Sparkle Baby, Shine

His coffee-coloured eyes watched her carefully as she repeatedly dragged the purple file back and forth across her nail. He wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying--When he thought about it carefully, he usually wasn't listening to her when she was going off on her tangents. Especially considering the fact that she went off on said tangents several times every single day.

Ashlynne was a great girl, with her pretty blue eyes, fair skin and beautiful brown hair, even if it was from a bottle. She had an amazing body and didn't mind showing it off to Alex one bit. Her smile was so big and bright, and she could be funny when she wanted to be. The one thing about Ashlynne, though, is that there wasn't much else to her. She was just a regular high school girl. Talking to her had become boring for Alex pretty fast. Alex just couldn't bring himself to care about the fact that Amy Boyle stole Jenna Lindhagen's prom date or that Hayden Jackson was wearing a really ugly pair of shoes that day.

He wanted to say that their... Whatever it is that they had was more than just sex, but he couldn't figure out what else it was. He did like Ashlynne. Really, he did, but maybe he liked her for the girl she was when they started talking. At the time, everything Ashlynne talked about was interesting to him. Maybe she was trying to impress him, he wasn't sure, but one minute, she was insanely interesting and the next, all she seemed to talk about were the people at their school. He had to spend eight hours, five times a week with them. He really didn't care to hear about them when he wasn't at school as well.

He felt guilty. He was starting to like her best when she was naked, and Alex didn't like being that guy. He loved sex as much as the next guy, but he didn't want to be with a girl if that was the only reason why he associated with her. The mental to do list he was making in his head was getting longer by each day, but he added Ashlynne to the list. He was going to try to put more effort into listening and talking to her. As great as Ashlynne was, Alex didn't want to be with her if this was as good as she was going to get. He had hope, though, that there was more to her. Maybe he just needed to give her more of a chance.

---

With his new schedule in hand, he made his way down the crowded hall. Seemingly all the seniors had yet to leave for class and stood in huddles, both small and a little too large by their lockers. Alex smiled and said hello to a few as he squeezed his way through, but never stopped for he had his sights set on the door at the end of the hall.

"Alex!"

He stopped in his tracks and looked around, for he knew the voice that was calling his name all too well. A hand reached out and grabbed his shoulder from behind and Alex turned his head, watching his friend as he bent over as he tried to catch his breath.

"What's up, Jack?" He asked curiously, shrugging his hand off of his shoulder.

"Jeeez, you walk fast." He panted. "I've been trying to catch up to you since the science hall!"

Alex chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. "I was just trying to get to my new English class early. You know, to make a good impression."

Jack nodded his head in agreement, but he didn't bother to hide his frown. "Man, English is going to suck without you. You, me and Rian were supposed to be the three musketeers! We were going to fuck so much shit up this year!"

"We can still do that." Alex half-smiled, reaching over to pat his friend's shoulders. "Just outside of class..."

"Rian doesn't even like me that much!" Jack whined. "Since you're not there, he's probably going to ditch me and sit over by his weird jock friends."

"Well, look at it this way..." Alex paused for a moment, racking his brain for a positive way to look at the situation. "At least you'll be able to focus on your work this year! You had to go to summer school for English last year!"

Jack scoffed and Alex laughed and muttered a goodbye, continuing down the hall.

"Bye, Alex! I love you! I'll think about you all class! Don't forget about me!" Jack called after him and Alex rolled his eyes, not bothering to even look back at him.

When he finally made it to his new classroom, he saw a woman bent over her desk, marking something down on her monthly calendar. She was dressed in a pencil skirt and a crisp, white button-up blouse with her hair pulled loosely into a ponytail. Without thinking, Alex reached up to push his hair away from his eyes and straightened his posture, watching her with wide eyes.

She glanced up from what she was doing and tilted her head to the side curiously, but stood straight when realization struck her, and smiled broadly at him. "Oh, you must be Alex! Hi, welcome to Academic English!"

"Oh, uhm, thanks." Alex smiled weakly, feeling his cheeks heat up slightly. Alex had always been comfortable around girls, even pretty girls, but only if they were his age. He always found attractive older women slightly intimidating.

