Stay Fierce

“Amelie, wake up.” A voice broke through my thoughts. I groaned and rolled over in bed, raising my hand lazily and swatting away whoever was there, not giving it much thought.

“Amelie!” The person shook me awake and I opened my eyes eventually through my sleepy haze.

“What?” I managed to mumble out, a huge yawn escaping my lips.

“Wake up!”

The voice struck me as Brent’s and I sat up sharply. Brent not having time to move back, groaned as my forehead connected with his.

I winced and grabbed my head in my hands at the sharp surge of pain.

“What time is it?”

“Uh,” He paused, probably looking for a watch somewhere, “4:37.”

My eyes shot open and I threw the covers off me, standing up and grabbing my swim bag and two drag suits form my dresser, ushering him out of the room as I switched the light on.

“You were supposed to wake me up at 4:30 even!” I exclaimed as I shut the door behind him.

“Sorry, not everyone knows how to wake up at four thirty in the damn morning.” He shot back lazily from the other side.

I rolled my eyes at his comment and started stripping of my pajamas immediately, putting one drag suit on, followed by another. The straps of the suits were all messed up, and it would have bothered me if it were any other day. But not this time. Having to be at the pool around 4:50, I was in a huge rush.

I threw on sweatpants followed by a hoodie. Grabbing my swim bag and then my normal school bag, considering the swim pool was in our school; I ran out of my room.

My eyes tried to adjust for Brent in the dark of the living room, but I couldn’t find him. My eyebrows scrunched in confusion, “Brent!” I hissed into the darkness.

All I got was a muffled groan from the couch, but it was enough.

I walked over to the couch and let my eyes adjust to the sleeping form of my brother.

“Brent!” I exclaimed again, still trying to keep quiet knowing neither of us would be able to take normal volume sounds.

“Hm?” He mumbled again, shifting on the couch.

I pinched his side, making him sit up suddenly with wide eyes, “What was that for?” He complained, rubbing his side.

“For falling asleep! Now let’s go!”

He stood up lazily and grabbed his keys from the counter. Once we reached the bright lights of the hallways, I stood behind Brent, both of my hands on his back as I pushed him forward, making him go at a faster pace.

**

The five minute bell rang and a nervous bundle of knots formed in my stomach. Closing my eyes and taking a few deep breaths, I re-opened them and grabbed my bag from the inside of my locker, slinging it over my shoulder and also grabbing my Written Oral and Biology binder, my first two classes of the day. I then grabbed my swim bag from the floor and stuffed it into my locker, slamming it shut.

My eyes scanned the hallway and a rush of sadness fell over me as I realized that I would most probably not be fitting in with any of these people any time soon.

Sighing, I started to walk down the bright red and white hallway. This school was huge. The first time Brent dropped me off at this place; my jaw dropped and couldn’t close for about a good five minutes.

I bit my lip in frustration as I seemed to keep missing room 118. I would walk by and see 117 to the left, but then it would all of the sudden jump to 119 on the right.

“Move, freshman!”

I was shoved to the side of the lockers violently as a guy, maybe about 17, 18; senior, pushed past me rudely. Growling under my breath, I stood up straight and fixed myself.

Remembering my dilemma of already being lost in this huge monster of a school, my stomach dropped as my nerves rose. I started to get frantic, my eyes moving around the extremely crowded hallway at a quick pace, 118 still not in my view.

“Hey, you’re on the swim team, right?”

I turned to the soft voice, my eyebrows pulled together slightly in confusion.

“Uh, yeah.”

My eyes adjusted to the girl in front of me. She was taller than me by about maybe two or three inches. And absolutely gorgeous. Her hair was a dark brown, bordering black with natural waves and random curls in places, while her eyes were a beautiful light blue.

She sensed the hesitation in my reply and gave me a reassuring smile. “I’ve seen you in my lane before. You have a wicked butterfly.” She grinned.

I relaxed and smiled back at her, my face growing warm as I blushed at the compliment. My mind clicked and I registered seeing her around in my lane before.

“And you have an awesome backstroke.” I responded sincerely.

