Ride or Die

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Ignoring Jacob, I see Cole wave, and walk in his direction.

"Hey, Lyla!" Cole greets."

"Hey, Cole. What's up?"

"I missed you!" He jokes over dramatically.

"I missed you too! I simply can't live with you!" I replied, playing along with this stupid but funny game.

We both launch into a fit of laughter.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jacob sigh and roll his eyes. Cole notices as well, and turns to face him.

"Hey, what crawled up your ass this morning, Jacob?"

The rest of the table, including myself, bursts into obnoxious laughter, some even banging their fists on the table.

"Nothing, just the overreaction is completely unnecessary." He says. But his eyes are focused on me, not Cole.

His eyes are unreadable, and his face shows no emotion. I raise an eyebrow at him, and look away.

"Anyway, I'm guessing you haven't really talked to any of these people before, really. I'll let everyone introduce themselves." Cole gestures to the table.

"I'm Bianca." A red-haired girl with green eyes says.

"I'm Preston." The boy sitting next to her says. He has blonde hair and brown eyes.

"I'm Zach." A boy to my left says. He has brown hair and green eyes.

"Skylar." A blonde haired, hazel eyed girl introduces herself.

"The name's Carly, nice to meet you." A girl with a kind smile says. Her light eyes and brown hair contrast beautifully.

There is awkward silence for a minute or so until Cole says, "pretty sure you know who he is." And gestures to Jacob.

His eyes had been every place but me.

All eyes turned to him, and he looked around and shrugged his shoulders.

"Yeah, Jacob." Is all he says.

"Yeah, Lyla." I copy his tone of voice.

"Lyla, I'm pretty sure you have third period with me." Bianca says, breaking the short and curt silence.

"Gym, right?" I ask to clarify.

"Yup. You excited for the races tomorrow?"  She questions.

For a moment the fact that I have a race to attend to tonight crosses my mind, but I turn to her.

"Definitely. Want to be on the same team?" She asks in a friendly tone.

"Yeah. You fast?" I reply with my own question.

"Kinda." She says jokingly, shrugging for emphasis.

For the rest of the lunch period I get to know almost everyone at the table -excluding one person in particular- and I have a fun time joking around with everyone.

I've never really had a group of people I hang out with, honestly, so the whole experience is completely new to me.

And honestly, I don't mind it. I've always been so focused on things going on outside of school, and actually having a chance to hang out and laugh isn't the worst thing in the world. However, I know I cannot get too focused on everyone, for I have certain things to take care of and a guard to keep up.

I don't have too many things people can use against me; one of the pros of having no friends. But in my middle school years, before I got into racing, I had so many friends, and my whole life was my friends.