Smitten

                  CHAPTER ONE

Explanation

Conning myself on a daily basis that there is a purpose for knowing her. Yeah I know she is alone, but doesn’t she have friends…

My name is Benevolent, my friends and family call me Ben, that is except for the girl in the beginning of this story, my mother said my name was to ensure me to live out its meaning, you have never really met a guy named Benevolent before haven’t you? Well in case you didn’t know benevolent means kind. This story is about how I came across this strange girl named Hope, Hope was one of those girls who was out casted by people who were secretly afraid of her kindness, or in short the “it girls”, well I have to admit those girls are not the proud to be single types, they are more like, best come best serve? I’m guessing.

Well this all started two years ago in the seventh grade, or middle school to be exact. It was November, when most classes have a new student it’s like the battle of the genders to who is right if it’s a boy or girl, Ms. Bailey our advisory teacher  announced the she was a girl and we will be meeting her tomorrow, since its past orientation it is our schools custom to assign one boy or girl to have the same exact classes and schedule with the new student so they can change classes together without getting lost, of course it only takes about a week for someone to get used to their schedule. My teacher has this bowl of our names in it for who gets to escort this new girl tomorrow…

I went on my facebook to see who got picked when I didn’t see anything I checked my email and I had one message in my inbox, I sort of knew what had happened, I was picked out of all my classmates…

The next day I decided to dress nicely for a good first impression. As I went on the bus some of my classmates were talking about who they thought would have the same classes as this new girl, “hey Ben, any idea who got picked?” said my classmate Samantha, “I guess we will find out at class today huh?, so um, just out of curiosity, what do you think she looks like?” I said while pretending to look for something important…

As I sat in class I began searching for an unfamiliar face to pinpoint exactly who the new girl was, I realized our advisory teacher was late due to the constant chatting… after the last person came in it started to get quiet because we knew the next person who would enter would be a teacher, as the door knob twisted we turned our heads to see this new student. She had brown curly hair cut to where her collarbones were, brown eyes, about 5ft. tall and two inches, she had glasses in her pocket hanging out, she wore winter boots, black skinny jeans, and a one of those loose type t-shirts. She came in trying to observe an empty seat.

“Okay, everyone I would love to introduce you to Hope, Hope can you take an empty seat” Ms. Newman our English Language teacher said, “oh just before we begin Ms. Bailey told me that Ben, you are assigned the same schedule as Hope and she expects you to be polite as always.” She said while raising one eyebrow at me. after she embarrassed me I saw the boys doing heart shape signs to me and her, and the girls passing notes laughing continuously, after the bell rang Hope began to pack her things and look at the map of the buildings that was given to her that would indicate which class was where, and what time she would be there. As I packed my things I tried thinking of a proper approach, I came by her desk and said, “Hey, um my name is Benevolent, but you can call me Ben.” She replied “nice meeting you Ben, as you know my name is Hope and obviously you can call me Hope.” As she threw her bag on one shoulder,”I was assigned to show you around, don’t worry you’ll get used to it in about a week.” I replied while smiling.

As we walked to our science class, she began observing the school and she smiled, so I decided to start up a conversation, “so where did you come from?” “Me? Oh I’m from Alabama, it was really awful at that school, you wouldn’t like It.” she replied, I decided to not continue the conversation. “We’re here!’ I said, we came inside and took a seat at the same table, I really don’t know much about this girl, but she didn’t come unprepared, she had notebooks with actual notes in them and she wasn’t without any supplies. I’m guessing she focused more on herself than others.

Lunch here is very different from most schools, we don’t eat separated by grades, but we are separated by our desired clubs so we can always meet with them, since we had the same schedule she was like some my classmates who enjoyed Drama, people join drama because you can stay after school for actual reasons or just because they enjoy acting, I’m guessing since she hadn’t been here before I’m guessing she’s here for a pretty good reason.

Well during lunch our club advisor or Arts teacher Mr. Douglas took interest in Hope and invited her to come by where the actors are, these people are always chosen to actually be seen on stage while the rest of us work on the things you don’t know about. Well I was pretty shocked because he never really called up a student before, usually they came to him and gave him a reason to let them act. As lunch started to end he pointed towards me then she sat down quietly smiling.” What happened over there?” I asked after chewing my pizza,”Oh that, Mr. Douglas just said how amazed he was with my last drama teacher’s review on me, he said he never had an actress who could sing before, but then he told me this story of this girl…”she paused to look at me. “What’s wrong? Is it something I said?” she said worriedly, “It’s just I knew her that’s all, it’s a really good story you don’t have to tell me I know, I heard it from her myself… once before…” I decided to go to my locker, I told her where I was going but I wasn’t being fully honest, I went to the bathroom instead, I looked at my watch, I had ten more minutes before I had to take her to the next class. I know most boys don’t care about the girls they were friends with before but this one was different, she cared she was magical like I couldn’t explain it at all. I just didn’t want to explain anything like this to Hope.