Begin Again

Chapter Five

 “What are you doing?” someone asked me.

 The voice was quiet and hushed almost as if afraid of speaking too loud. I looked up and this boy was standing in front of me. He was tall and skinny, and had dark brown hair. He was handsome. He had these big hazel eyes, with thick eyebrows and an incredibly long nose that suited him. I hadn’t seen him before, but I don’t think he was in my grade either.

 “Umm…I’m just writing down what I have to do for my next classes. I tend to forget about homework quite often haha”

 I was siting on a bench built around this huge tree right by the soccer field. It was calm here, since most of my grade chilled by the lunch area, on the other side of campus. I wasn’t trying to isolate myself but my personality doesn’t allow me to spend a lot of time with a lot of people without needing to take a few minutes to calm down, and have a moment of silence. A moment to myself.

 “Yeah haha I have a shit memory as well. I’m Theo, by the way. Nice to meet you”

 “I’m Savannah, nice to meet you as well. You’re new here?”

 “No haha I’ve been here all my life. I’m from Lebanon though, but my parents lived here before I was born so they came back home right after my mom had   me”

 “Do you like it here?”

 “Yeah of course. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived so far as well so I don’t really know much apart from this”

 "Yeah…I lived in New York all my life as well. You’re not on my grade are you?”

 “No I’m in the grade above haha. With a pretty girl like you though I wouldn’t mind doing 9th grade all over again”

 I gave one of those laughs that guys usually interpret as “She thinks I’m funny”, but really just means “I don’t know what else to say”. We sat there in silence for a long time, until it got awkward. I was beyond relief when I saw Nora approaching at a fast pace.

 “Ready for humanities?” she asked.

 “Yeah, let’s go. The room is just here” I turned to Theo “I have to go now, but nice meeting you, Theo”

 I could tell I made him nervous, I just didn’t know why. He was standing in sort of an awkward position as I was saying goodbye. Pulling his hair backwards with his elbow bent in the air. He was quite attractive I wasn’t going to lie, but he also sounded like trouble so I tried keeping my distance.

 Nora and I walked into the room, and there were a couple of other people there. Unfamiliar faces.

 “Are all the boys trying to get with you?!” Nora said as we sat down

 “What? No! He was just being nice!”

 “He was so nervous, couldn’t you tell?”

 I could, but I was obviously not going to admit it.

 “No he wasn’t, are you stupid?”

 “Haha you’re just afraid of admitting it, but just so you know…everyone’s talking about you so be careful Sav, there’s many more to come”

“Please stop it haha”

I wasn’t particularly keen to the fact that everyone was in fact talking about me, but it felt nice being noticed for once. I blended in my last school and even though I was okay with it, everyone likes to be noticed. I wasn’t going change myself to make more people like me, but I wasn’t going to ignore people and stop talking to them to keep myself out of the social spotlight.