name!" She exclaimed, not aware of the fact that many people was looking at her with an expression that said 'why are you talking to that person?'