Her grin only widened before it dropped to a slight frown, her happy face turning slightly troubled. “Listen, I’ve seen how Karissa and all of the other girls have treated you these past two weeks, and I feel horrible. I can’t just stand by and watch that.” She paused, looking straight into my eyes, “You have amazing talent, Amelie, don’t let their crap get to you.”

I was speechless. “Wow, uhm, thanks.”

She smiled at me, “if you ever need anything; just know you can talk to me. You seem to be going through a tough time now, and I understand that.”

A smile spread across my face at her kindness, “Thank you, uhm...” I trailed off, not knowing her name.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! That was so rude of me!” She exclaimed, looking horrified, “I’m Mae.”

I gave her a reassuring smile, showing her its fine, “Thanks, Mae.”

The one minute bell rang and my face dropped down to a terrified look. “Uh, would you by any chance know where room 118 is?” I asked her, biting my lip as I felt a bit stupid for having to ask for help already.

She laughed lightly, pointing down towards around the corner, “Turn that corner and almost instantly to your right it will be there.”

She also must’ve caught onto my embarrassment because she added in; “Don’t worry, everyone whose new here can never find that damn room.”

My eyes darted to the clock hanging above the lockers, and I started to run down the now pretty much empty hallway, seeing as there were 10 seconds until the bell rang. “Thanks!” I called back to Mae.

“No problem!” She called back, smiling and walking into the classroom we were standing by.

I rounded the corner and dashed into the first door to the left, exhaling a sigh of relief when the bell rang right as I stepped into the classroom.

“Hello Miss,” The teacher paused momentarily, looking down at his list of students and back to me, “Seabrook. Please sit down and get settled in.” He smiled at me.

I exhaled through my mouth and nodded, sitting down at the empty desk near the back and setting my bag on the floor, getting my Written Oral stuff out.

Ignoring all the whispers and looks form my class mates, I sat back in the chair, my mind processing what happened earlier with Mae. A smile spread over my face for just about the twentieth time this morning, and my day was instantly happier, despite the fact that my hair was wet, smelling like chlorine, and that I was already dead from morning practice when first period just started.

-

I grabbed a scrunchie and tied my sweat damped hair back into a bun and fanning myself as I closed my gym locker. It was only the second day of school, and I could already tell that gym would be a taste of hell on earth.

Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I pulled my schedule out of my pocket and walked out of the locker room doors and out into the crowded halls of Amundsen again as the bell for the end of third period rang.

Realizing my fourth period was Lunch, and that it was about one hour long, I smiled in relief. I really needed a break right now.

Then a dilemma hit me. Probably just about the tenth one today.

Where was I going to sit, let alone go for lunch?

I didn’t know anyone here, I was pretty much fucked.

I pursed my lips nervously as I racked through my choices in my mind. I could either stay in the cafeteria, or I could go out. If I stayed in the school cafeteria, I’d be a loner with no friends. If I went out, I’d get lost and most probably eventually eaten by wild animals or some sort of thing like that.

Since it sounded really appealing at the moment; I would really prefer to go with the second option. But I decided to save Brent the problems and started walking to the cafeteria.

Once I was walking past the doors to the cafeteria, which were placed in the commons, fear ran through me again.

Everyone was sitting at a table with either a small group of friends, or one of those really large groups of friends. There was absolutely no place to sit alone without being noticed.

“Just my fucking luck.” I mumbled. Right as I turned around, ready to leave the cafeteria, I hit something, stumbling back a bit.

Before I had a chance to get a closer look at the person or even splutter out an apology, he spoke.

“What’s your fucking luck?”

I turned bright red. “O-oh it’s just n-nothing.”

The boy squinted to get a better look of me. “Have I seen you around before?”

My face turned even brighter, “N-no, it’s my first day.”

He grinned, “If you’re a freshman like me, then yeah it’s my first day here too.”

I felt like a total complete idiot. “Yeah…”

He squinted again, “Is that an accent?”

I grinned I impishly, “Canadian.”

“You’re Canadian?!” He exclaimed.

I flushed this time, “Er- yeah. I just came here from Canada like, three weeks ago.”

“That is so cool!”

“Er- I guess.” I concluded, taking this time to get a better look at him.

He had short brown hair that was slightly, naturally spiked, and bright blue eyes.

