Our Forbidden Love

V : Painting in Motion

Fallon's POV

(FLASHBACK)

It's the first day of school, and the hallways are buzzing with activity. Students are milling about, finding their names and sections on the official list. It's noisy, as expected—no one anticipates a silent hallway on the first day.

Everyone is chattering and murmuring, new kids tripping over their feet, team captains flashing their pearly whites. It's all so cliché, yet quintessential to the high school experience.

As a late enrollee, I felt lost amidst the chaos. My lazy side told me not to enroll earlier, and now I'm regretting it.

A mental note for next time: make sure to enroll before locking yourself in your room for a marathon reading session.

After pacing back and forth in the building, I decided to head to the library and wait for the teachers to post updates. The peace and quiet of the library sounded like a perfect refuge from the first-day frenzy.

"Hey bitch," Harriet called me, after faking a smirk.

"Hey dumbass," I mocked, as if we were going to start a scene like the one in Mean Girls.

"You must follow me now," she responded, snaking her arm around my smaller self.

"Not like you'd let me get away anyway." I say in surrender.

Harriet practically bulldozed me through the crowded hallway, not even bothering to apologize to those we bumped into. Hallways always seem to have a way of making knees tremble.

We finally reached room number 13, only to end up bickering over where we'd sit for the entire school year. After ten minutes of pointless arguing, I let her win. I threw my bag under the desk and rolled my eyes at the teasing look she gave me.

Plugging in my earphones, I drowned out the noise with my favorite tunes. It was the only way to escape the chaos and find a bit of peace in the midst of the first-day frenzy. Here's hoping the rest of the day would be less dramatic.

...

"What?! That must be a mistake! I can assure you my name was listed for this section!" I complained, fishing my phone from my pocket and showing them the screenshot.

Harriet seemed to realize my sudden outburst stemmed from a bad morning and a chaotic family situation.

"Calm down, little miss. What's your surname?" Mr. Fischer responded reluctantly, appearing annoyingly calm.

"Parker. My name is Fallon Parker."

"Sure, let's take a look at that," he said, licking his finger and flipping through pages of student names in alphabetical order.

"Oh, my mistake," he laughed it off.

A tall lady with brown hair interrupted the conversation. "Perfect timing, Miss Michigan. Could you accompany Miss Parker to Science class?"

"Sure, mister. Follow my lead, kitten," she said. I looked up from the wooden floor to see her pretty pale face close to mine.

Her presence was calming in a way that Mr. Fischer's couldn't be. It felt like the start of an interesting day, and perhaps, an unexpected connection. The chaos of the morning began to fade as I followed Miss Michigan to my next class, feeling a glimmer of hope amidst the typical first-day confusion.

Honey eyes. Perfectly-arched eyebrows. Heart-shaped lips. Button nose. But out of everything, it's her big brown orbs that stare deep into my soul.

She returned a ravishing smile to my simple nod.