That Was Then

4-Now

I give myself a pep talk on the drive to school. I wonder briefly if the person in the next car over at a stoplight knows I'm talking to myself and thinks I'm crazy. Maybe I am. 

As far as public schools go, Erie High is nice but it is nothing compared to the sprawling Connecticut campus that is Hotchkiss. I have to be at least a little crazy to give that all up to come back here. I had a good thing going there: like friends. I had friends at Hotchkiss, lots of them. I have exactly zero friends here. Even in middle school I had some friends but I didn't keep in contact with anyone when I left. I also had a perfect GPA at Hotchkiss and a good GPA at one of the top ten prep schools in the nation is practically a guarantee that I'd have my pick of Ivy League colleges. And that's what should matter: the future. But first I need to resolve some things from the past. Maybe I'll go back to Hotchkiss next year, or if everything goes perfectly according to plan I could be out of here by the end of the semester.

Pulling into the parking lot in my brand new Range Rover, the lot is only half full. I'm early despite Petra's concern and my multiple wardrobe changes. As a new student, I am supposed to go to the principal's office to be assigned a buddy but that doesn't really fit in with my plans so I head off in search of my locker. I keep my head down in the hallway, not wanting to run into anyone I might recognize.

I find my locker and since I have no school books as of yet I just make sure that I know the combination. I do it twice just to be sure and then close my locker, startled to find a girl waiting on the other side, staring pointedly at me.

"Blakely?" She asks with a perfectly shaped eyebrow quirked up. I examine her closely, trying to place her. She is just a little taller than me, dark skinned with dark curly hair cut short. After I am sure that I don't know her from before, I smile. "I'm Vivi, your welcoming committee." Busted.

"Oh... yeah..." I say sheepishly. I wonder if I can play it off, tell her I was just heading that way.

"Don't worry about it, I wouldn't want a babysitter either," she grins, "I'll just point some stuff out on the way to class and we'll call it good."

"Right." I try to look appreciative but walking into class with someone else is not part of my plan.

Vivi points out where the library and the commons are, bathrooms and vending machines. But she also gives me a social tour. "That's where the freshman hang out. Don't use that bathroom unless you want a contact high. You don't look like a pothead, are you a pothead?" I smile and shake my head. "Not that there's anything wrong with that..." She smiles at a teacher. 

"That's Ms. Gellar. She's like, the best science teacher ever! She's got some major chemistry with the calculus teacher." Vivi laughs at her well placed pun. She stops and turns around so I do the same. "Watch." We watch as Ms. Gellar stops and lingers outside of a classroom that I assume must be said calculus teacher's room. Riffling through the stack of papers she is holding, she drops a pen, clearly trying to get the attention of the other teacher. A grin lights up her face when he notices her, she disappears into his room and we resume the tour.

A group of large, loud boys are assembled near a vending machine, "football players." Vivi points a well manicured finger in their direction. I scan the group for any familiar faces, looking for one in particular. "The sexually frustrated underclassmen gather over there." I follow her gaze to where there are several couples in various stages of PDA. Some simply gaze into one another's eyes with their hands locked together, another couple appears to be trying to swallow each other's faces. I laugh, this seems to be a staple at all schools. Vivi scans my schedule as we continue down the hall. "Huh, you're only a junior?"

"Yeah, uh I guess they do the classes a little differently at my last school," I shrug, not just trying to be modest but I remember from middle school it's not exactly cool to be smart or try hard. But I am and I do.

"Or you're just a genius!" Vivi teases. "I'm a senior and you're in three of my classes." She sounds impressed. We arrive at our government class and I take a deep breath before we enter, wondering how I'm going to pull this off as I'm sure it would be rude not to sit with Vivi. But I've been planning this moment for weeks. When we enter the class I search the faces of the students already seated. "Go ahead and sit, I need to talk to Mr. Pierson." Vivi saves me from my dilemma and I head to the back of the room toward the only face I recognize. Not that I've ever met him, I only know his face from pictures. He looks up as I make my way toward him, then down again slowly taking me in. I resist the urge to squirm under his scrutinizing gaze. A slow, appreciative smile forms on his pretty boy face. And he is very good looking, better in person even than his pictures.

"Hey." I say in a flirty voice I don't even recognize as my own. Not that I don't know how to flirt when I'm into someone, my confidence has come such a long way since middle school. But I don't usually try to pull off the seductive flirty voice that just crossed my lips.

"Hey," his voice is deep and he doesn't even try to look ashamed for so obviously checking me out.

"This seat taken?" I sound a little more like myself as I gesture to the empty desk next to him.

"It is now," he responds and I cannot wait to text Petra and tell her that things are going even better than we had hoped for. I take my seat slowly, hyper aware of his eyes on me. Vivi takes a seat on the other side of me and I give her my full attention, chatting with her. When Mr. Pierson speaks, I face forward and I'm sure it appears that I am hanging on his every word but I am hyper aware of Seth. Even though I see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye, I don't make eye contact with Kya's boyfriend throughout the rest of the class.