Nestled in the Chicago suburbs rested the small, one school town of LaginaWood. A sleepy little city where teenagers drink, date, party, and hopefully study. Where citizens hail the Cubs without much reason, high school football is practically a rel...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Cate
Older movies like Grease or Mean Girls make a high school cafeteria seem like a war zone, full of violence, bloodshed, and verbal weaponry such as insult-grenades or breakup-tear-gas. Those movies were only partially correct. The LaginaWood High School cafeteria was a cold war. There was no fighting, no screams or hurled food. But every student seemed locked in a stalemate, afraid to make a move and risk a social mutually assured destruction. Some students had acquired a larger, more diverse base, but I doubted anyone was willing to sit at another table and explore the new land.
Thankfully, I was not forced to become sixth period lunch's new Americo Vespucci--regardless of a lack of will, this school would not make me Christopher Colombus--because there were a few vacant tables at the end of the rackous room.
Each cafeteria table was comprised of three smaller tables pushed together. I managed to procure a completely unoccupied row and slid into the bench.
Another flaw with old movies: sitting alone at lunch was not a brand of shame, at least not to me. I had no grievances with solitude. There was something interesting about watching the teenage masses in their natural environment, almost entirely unsupervised. Not one of them seemed particularly special, but neither did I. Little did the other students realize that either they, or their friends, were anything but ordinary high schoolers.
I scanned the room for Athena Scarfe's red curls. Despite spending English class and two periods of Chemistry with her, I hadn't yet had a chance to strike up a conversation. I'd been hoping to approach Athena over lunch, but it seemed we didn't share sixth period.
However, I did share the cafeteria with several familiar faces. That included the noisy Carter Assin and his friend, Jack Kaider, a boy I recognized from Chemistry, who was equally obnoxious as Ass, yet somehow outmatched him in incompetence. The two seemed to be erecting a skyscraper of sorts from their food.
Rolling my eyes at the surely--hopefully--ordinary trouble makers, I returned my attention to my lunch box. I discovered a scrap of paper in Mom's handwriting that read Go get 'em, Kiddo! Good luck with your first day, and smiled at the thought.
Before I could unwrap my slice of last night's cold pizza, someone slid into the bench directly across from mine.
I looked up to find a smiling blonde girl with the biggest eyes I'd ever seen. She hardly looked real, yet was somehow natural, with perfect loose curls, a dusting of freckles across her nose, and the brim of her pink hat flopping across her forehead. For some reason I found it difficult to avert my gaze. The girl was a Barbie Doll with believable proportions.
Barbie beamed at me. "Hi! Couldn't help but see you sitting all alone, so I thought I'd pop by. I don't think we've met? What's your name?"
"Cate." I resisted the urge to let her know that I'd been far more comfortable sitting by myself.
