Maggie

“You should go talk to him.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, because you love him?”

I snickered. “Yeah, okay.”

“Oh come on,” Alana sighed. “You’ve been obsessed with him for like three years.”

Okay. So I guess in Alana’s world if you have a tiny crush on someone it means you’re obsessed with them. Makes loads of sense.

“Just forget it,” I told her. I gestured to Denver and raised my eyebrow. “I mean, look at him.”

We looked over to see him laughing obnoxiously and high-fiving one of his baseball friends. He was so outgoing and everyone loved him. Like I’d even have a chance anyway.

“Whatever.” Alana sighed, with a bit too much exaggeration, whipping around and picking up her tray. She abruptly stood up and took off to dump her leftovers in the trash can, leaving me by myself at the lunch table. I could feel the judgemental looks as I rose from my chair and scurried behind Alana, ignoring the fact that my sandwich was only halfway gone.

“I hate it when people stare at me,” I said under my breath to Alana when I caught up to her. She dumped her tray and gave me a questioning look.

“Harm, no one stares at you. I don’t know why you think they do.” She glanced down at my barely touched food as I dumped it in the trash. “Why didn’t you finish your lunch?”

I shrugged. “Wasn’t hungry.”

The dismissal bell rang and the mob of 200 high schoolers in the lunch room all flooded toward the doors, complete with routine bumping and shoving. I clung to Alana as we squeezed through the double doors, and after we were out of the swarm, we proceeded toward our locker.

I was grabbing my biology textbook when I heard a familiar voice approach us, accompanied by a few unfamiliar ones.

“Hey Denver,” Alana said a little too enthusiastically.

“Hey,” he nodded, giving her a nod and a small grin. “What’s up?”

“Oh, Harm and I were just talking,” she shrugged casually.

“Cool,” he said, obviously unenthused. “So...what do you guys think of Maggie?”

“Who?” she asked.

He laughed like she made a joke. “No, not who, what. Maggie. You know, Magniloquence?”

Her blank stare clued him in that she had no idea what he was talking about. Neither did I.

“...haven’t been on it yet?”

“What is it?” she asked. I was intrigued by the conversation and wanted to join in, but I’m pretty sure they had forgotten I existed by this point so I didn’t say anything. It was pointless.

He smiled slyly. “Just get on maggie.com when you get home. You’ll see what I’m talking about.” Denver flashed his perfect smile. “Coolest thing ever.” He took short pauses between each word to emphasize how cool he thought Maggie was.

“I’ll check it out.” she grinned.

“Cool.” he replied. The minute warning bell rang and we took off toward homeroom, which was quite a haul all the way at the end of the hallway. I huffed and took a tighter grip on my books as I galloped to keep Alana’s pace.

Author's Note: Hey there you beautiful reader you. Thanks for giving chapter one of our story a read! We're gonna try and update at least once a week, so make sure you stick around for that! I hope you're liking it so far :D

-Jerrica