I'm in Love With a Fool

“Cadence Marie Geller!”

I crawled out of bed as a shout erupted into my room. I stumbled to my feet and stared into the mirror hung on my bedroom wall.

A girl stared back at me. Her curly brown hair ruffled with sleep and her features pale.

I sighed, as I did every morning, and moved away from my reflection.

“You’re late!” My mother exclaimed as I reached the bottom step after going through the usual morning ritual of brushing my long hair, putting on my minimal make up and, obviously, getting dressed.

“I know, I know,” I replied slinging my backpack on my shoulder and grabbing a bottle of orange juice “See you later.”

Without getting a reply I slipped out of the front door.

-*-

They were everywhere.

Swarming round the school entrance like bees round a honey pot.

All of them adjusting designer outfits and hundred dollar hair styles. Chatting about what they’d done and all the extravagant gifts they had received over the Christmas break.

Relief washed over me as I finally reached my allocated locker.

As I retrieved a rather heavy history book two familiar faces cracked open my neighbouring lockers.

“Hi!” They both grinned, hugging me in turn.

The three of us had met on our very first day of highschool as we found our lockers were placed side by side.

There was Monique – a shy girl with a big heart. Glasses always covered her green eyes, her mousey hair permanently tied of clipped back to stay out of her way.

Then came Debbie. A blonde haired girl with an obsession with being popular.

We’d formed an unbreakable bond over our lack of popularity. As that had been the thing everyone strived for we’d made a pack to stay together throughout it all.

“So, did you have a good time over the holidays Cady?” Monique asked me in her usual hushed tone.

I was going to reply about how my holidays – especially my New Year - had sucked, when he turned up.

Chaos broke out in the hallway, as it usually did. People emerged from every corner, wanting to wish him and his group of friends a ‘happy new year’.

Then they appeared. The five boys who ruled these very hallways.

Zach Baker and his friends.

Me, Monique and Debbie watched, crushed against our lockers, as they past by. My eyes mesmerized by Zach, the best looking guy in school.

He was tossing a baseball between his two hands, a smile plastered across his gorgeous pale features as he listened as he listened intently to what his best friend – Brian Haner Jnr – was telling him.

A ‘Jack Daniels’ t-shirt stretched across his chest, black jeans adorned his lower half and a pair of black and white converse All Stars finished off the look.

“Happy New Year Zach,” I smiled, they continued – the crowds soon dying down as the bell rang.

They hadn’t heard me. No one had.

I hadn’t dared to say it out loud.

“Cady?” I faintly heard Debbie say next to me “Hey Cadence!”

“Yea?” I replied, finally emerging from dreamworld.

“Stop drooling! We got a class to get to!”

-*-

I sat in my usual seat at the front of the room barely 2 minutes later. Debbie to my left, Monique to my right.

Our teacher, Mrs Radcliffe, was still absent from the History classroom at that moment in time.

So all hell was breaking loose.

A group of girls a few rows behind me discussed prom, different (stupid) ideas emerging from their mouths.

Directly behind me, a deep male voice was quietly arguing with a softer feminine one.

“I’m not telling you! You should have listened before school broke up!”

“Buy baby…”

“Don’t ‘But baby’ me! Find out from someone else!” The girl said through gritted teeth, I heard her sigh and lean back in her slightly creaky chair.

The guy fidgeted loudly in his own seat. Sighing every now and then.

I rolled my eyes, focusing my attention back on my doodling.

“Hey! You!” I heard the guy whisper as he leant forward.

“Her name’s Cadence dickhead,” the girl said, sighing almost in disbelief that the boy didn’t know my name.

A distinct rustle of fabric told me he’d shrugged. “Cadence!” he called, his voice still hushed.

My head shot up and my eyes widened, not quite sure of what to do.

“Cadence!”

Swallowing, I slowly swivelled around in my chair to face the owner of the voice.

“Hi,” he smiled once I was fully facing him.

My heart almost stopped when I noticed who he was. Matt Sanders. Aka, part of Zach’s close knit group. The girl he had been arguing with was Valary DiBenedetto, his long serving girlfriend. They were number one couple of the school.

And they, somehow, knew my name.

“Sorry about the whole name thing,” he apologised, still smiling.

I managed a shrug “I-It’s okay.”

“Can I ask you something?” he continued, next to him Valary rolled her eyes.

“S-sure.”

“Did we have homework for this subject over the holidays?”

And that was it.

I shook my head “N-no we didn’t.”

“Thanks Cadence,” he answered, grinning so big his adorable dimples showed.

Valary rolled her eyes once again.

I simply nodded my head and turned back round in my chair.

A rolled up piece of paper landed directly in the centre of my doodles barely 2 seconds later.

What was that about? Debs xo

I retrieved my pen from my plain black pencil case to write my reply. I knew she’d heard all of it but also knew exactly what she had meant by her question.

How had ‘the’ Valary DiBenedetto known my name?