Piece of Work

"Good morning!" Olivia, my best friend, cheered the next day at school while I was at my locker. She was entirely too peppy in the morning.

I shot her an annoyed look. My head was hurting and I was a little dizzy, thanks to my slight hangover. Ugh.

"Okay, bad mood. Got it." She nodded with conviction and adjusted the bag hanging over her shoulder.

Olivia was a cute girl with sparkly brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. There was a dusting of freckles across her cheeks, which she actually liked and didn't cover up with makeup. She wore the tiniest bit of eyeliner and mascara, but it was tasteful and looked really good. She was a little taller than my five feet, three inches, even though she was younger, and acted very motherly. It seemed like she was always trying to keep me out of trouble. Obviously, she usually fails.

After shutting my locker (I winced when it shut), we started walking to our first class: biology. Ugh. I hated that class more than I could express, mostly 'cause my teacher was a nut-bar and a half. She talks to herself and gives us all these notes quickly but doesn't explain them, as well as gives us vocab quizzes every day. And, although she doesn't teach very much, she gives trick-questions on tests and never quizzes us on actual material. Like I said: nut-bar.

Olivia and I sat in our seats, which were on opposite sides of the room. Immediately, I started spacing, staring at the tree outside the huge window to my left. Weirdly enough, I drifted back to third grade, when Olivia and I first met.

I was new at the school, so I didn't have any friends, and no one wanted to talk to me because I was the new girl. Everyone always treats the new kid like they have some sort of disease or something. So I was sitting alone at a lunch table with no one but my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cheddar Goldfish to keep me company. Pretty sad.

But Olivia came to the rescue, even though she had other friends. "Sour Patch Kids?" she offered, sticking the bag below my nose. I grinned and grabbed one.

We talked the entire lunch period about what my life had been like before I moved there and a little about my parents' divorce.

At the end of lunch, I finally wondered aloud, "Why are you even talking to me?"

"I was the new girl last year," she explained, smiling. "And I like you better than them anyway. You're nicer."

And so a friendship was born. It was weird, since high school usually broke apart friendships, and ours was still just as strong as ever, despite the fact that I liked to party and she was Miss Goody-Two-Shoes.

"Um..." As my biology teacher, Mrs. Parrish, was snapping her fingers, I came back to reality. "What's your name again?" she asked me. Yup, that was right. We were already through the school year and she still didn't know my name. How sad was that? Even worse, I wasn't the only one. She knew about...four names in the class. Out of almost thirty kids. Yeah, pretty bad.

"Faye," I answered. "Faye Kane?"

"Nope. Doesn't ring any bells." She shrugged and rose her eyebrows. What an ass. "Just stop daydreaming in class and pay attention. After all, this is good stuff we're talking about."

"Mhm," I replied quietly and sarcastically. "Sure."

"What was that?" She turned toward me again, her marker still on the board, so as she turned, it made a long red line down the middle. Smart...

"Nothing." I plastered on a fake smile so she finally gave up studying my face and started to teach again.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, noticing the mark she'd made. "How did that happen? Well, I'm just going to have to clean it up. Mrs. Parrish, you're a silly one!"

I gave the wall cut-eye and clenched my teeth. It was a wonder I ever made it through this class without going completely insane.

Finally, after what seemed like more than an eternity, class ended.

"I swear," I complained to Olivia as we walked out to hallway, "I'm going to kill her if I have to sit through that class again."

"You say that after every class," she reminded me calmly. Olivia was always calm and knew that when I threatened to kill someone, I was usually kidding.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." We got to the hallway where Olivia had to turn, and we said goodbye.

No sooner than I started walking again, some kid slammed into me. "What the hell?" I exclaimed as I dropped the heavy U.S. History book that was in my hand. "Watch where you're going!"

I reached down and got my book angrily. When I looked up, I saw him looking down at me, the expression on his face unreadable. The only thing I really grasped about him were his eyes and how bright blue they were. Unbelievably blue.

But then he was gone, weaving his way through the huge crowd. I blinked a couple of times, in a slight daze, before turning and walking the opposite direction to English. That...was strange.

As I sat down in my seat, I was shocked to realize that I couldn't get the image of that kid's face out of my mind. How could someone be so completely emotionless?

I tried to figure it out while my English teacher cracked jokes all class, trying to get the students to understand The Great Gatsby better. Maybe he wasn't emotionless, and it was just the time I looked up at him?

The weirdest thing was that I couldn't get him out of my mind. That should have been something that just fleeted from my thoughts. But it wasn't.