Colors on my Canvas

chapter two

I couldn't fall asleep. I had gone to bed while the team was still here. But I just couldn't convince myself to actually fall asleep. The combination between the first day of school jitters and those piercing blue eyes were keeping me awake.  

I rolled over for the thousandth time, grabbing my phone off of my nightstand. I texted Benny, hoping he was still awake. After ten minutes of him not answering, I come to the conclusion that he was asleep. 

"Lucky you," I mumbled under my breath. 

My phone buzzed in my hand as I was about to place it back on my nightstand. But it wasn't Benny. 

"parkerk84 has requested to follow you" my Instagram notification read. 

"Who are you?" I whispered to myself. I had never known anyone named Parker and as I waited for my phone to load, I racked my brain trying to match the name to a face. No luck. 

I held my breath as his page loaded. His account was private but all I needed was his bio and profile picture to know. None of the team had ever requested to follow me on Instagram or even acknowledged me all together. But then again, I was never old enough. Until now. 

I hesitated, unsure about what to do. But I accepted his request and requested to follow him back. He was on the team, and that was obvious because of his profile picture. The blue jersey with a white 84 across the front was all I needed to see before knowing he was off limits. And without one more thought of it, I put my phone down and fell asleep. 

     ~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~ ~•~

"Alright we have lunch, english, art and science together, so we'll only be separated for the morning classes," Benny said to me while examining our schedules. 

"Okay that's good," I replied, pulling books out of my locker. 

"And we're going to the game on Friday to celebrate surviving our first week of high school." 

"Yeah as long as we actually make it through," I laughed as I closed my locker. 

"We will don't worry." 

"Don't miss me too much," I sang as Benny dropped me off at my first class. He shot me a smile as he walked to his class down the hall. 

I glanced around the room before picking a seat by the windows. Everyone was a freshman like me, so this history class couldn't be too bad. History was my least favorite subject, so getting it over with at the beginning of the day was fine by me. 

50 minutes later and I practically ran out of that classroom. We go through the same procedures every year on the first day of school in every single class, and I was already bored of it all. 

As I entered my advanced algebra 2 class, I scanned the room. There were students of all ages in here. This could be good or could be bad. As I looked for a seat in the back, I passed a group of laughing girls dressed in scandalous cheerleading uniforms, a few guys staring at their phones and one guy staring at the front of the room wearing sunglasses. He was sitting two rows away from where I chose to sit. I noticed him glance my way, but focused on the teacher who just walked in. 

Math was the same situation as history which made it barely bearable. The only thing slightly interesting was the guy with the sunglasses arguing with our teacher about taking them off. 

I wanted to skip my next class. I hated Spanish to begin with, but I needed two language credits to graduate. I knew all of the classes were going to be the same routine, but Spanish would be the one where our teacher talked to us in a different language. Meaning I wouldn't be able to get lost in my own thoughts, and I would actually have to pay attention. 

Spanish felt like ages, but it was only 45 minutes. But the end of that class meant the beginning of lunch. I left the classroom and headed to my locker to switch out my books. 

"Hello stranger!" Benny called to me. 

"Hey weirdo, how were your classes?" I laughed. 

"Eh, same old first day bs. I'm just pumped for the end of the day so I can go home and take a nap. Getting up at 6:20 should be illegal." 

I laughed. "Yes oh yes I agree. But we're still walking to get ice cream after school, right?" 

"I suppose we can continue that," he sighed, but still smiled. We would walk to the nearest ice cream shop after the first day of school, a tradition we have upheld since the first day of 5th grade. 

We turned and walked towards the cafeteria. As we walked, I noticed the sunglasses-wearing guy from my algebra class walking the opposite way with a few of his buddies. I glanced at him as he walked past me, still wearing the glasses. 

"Do you know who that is?" I whispered to Benny, knowing he had no idea. 

"Who?" 

"That guy that just walked past...with the sunglasses on?" He didn't have a clue. I could see it in his face. 

"Sorry Char, I didn't see him." 

"Okay, it's probably nothing. It's fine," I rambled on. Something about him just made me feel uneasy, like something was off with him. 

I ignored my gut feeling and pushed back every thought of this mystery guy as we made our way into the cafeteria.