One of the Boys

"Ah, there you two are."

Sapia and I stopped dead in our tracks as we entered Mrs. Barlow's room. All twenty-six other students looked up at us. Chris was looking at me from across the room in the front, his eyes bright with hope as I noticed the empty seat beside him.

Oh. A seat swap.

"Hunter, why don't you take the seat next to Chris?" Mrs. Barlow instructed. "And Lydia, please take the seat beside Chuck."

"Aw, c'mon, Judy," Sapia pouted. I was surprised to see that he called teachers by their first name like I did.

"Hunter, take your seat," she snapped in annoyance. Hunter scowled and slouched to his new seat. However, I stood there in stupidity, wondering who the fuck Chuck was. After a quick glance around, I located the last available seat in the room.

And sitting next to it was none other than Buzz Boy.

I slipped into the seat uneasily, hating this class now that Sapia and I were desks apart.

"Hey, Lydia," Buzz said quietly.

"Hey, Buzz," I replied smugly.

"It's Chuck," he corrected.

"Is it?" I didn't even look at him; I merely stared straight ahead at the board as Mrs. Barlow scribbled some literature junk on it in a deep purple marker.

"Yeah."

I neatly opened my notebook and used my pen to color in the lines, each in a different direction. I would have been fine just coloring the hour away, but the feeling of Buzz's eyes drilling into my shoulder made me want to scream.

"Are you really going to try and talk to me?" I asked quietly, averting my gaze onto him so he could see the annoyance decorating my features. Buzz just looked right back at me, a golden boy smile lighting up his face.

"Yup. You've got a problem with that?" he asked.

"No." I figured that maybe if I said that I didn't care, he would leave me alone. Telling a jock you had a problem with them was just asking them to provoke you.

The classroom fell into a deep silence for a moment.

"Plan on having a book report in the next couple of weeks everyone, " Mrs. Barlow began, diving into a discussion on the books and requirements. Just when I though that Buzz wouldn't be able to talk to me, I felt a soft poke in my arm. Buzz slid a piece of paper in front of me. I shot him a look, but he just nodded at the the small slip of paper for me to open it.

Sighing, I unfolded the paper to find a question posed for me in Buzz's clumsy scrawl.

'Where'd you move here from?'

I scribbled down 'Somerset County' and slid the note back. When I looked up again, I noticed Sapia was turned around just a bit with a look of sheer confusion on his face. I rolled my eyes and cocked my head to the side at Buzz. "I'll explain later," I mouthed at him. Sapia nodded and turned back around to pretend he was actually listening and paying attention.

This whole new seating arrangement was driving me up the wall. I wasn't fooled by Buzz's attempt to seem interested in me. If anything, Annabelle probably set him up to do it. Surely I'd hear about it from the little nightmare tonight.

Buzz slid the paper back in front of me, and this time I unfolded it to find him asking why I moved here. I stared down at the question, a million thoughts rushing into my head. I suddenly felt as though I was sitting in Mr. Ortega's office again, listening to him banter about how disrespectful I was and whatnot. That was followed by the memory of the screaming match in the Camry between me and my parents. I swallowed roughly, barely believing that this had all happened in under a week. I wrote down the simplest answer, that being 'Long story' and slid it back.

It took him under a minute to reply, and when I opened the note again, I was taken aback.

'I think I can keep up.'