Manic

Chapter 5.

Lunch is always the most brutal when you're new. I have no one to sit with so I wander the courtyard until I find an empty bench to sit at and eat my sandwich and chips. Alone. I try to tell myself that I like being alone, but even I couldn't fool myself.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, go make some friends," Danny says.

"No," I reply, being quiet so that no one hears me talking to myself. 

"Go find the girl that you embarrassed yourself in front of this morning," Reid states.

"Great idea, idiot." I mumble.

"Hey, rude."

And then I saw her. Again. She was walking with a group of three friends, laughing and walking towards a table near me. "Oh god." I say, and try to keep my head down. The hard part about keeping your head down while trying to stare at someone is... well it's nearly impossible.

"Go make your move!" Danny says.

"Shut up," I tell him.

She glances over and for a split second we make eye contact before I rip my gaze away from her and focus on the sandwich in front of me. You can imagine my surprise when she separated herself from the group and started walking directly towards me. I wasn't sure what to do, so, like a complete idiot, I got up and started walking away.

"Hey!" I heard her call behind me.

I turned around slowly, running my hands through my hair in a nervous gesture. "Uh, hey." I say, trying to sound casual.

"What game are you playing here?" She folds her arms across her chest.

"Sorry, what?"

"Stay calm," Saraphina reassures me.

Delilah rolls her eyes at me. "Coming to sit by me, and then moving away from me. Locking eyes and then looking away. Running off when I approach you. Sound familiar?"

I shift my weight from my left side to my right side, "Maybe a little," I agree. "I'm sorry, uh I'm new here. And I don't know anyone."

"And you think you're gonna make friends when you act like that?"

"Well that wasn't very charming." Danny says.

"Well you're not so charming yourself." I tell her.

Delilah laughs now, "You're weird, Elijah."

"Thanks, I guess..."

"Come, sit with my friends." She motions for me to follow her, which I do after standing in that spot like an idiot for a short few seconds.

When we reach her table she introduces me to her three friends. There's a indian boy with glasses and his nose in a book that she introduces to me as Bodhi. He didn't notice that I was there until he heard his name.

"Oh hey, who are you?" Bodhi asks.

"This is Elijah," Delilah says.

"Cool," he sticks his nose back in his book.

"And this is Honeymaren," She gestures to the short asian girl wearing a bucket hat and white sunglasses.

"Nice to meet you, Elijah. Can I call you Eli? I'm going to call you Eli." Honeymaren says.

I didn't have the guts to tell her I hate that name because you are the only person that ever called me that.

Then she introduces me to a Native American girl with long, thick, black hair. "This is Chenoa, but we just call her Noa."

"Hey," Noa waves at me.

I sit down beside Delilah, and she tells me, "You don't know anyone here yet so we could lie to you and say we're the popular kids. But I don't think you would believe that." She chuckles, "They call us the IN, which is short for the immigrant nerds."

I raise my eyebrows, "And you're okay with that?"

Honeymaren shrugs her shoulders, "It's a matter of the social pecking order, and we are at the bottom of the chain."

Chenoa agrees, "No way to really change that. Except maybe if you stick around, you're not an immigrant or anything, are you?"

"Afraid not," I reply.

"Ooooh maybe they will start calling us the white boy and the immigrant nerds!" Honeymaren says, sounding a lot more chipper about the matter than she should.

Delilah laughs at that, "Welcome to the group, white boy."

So dad, I guess I made some friends today.