"You'll be sitting up front with me!" She beamed, pointing to the desk to the far right, in the front row. "And this is the work that you missed so far." She held out a bundle of paper to him, and he took it sheepishly, inching toward his assigned seat. "I love getting new students! We're going to have so much fun this year, I promise! Just because it's academic level, doesn't mean it's going to be boring."

Alex nodded slowly, setting his binder down on his desk. "Yeah... Totally! Thanks, Miss... Uhm..." He rifled through his papers for his schedule frantically, praying to God that her name was somewhere on it.

"I'm Miss Kowalski!" She grinned, clasping her hands together in front of her. "But everyone in the class just calls me Miss K. Have a seat, get comfortable! Everyone will be here shortly."

And they did. After what seemed like only a few minutes, everyone had filed in and took their seats, the class buzzing with the voices of everyone speaking at once.

"Gaskarth!" Alex looked up from the papers in front of him, at the boy to his left. "You're in this class now?"

"Hey Adam." Alex smiled, nodding his head. "Yeah, I got transferred today."

"Awesome, man." He grinned his broad, slightly devious grin. The one that had always made Alex the tiniest bit uneasy, ever since the day he first met Adam Schmidt. He was a great guy, really, but he liked trouble a lot more than the average person. "This year's going to be sick."

"Totally." Alex agreed, nodding his head.

"Okay, everyone!" Miss K stood near the board with a piece of pink chalk in hand and waited patiently for everyone to stop talking before she said anything else. "Let's pull out some paper and a writing utensil! We're doing a note. A long one!"

There was a chorus of groans around throughout the room as everyone voiced their displeasure. None of that made her smile falter. In fact, Alex could have sworn she smiled even wider at the sound of their complaints. She turned to the board and started writing in big, curly cursive and Alex patted his pockets for his pencil. When he felt nothing, he checked all the slots in his binder and behind his ears. Of course, in rushing to grab his books and make it to class before everyone else, he had forgotten to grab something to write with. Glancing to Adam, he saw that the only thing he had brought to class was a red pen and the sheet of lined paper he was writing on, so he sighed, taking a moment to gather up the courage and ask whoever was sitting behind him.

When he did turn around, the first thing he looked at was the plaid pencil case sitting to the side of their desk. He smiled slightly and licked his lips, glancing up to look at their face. His eyes dragged upwards, taking in her oversized maroon sweater, paying special attention to her protruding collar bones before trailing up her neck and to her face. He felt his smile slowly fade as his coffee-coloured eyes took in her features, from her slightly pointed chin, to her long, brown eyelashes that looked to be tickling the tops of her cheeks. He watched her brows as they furrowed slightly, and she looked up a bit from her paper, for she felt his steady gaze on her face. Her eyes slowly trailed upwards to meet his, although, without paying the same special attention to any part of him, like he had with her. When their gazes met, she tilted her head to the side, her lips in the shape of an 'o'.

Alex didn't speak for a few seconds. He gave her one last once over before he shook himself out of his daze. "Oh, erm, sorry to bother you, but I forgot my pencil. Do you have an extra?"

She smiled timidly and nodded her head curtly, holding out the pencil that she had in her hand. Alex smiled thankfully before turning around, not having enough time for a mental scolding after making such an ass out of himself, seeing as Miss K had nearly the entire two chalk boards filled to the brim with notes and Alex hadn't even started copying them yet.

Taking down the note and discussing it as a class took the entire period and when the bell had rung, Alex stood from his seat. With a small smile, he turned around to return the pencil, but was met with the girl's back as she scurried out the door. He couldn't really explain why, but he wanted to smile at her one last time before she left. He wanted to have her smile back at him. He couldn't help but let his disappointment show as his shoulders slumped at his sides, frowning slightly.

"Not too bad, was it, Alex?" Alex looked away from the door, to Miss K.

He smiled weakly. "No, not too bad at all."

Again, his eyes trailed back to the door, watching it longingly, almost as if she was going to walk back inside.

"Great!" She clapped her hands together. "I'll start looking for a tutor for you and you'll be all set!" She grabbed her things from the top of her desk, smiling at him one last time. "Have a good nice, Alex!"

"Yeah, thanks." He murmured absently, eyes still fixated on the door. "You too, Miss K."