“So are you at least getting around well? We, the other freshman, took about twenty tours during eighth grade. So we pretty much knew this school inside out before Freshman year.”

I nodded slowly, “Yeah, I’m getting around pretty well.”

“Except for lunch.” He concluded.

“Yeah, except for lunch.” I admitted.

He grinned, “Here, I’ll introduce you to the freaks I call my friends.”

“Uh- I’m not uh, sure about that.” I told him nervously. I did after all just meet these people.

“Oh trust me, they’re not really freaks. I’m sure they’ll love to meet you.”

I shrugged, “Alright.”

He started back into the cafeteria and I followed him. One of the tables in front of us was a table which looked totally amazing. I mean, there was a beautiful blonde girl, a beautiful brunette, and about three really cute guys. Which is why my mouth nearly popped wide open when Mark stopped at that table.

“Hey guys, this is..” He trailed off, looking at me for help.

“Amelie.” I filled in.

The beautiful blonde girl smiled at me, “Hi, I’m Cassandra. Cassie for short. This is Brooklyn,” She pointed to a dark brunette, also extremely gorgeous, who cut off her argument with one of the guys to smile at me and throw back a warm, ‘Hey.’

“The boy she’s arguing with is Nathan. They always argue.” Cassandra continued, “The one who brought you over here, Mark, is my brother. We’re twins.”

“Really?” I asked.

Mark smiled sadly, “Unfortunately.”

Cassandra gasped and swatted at him playfully. I laughed slightly and she returned her gaze to me, smiling warmly, “Sorry. Lastly,” She pointed to another brown haired boy, “that’s George. He will eat anything and everything. So don’t leave any of your food that you want to eat when you leave to go to the bathroom or whatnot, because when you come back; it will be gone.”

George glanced over at me and then to my empty hands, “Do you have any food?”

“Uh- no.”

He frowned and went back to conversing with Mark.

Cassandra scooted over and made room for me in between her and Nathan, who was still arguing with Brooklyn.

Right as I was about to start up conversation with Cassandra, a voice from behind interrupted me.

“Er- Hello?”

I twirled around in my seat, only to see another gorgeous girl, red head, looking back at me.

I scooted slightly, making room for her in between me and Cassandra.

“Sorry.” I instantly rambled, “I didn’t know you were sitting here and-”

“No, it’s fine.” She sat down and pulled out a book, reading as soon as she sat down.

“That’s Tessa.” Nathan added from in front of me and I nodded.

Lunch went by and it was very interesting to say at the least. I kept falling out of conversation and Cassandra kept pulling me into it. Seeing as I had no lunch, she offered me half of her sandwich and pretzels.

Mark and George talked, while Brooklyn and Nathan occasionally came into conversation, but mainly stayed to the side of the table and argued. Tessa continued reading, and occasionally popped into our conversations.

Before the bell rang, George gathered all the leftovers of food and ate them. They all started saying their goodbyes, but when Cassandra found out that my next class was orchestra, she was pretty much jumping with joy.

“I play 1st violin, and Brooklyn here plays the cello!” She practically squealed.

They showed me the Orchestra room and I couldn't help but be grateful for finding these people; without them showing me around, i'd be completly lost.

-

I closed the locker after a big first day and sighed, pulling out my swim bag. After orchestra, I had math, turns out Mark and George were in that class with me, AP Human geo with Nathan and Cassandra, and German with Tessa. Not only those classes, but Nathan, again, was in my Written Oral class. None of them were in my Biology. Brooklyn was in my gym period, but we had two different teachers.

Right as I closed my locker shut, I saw Mae walking through the crowds of people and up to my locker, a swim bag also slung over her shoulder. “Hey, ready for practice?”

I nodded, “Yeah.”

“Am, would you need a ride after school?”

I nodded and shrugged, “Yeah. I’m sure Brent would be fine with that if I called him and told him. Grateful, actually.”

“Brent?” She asked in confusion.

“My brother.”

She nodded slowly, “Ah. Okay.” She paused for a second, “I always used to grab rides with older girls as a freshman, so I figured I’d give back those rides to a freshman who would need them.” She grinned at me.

I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”