Casey and The Quints

04

Three days have passed since I first arrived at Segginton High and I can safely say that the stares have not decreased. If anything they have only gotten worse. News travels pretty fast around here and the arrival of the new girl seems to be the school's hottest topic. I mean with a student count of 200, I can't really be that surprised. At least today is Friday, and I'll have the weekend to recover.

My first few days here have consisted of course outlines and getting caught up on all the material I missed in the first week. Since there are only 50 kids in my entire grade, it seems that I have all of my classes with Matthew Miller. Although he has not shown up to school since my first day here, so it's hard to say for sure or not.

I quickly pack up my stuff as the lunch bell finally rings, and I'd have to say today is going extremely well (note the sarcasm) as I've managed to only embarrass myself three times. The first being that I walked into the wrong first period and had to be escorted to my class by a freshman. And it turns out that my class happened to be on the other side of the school. The second was that my phone's ringer was on without my knowledge and halfway through my math class Milkshake by Kelis blasted from my backpack. And thirdly, some kid knocked my backpack from my desk onto the floor and all of the contents spilled out including my feminine products for that special time of the month. Clearly, everybody is lining up to be my friend.

Coming to a halt in front of my locker, I open it up and shove my textbooks into the top shelf, before leaning my head against the cool metal door. Why can't this just be easy? Why can't I just have this one thing that I don't screw up?

"Everything alright Apple Girl?"

"Just peachy," I say turning my head to the left to see Matthew Miller leaning his back against the lockers, "I was just planning on taking a nap here if that's alright with you."

"I can assure you there are much comfier places to take a nap," He says and I can see a corner of his smile, "Like a bench or your car perhaps?"

"That, sadly, would require having a car in the first place."

"Alright come on," He says grabbing my wrist and pulling me from my locker. I quickly shut it and let him drag me along.

"Where are we going?" I say as he leads me out of the school and towards the student parking lot.

He leads me to a beat-up black Honda civic before turning to face. I am caught by surprise when I spot a new bruise on his cheek and instinctively reach up to touch it. I immediately realize that I'm touching Matthew Miller's face and retract my hand.

"What happened? Are you okay?" I ask.

"I'm trying out this new product. Do you like it?" He says with a grinning, running his hand along the bruise.

"It really adds to the whole 'sexy and mysterious bad boy' vibe you have going on," I say playing along with his joke.

"Sexy and mysterious?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

I just blush in response.

"Come on, get in," He says unlocking the car and gesturing to the passenger door.

"Aren't you going to open it for me? Or is chivalry dead?"

He looks at me, then looks at the car, then looks at me again before turning around and getting in the driver's side. I guess chivalry is dead. I walk around the car and hastily pull open the passenger side door but not before a few soda cans and fast food wrappers fall at my feet.

"Sorry about that," Matthew says trying to throw all the other garbage that didn't fall out, into the back seat, "You can just throw that in the back and I'll clean it later."