Not a Stranger

My first day at school was beyond hectic.

If it wasn’t Castiel freaking Walker defending me in first period, it was the obvious glances and looks that many people were shooting in my direction throughout the day. Although Leo assisted in distracting me, he couldn’t distract me from my thoughts of why Castiel would stand up for me.

During our free period, Leo and I sat together discussing just how badly today had gone. I had decided to leave out the part of the day when Castiel defended me, I knew Leo wouldn’t take it very well.

“Oh wait, did this jock have a polo shirt and a douchebag hat on?” Leo asked, trying to guess which one of the many jocks was rude to me.

“Leo, that’s all of them,” I snorted my laughter and Leo, realising his mistake laughed along with me.

I glanced around the library and noticed Castiel, sitting three tables away, staring at me as I laughed, I immediately stopped laughing as he averted his gaze to the two boys he was sitting with. One of them was the person he sat next to in Algebra, he had curly brown hair and seemed to be talking to Castiel at breakneck speed with excitement and vigour. The other boy was sitting on his other side and was laughing hysterically at whatever was being said amongst the table, but didn’t talk much.

At least now, Castiel seemed happy.

In third period, drama theory, I entered the classroom late and was forced to sit beside a girl who had long, brunette hair and an air of indifference about her. As I was unpacking my things, I noticed she was whispering to the girl sitting on her right.

“Castiel…can’t believe…so hot,”

I only picked up on one or two words that the girl was whispering, and being too timid to question her, I only strained my ears to try and hear if she mentioned anything else about him.

It was then that, during the teacher’s monotonous droning, the girl looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes wide.

“You’re the new girl from algebra, aren’t you?” she whispered to me.

I nodded, not understanding how this girl could’ve possibly made her way through the eighth grade, let alone algebra.

“And how do you know Castiel Walker?” she queried, twirling a strand of hair around her index finger.

My heart skipped a beat at his name. “I don’t,” I lied.

The girl gave me a look that made me believe she knew I was lying, but I tried to keep my game face on. She sighed and flipped her hair.

“It’s just strange to see Castiel talk to someone that isn’t that psycho Bobby,” brunette girl mumbled before turning back to her friends.

“Excuse me?” I blurted.

“His cousin, Bobby?” she simpered. “He has some Cheeseburgers disease so he’s like, retarded,”

“Asperger’s disease,” I said under my breath feeling a hot rage chorus through my body.

“Whatever,” the girl rolled her eyes. “The fact of the matter is for the first time in three years Castiel has done something nice for someone besides that retarded freak,”

The girl then turned to her friend and started giggling, I felt angry and also quite sad at the same time, my emotions were getting the better of me and I then did not care if people looked at me. I loudly scraped my chair back and got to my feet, staring down the girl with a look of loathing in my eyes.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” I said loudly, not caring that the entire class had turned to stare at me, including the teacher. “How fucking dare you say that about someone you ignorant bitch,”

~

Detention that lunchtime was an experience I was not looking forward to relaying to my parents. Especially on my first day back.

I lowered my head onto the desk, which was decorated in profanity, feeling my red curls fall in front of my face and my eyes flutter closed. If Monica knew I was here there would be no end to the taunting I would receive.

Fortunately, the people that wound up in detention were not the kind of people Monica would associate with. There was a boy sitting in the back row, with his hood covering his face and his head bent, a girl was colouring in her nails with a marker and a frightening looking boy seemed to be carving something into his desk.

My phone buzzed in my jean pocket, retrieving my phone I was unsurprised to see a text message from Leo.

Heard you told Adrienne Forbes where to put it.
I’ve never been so proud of you =P
Meet me out front at the end of school x

I gave a wry smile at Leo’s text but deep down I knew I couldn’t explain to him what made me snap at Adrienne so passionately.

The detention classroom door was opened slightly so I began to observe the students and teachers that walked in front of the room. What surprised me was when, after twenty minutes of sitting in detention, I spotted the very person I had just defended stride past the classroom. Bobby glanced in the room before doing a double take when he saw me, he scrunched his face up in confusion and continued walking.

I knew there was an eighty percent chance that this would get back to Castiel.

~

Fifth period ended, much to my relief, and I was the first out of the door.

What I craved right now was my bed and some loud angry music to drown out the world, and the faster I got out of here, the sooner I could be in my bed with only the following day looming ahead to be anxious about.

“Well, well, well, Miss Georgia Nielsen,” Leo’s voice was in my ear. “First day back and already causing mischief,”

I laughed as Leo slung his arm around me and pulled me closer to him.

“What the hell was running through your head, girl? Adrienne was whimpering about it all through fourth period,” Leo laughed.

“She was rude,” I shrugged vaguely.

“Of course she was rude, she’s the most bigoted fascist this school has,” Leo snorted as we approached his car. “What did she say that got you so riled up?”

“It’s strange,” I mumbled.

“Yeah well the fact that you spoke louder than a whisper is also strange, come on Little Red, you can talk to me, can’t you?”

“Of course I can,” I protested. “Just don’t judge me,”

“Never,”

I then proceeded to inform Leo of what events transpired during Drama Theory. By the end of the story, Leo had a raised eyebrow and his grip on the steering wheel had tightened, causing his knuckles to go white.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” Leo said wryly. “I just still don’t understand why you got so angry?”

“There was a girl with Aspergers at North Haven,” I said softly. “She was picked on a lot and we were pretty close,”

“Shit, Georgie, I’m sorry,” Leo mumbled.

“You don’t have to apologise every time it’s brought up, Leo,” I told him with a smile.

“It’s still just a bit confronting,” Leo shrugged.

I softly squeezed Leo’s hand as it rest on the gearshift, Leo squeezed my hand back tighter and brought it to his lips.

“Can you just do something for me?” Leo asked.

“Anything,”

“Try not to do anything stupid while I’m not there around to protect you,”

“I don’t need to be protected,” I said with a smile. “I have tough skin,”

Leo glanced at me and I could see in his eyes that he did not believe for one second that I could take care of myself at all.

Leo pulled up at my house after about ten minutes and put the car into park. He grabbed my books from the back seat and handed them to me, I leant over and hugged Leo tightly.

“Thank you,” I mumbled.

Leo laughed. “For what?”

“You’re my rock,” I smiled. “I couldn’t have done this without you,”

Leo smiled and kissed my cheek. “See you tomorrow,”

“Can’t wait,” I simpered sarcastically as I closed the door of the car.

After leaving Leo I immediately felt a wave of sadness wash over me. The day had been so exhausting and strenuous on my mental capacities that all I wanted was to curl up in bed.

However, Monica thought differently.

“Why were you in detention on your first day?” she screamed once I stepped foot in the door.

I knew my father would’ve heard that, so I attempted to push past Monica, however she blocked the stairway.

“Answer my question,” she snapped.

“Fuck off Monica,” I squealed, pushing past her and running to my bedroom.

Once there I clicked the lock on the back of the door, my father wouldn’t bother me, instead he would force me to go to him to create the atmosphere of intimidation.

I crawled into bed and hugged my knees to my chest, despite my futile attempts to keep him out of my head, the main thought that continued to nag at my brain was of Castiel.