THE GUYS' girl

Chapter 3

Song Vibes: Loser Like Me by Glee Cast

True, not a boy band... believe it or not, boy bands did not make their money singing songs about calling teenage girls losers. So, I had to improvise. 

"Quiet, please. We have a new student in class today."

Oh no.

"Everyone, welcome -" the white-haired man paused to look down his nose at his roster, "Jane Taylor. Jane? Come up and introduce yourself."

Crap.

I stood and made the short walk to the front of the room, careful not to trip over discarded backpacks. I felt thirty pairs of eyes that seconds ago had been glazed over in apathy towards our impending pre-calculus lecture, suddenly perked up at the promise of a new student.

I turned to face the room and watched a collective wave of disappointment pass over their eyes. It only took one glance at my converse, jeans and grey t-shirt for them to forfeit their attention. I wasn't pretty enough for the guys, and the lack of effort I'd put into my clothes, glasses and frizzed hair told the girls I wasn't trying very hard to make friends.

"Actually, it's Avery, not Jane," I explained, my voice cracking.

"Ah, Avery Jane, my mistake," he waved his hand in apology.

"No, not Jane, just plain Avery," I corrected a little more forcefully this time.

"More like Plain Jane," a mocking voice from the first row said under her breath. The decrepit teacher hadn't heard, but the rest of the classroom was snickering.

I dared to glance in her direction, my face still pink from being in the spotlight. A beautiful girl with vixen-like red curls looked at me with innocent eyes, but then her pouty lips turned up into an evil half-grin. Sitting all around her were other pretty girls with trendy clothes and smug glares, but none of them screamed power the way she did.

Great... I'd been there all of twenty minutes and I'd already caught the attention of the school's queen bee. Who knew that uttering five words "not Jane, just plain Avery" would earn me a nickname and a target on my back?

I stumbled through the rest of my day. Somehow my enrollment paperwork had switched my first and middle names in error, and I started each period by correcting the teacher that my name was actually Avery. More than once when I did this, I heard a Plain Jane reference and the laughter that followed. Apparently, word traveled fast at Kennedy High School.

It was official. Aiden was a member of the band and we were staying in Orlando. My parents and I spent a week settling into a three-bedroom condo lease and lounging by our community pool. I'd hoped to turn my ghostly pale skin even a shade darker than translucent; if only to not stand out on my first day at a new school. So much for not drawing attention...

Coming from a small, rural town with kids I'd known my whole life, I hadn't been popular, but I also wasn't a social pariah. The only nickname I'd had was what I called myself under my breath, "Awkward Avery," because I never seemed to say the right thing. 

Kennedy was a complete culture shock. As I turned circles in the large high school with multiple buildings and outdoor courtyards, I longed for anything familiar. In the hallways, there was just as much Spanish as there was English, so even if someone had tried to talk to me, there was a 50% chance I wasn't going to understand them. And then there was the fashion. The barely-there clothing choices made me feel like a twelve-year-old caught in a rap video.

Even though I spent lunch alone on an outside bench, I was grateful that I wasn't forced into a cafeteria scene straight out of a teen rom-com. My new school was huge, and I was certain the cafeteria would be a tricky minefield to navigate.