airports // 5sos au

x.

{meghan}

I wake up the next day to the scent of pancakes. Confused, I sit up. Nobody in my family makes breakfast. Well, my Mother used to, but she's been so involved with Noelle's wedding that she doesn't have time for anything else.

I get out of bed and move over to my closet to get dressed. I put on a grey sweater, black skinny jeans, and my black combat boots. I leave my hair down in its natural loose waves, wing my eyeliner, and put on my other usual makeup.

I reach for my dark floral backpack and my phone before going downstairs to the kitchen.

"Morning," I greet Noelle who's sitting at the dining table eating a stack of pancakes.

"Hey," Noelle says with a mouth full of pancake.

"Uh, where's the rest of the pancakes?" I look around the kitchen.

"I only made a quarter of a batch."

I take a deep breath and clench my fist, "So you didn't think anybody else was hungry?"

"I guess not," Noelle laughs and takes another bite of her pancake.

"Of course you didn't," I mutter under my breath and wait for my frozen waffles to heat up in the toaster.

As soon as they're done, I take my travel mug of coffee and my waffles off of the counter and walk out to my car. Once inside, I turn my key in the ignition and back out of the driveway.

Ten minutes later, I arrive in my school's student parking lot. I find a parking spot and sit in my car while I eat my waffles. Once I'm done, I take a deep breath and get out of my car. Walking towards the school courtyard, I'm stopped by a familiar face.

"So how was your weekend?"

"It was good," I smile at Emily Smith, my best friend since seventh grade.

"That's good! Sorry I've been busy with tutoring," She runs a hand through her curly brown hair.

"It's not a problem, plus I've been busy with my new job," I take a sip of my coffee.

"How's that going?" She asks with a smile.

"It's a really great job, oh my god," I immediately grin.

"How's the tutoring going?" I ask as we near the courtyard.

"We've only really had one session and I kind of maybe stormed out of it," I whip my head around to look at Emily mid cringe.

"Em," I widen my eyes.

"I'm sorry! It's just there was so much math and Luke is just..." She stammers.

"He's just what?" I try to speak in a calm tone, not wanting to upset her even more.

"He's just Luke!" She groans loudly.

"Everything will turn out the way it's meant to, trust me," I put an arm around her shoulder as we begin to walk across the courtyard.

"Meghan!" A familiar voice shouts.

I drop my arm and look up, searching for the voice. I see Ashton walking towards us and a grin immediately finds it way onto my face.

"Who's that?" Emily gasps.

"Uh.." I wave back to Ashton.

"Meghan, I didn't even know you go to this school, holy shit," Ashton walks even closer.

"Meghan, who is he?" Emily hits my arm lightly.

"Well, you see-" I'm interrupted by the loud bell telling us to get to first period.

"Oh, fuck," Emily closes her eyes, "I need to get to class, but you're explaining this later, Summers!"

"I will, I promise," I smile at her.

"Meghan, holy shit, hey," Ashton grins as he stands in front of me, "Sorry, swearing again."

"It's okay," I smile, "What's your first class of the day?"

"Theatre," Ashton laughs.

"That's my class! C'mon, we can walk together," I suggest and Ashton nods. I look past his shoulder and see Emily standing far away behind him. She holds her hands on either side of her face then mouths "oh my god" whilst pointing to Ashton over and over again.

I hide my laughter and begin to walk with Ashton towards the Arts building.

"Who was that?" He points to Emily who's walking (not so) discreetly to the Academics building for her French class.

"That's my best friend, Emily," I say with a laugh.

"I'll have to meet her sometime. That's what best friends are for, right? They inspect the new people? In my opinion, they're like another father that you have to impress," Ashton chuckles.

"Emily's way worse than another father," I smile as we approach the Arts building.

"I'll keep that in mind," Ashton nods.

"Here we are!" I say and direct him into the Theatre room.

•••••

At lunch was when I realized that everyone was talking about Ashton. None of it was his fault, he was the new kid. New kids are popular by theory.

"A theory about new kids?" Ashton raises his eyebrow.

"Of course," I shrug, "Emily explains it really well."

"Are we explaining the New Kid Theory to him?" Emily sits down next to me at the outside lunch table Ashton and I chose to sit at, "It's personally one of my favorites."

I smile at Ashton and nod.

"I'm Emily Smith, by the way," She beams.

"I'm Ashton Irwin," He reaches across the table and shakes her hand.

"A gentlemen, no wonder everyone's going crazy over you," Emily chuckles.

"So about this theory?" Ashton asks.

"Oh, right. Basically, every new kid is popular until proven otherwise. A kid could be the geekiest, most disgusting, most horrific, vulgar, anti-social, booger-eating, easily mistaken for a dog, most unpleasant-"

"We get it," I cringe.

"The most awful person could come to this school and would only be on everyone's radar because they're new. No one knows them, so everyone has to. They're like the newest unknown Kim Kardashian of high school. The popular people can't risk being inferior to those beneath them in the social radar knowing the new kid first. Then you have the inferior kids always striving to be superior to popular kids. They think that kind of teenage social revolution is possible just because hot-shot directors make movies out of them. You're the new social craze that everybody's obsessed with discovering. It's nothing to do with you as a person, but the title of discovering the new kid first. You're just a concept to these gullible acne-ridden students. A concept that needs discovering. It's science, Irwin. You're just caught in the middle of the experiment," Emily ends with a sigh, "How was that?"

"I think that's a personal best," I high-five her.

I look at Ashton who's sitting wide-eyed and with a slightly open mouth.

"I stunned him, hell yeah," Emily laughs and I hit her arm causing her to drop an f-bomb.

"So now you just have to be careful trying to figure out how to make friends. Here's a tip: choose people who aren't interested in discovering the concept," I nod.

"Meg, why is everyone staring at us?" Emily asks quietly as she looks around.

"It looks like they all think that you've discovered the concept," Ashton whispers.

"I guess you're stuck with us," I struggle to ignore all of the people staring.

"I guess so," Ashton grins as his cheeks display a faded pink color.