Chasing Blue

3. That's Just Him

It's been three days since I met Blue and today will be the first day for me in my new high school.

Looking at my phone first thing in the morning, I see James's text wishing me luck. He wakes up very early for his football practice.

My stomach feels all twisted at the thought of walking into my new school.

I drag myself off the bed and go to the bathroom to get ready.

Twenty minutes later, I come down to the kitchen wearing my blue jeans and red checkered shirt. My feet are secure in a new pair of navy blue Pumas that match the color of my jeans.

After a hearty breakfast of two eggs and a slightly burnt toast, not to forget my coffee with milk, dad drives me to the school.

The car stops in front of the gate and I look at my father the way I used to when I was in kindergarten. I don't want to go.

He laughs. "You'll be fine. Don't get in trouble on your first day, though," he throws the warning before leaving me cold on the pavement and driving away.

I pray he gets a flat tire or have a shittier day than what I can possibly have, then turn around and enter the school building.

This school is much bigger and upper class-ish than my last one. It emits a sense of prestigious legacy.

A big school also means more students. I'm a little early and the hallway is already packed. It makes me both relieved and anxious.

I'm relieved the kids are too many to notice any newcomer, i.e. me, but I'm also worried it'll be difficult to befriend any of these busy rich kids chatting online and offline on the hallway.

I manage to wend through the crowd and find the office room. I give them my name and they give me something like a welcome package. It has my syllabus, time table and a map of the school.

I see that my first period is English and navigate my way through bulging backpacks and bent elbows of kids holding their phones to their ears.

Before I could find the classroom, however, the bell has rung, and by some witchcraft or wizardry, the sea of kids desert the hallway in the blink of an eye. It's just me now.

After meeting a couple of dead ends and cussing myself for being spatially challenged, I find the classroom and see that a teacher is already in there.

I was half expecting the teacher to be a spectacled old lady ready to lecture me on the importance of punctuality but instead I see a very handsome young man welcoming me with a Hollywood worthy smile.

"Dayna? Hi," he says in a soothing voice.

"Hi," I tell him, but I'm not sure he heard that through his very noisy class. The chitchat of everyone while the teacher is in the class tells me that this teacher is easy to get along with. I offer him my best smile.

"Would you like to introduce yourself?" he asks.

"No." I shake my head vigorously.

He smiles and nods and asks me to take a seat with whoever I want.

All the seats are double seated and there are quite a few seats occupied by only one student. Most of those single occupiers are in the front rows.

I don't want to sit at the front so I scout for an empty seat at the back of the room with my eyes when I see him near the centre right of the last row.

That is him! That's Blue! But I could be wrong. I don't see his full face as he has his head turned to his left speaking to the guys at the seat next to his.