Reverse Romance

Daily life

          She walked down the hall ignoring all the looks of fear, and disgust. People parted like the red sea to avoid her as she walked down the high-school hallways. She shuffled down the hall like a ghost to her locker gathering her textbooks for Math and English. In the reflection of her locker, she saw her old group of friends looking at her with pity and disdain. She sighed and walked to the bathroom setting down her bag outside the door.       
When she entered the bathroom she stared blankly at herself noticing the look of disconsolate in the mirror, touching the ragged scar lining her neck softly. The doctors said it should fully disappear in a month or two not that it mattered. After drying her hands and heading to class, she made sure to look down at her brown, faded sneakers, avoiding any looks of any kind not interested in what people thought of her choices. When she entered the class, she went right to the back of the class at the empty corner table as usual.
After a few minutes, everyone was settled into their seats. Before she knew it, an entire hour had passed in the class, the teacher got a call and had to leave the classroom for a few minutes. When she left a few of the boys got up from their seats slyly inching over to her table.
"Do you plan to creep everyone out at school? Or does it just come naturally?" One hissed out like a snake as the other two chuckled like hyenas.
She ignored them as this was common for people to think they could get a rise out of her. After a few more snide comments from the other two, they left knowing the teacher would return soon. Little did those boys know, she hid her earbuds behind her long scraggly hair, and couldn't hear a word.
When the teacher returned everyone looked her way, murmuring before they realized she was not alone. As the girl looked up to see what was the big deal she saw a boy walk into the class smiling confidently as the teacher brought him to the front of the class to introduce him to the rest of the class.
"Class this is a new student of ours why don't you introduce yourself," the teacher said kindly to this seemingly random kid switching to the school in the middle of the semester.
The boy smiled thanking the teacher before talking "Well to start my name is Oliver Santiago. I just got transferred here and I hope I like it here." Oliver ended with a bow which got a lot of laughs.
"Ok well welcome Oliver you can take a seat anywhere you like," The teacher said dismissing him.
The girl put her head down putting all her attention back on the book knowing that Oliver would just become another stranger or bully in her life. After a bunch of kids offered Oliver a seat he glanced at the girl to caught up in a book to pay attention and moved her way. After some shuffling, he sat at the seat right next to her, giving her a magnificent grin, startling her and leaving everyone else in shock.
"Alright Oliver I'll add you into the seating chart then," the teacher said moving on to her daily lesson.
After the teacher, starting writing her tenth-grade math problems on the board again,  Oliver leaned closer to the girl whispering "Hey I'm Oliver what's your name?"
The girl ignored him but glanced at him noticing his distinctive auburn hair before looking back at her book.
"Oh come on if we're gonna sit together I have to at least know your name, and why aren't you doing the work on the board?" he asked purposefully loud making the teacher glance back quickly.
"You're gonna get me in trouble," the girl said irritably.
"Wow, she speaks," Oliver said pretending to be shocked and making the teacher look at them warningly.
"My names Cleo, now shut up" She said turning back to her book ignoring his smile of success.
When math class ended Cleo headed towards her locker switching out one textbook for another and heading to her 2nd class of the day.
When she got to Spanish she was relieved that Oliver wasn't in her class and sat in the back like usual, and went through the class simple and easy. After a few more super easy classes it was lunch, and Cleo was grabbing her lunch box from her locker before anyone saw her.
After she sat down in her private lunch spot she blew a sigh of relief. After settling down she noticed a person walking by and she ignored them but they stopped right in front of her. When she looked up she froze.
"HELLO CLEOOOOO" Oliver said giving Cleo a sly grin.
All Cleo could think was "No, No, No!"
After she shook off her shocked reaction she went back to eating her lunch and ignored Oliver.
Oliver noticed this and just kept smiling "May I sit m' lady?" he asked with a terrible British accent.
"There's no room," Cleo said not looking up.
Oliver looked around knowing no one was anywhere near Cleo. "Well, I guess I'll have to squish in," he said, sliding his back down the wall, sitting next to Cleo.
Cleo ignored Oliver as he sat there, staring at her with a goofy grin. After a few minutes, Cleo was fed up.
"Ok, what do you want? Did you get dared to spend a whole lunch with me or was just curious why people avoid me? Huh? What do you want?!" Cleo said leaving Oliver in shock.
After Oliver collected himself from the surprise attack he took a deep breath apparently nervous. "Look I don't know why people avoid you and if you don't want to talk about it I get that, I honestly just want to be friends" he said genuine and kindness surrounding his voice.
"Why out of an entire high school filled with people would you want to be friends with me?" Cleo asked completely confused.
Oliver thought this over before answering "Because I know how it feels to be alone and I know that it's always nice to have a friend." he said smiling. "I'm not pitying you either you seem like a cool person, while everyone else seems boring and snobby," Oliver said scrunching his nose in disgust.
Cleo smiled for the first time in a while and sighed giving in to the strange boy's requests, "Ok then friends it is," she said making Oliver grin from ear to ear