My Living Nightmare

“I hate this thing!” René whined, trying to pull down her micro-skirt and balance a couple of textbooks at the same time.

“I’m curious. What does Rayne have on you that would allow you to be blackmailed like this?” I asked, taking the books from her.

She immediately sobered.

As she opened her mouth to reply, she was interrupted by a shrill voice.

“René! Rayne’s been looking for you all over the place. C’mon, we’re at the usual table,” a Plastic Barbie with a brunette pixie-cut shrieked, sparing me a dirty look before taking off down the hall.

A dirty look? Seriously? What was this, third grade?

“That was Tiffany, the co-captain. She annoys the hell out of me,” René said. “I guess we better be getting to the cafeteria. But first, let’s drop this off at my locker.”

“Please tell me we aren’t sitting there,” I practically breathed down her neck.

“Sorry,” at least she had the decency to sound rueful.

There, eight feet in front of me was the table. THE table. The one were the cheerleaders and jocks sat. The one that I avoided like plague at my last school and was now forced to sit at.
And one again I have to say, damn you Sean Rivera!

“No,” I whined as she took a hold of my elbow and led me to two empty seats.

“Alex, if Tory has to suffer with Plastic’s of the future on the other end of the table, then you’ll just have to live with it.”

Tory’s best friend was in the junior squad, but not because she was as shallow as a puddle, but because she actually loved the sport.

“Glad you two could join us,” Rayne droned, a look of loathing cleverly disguised as a welcoming smile.

Not bothering to reply, we sat down.

Soon the chatter started up again.

“Hey, Alex,” Seth and Tory chimed in unison. I smiled, inclining my head. I half waved to the rest of the guys who were further down the table and then went back to my conversation with René.

“So you were saying before we got interrupted by that banshee?”

The banshee being the co-captain, Tiffany, of course.

“Not here,” she said, looking around. “Later today, in gym.”

I nodded my head in agreement.

I had a craving for a Diet Coke. Looking around I spotted a vending machine on the opposite end of the cafeteria. The other option was to go queue up in the lunch line. Both of those options had the same problem: I’d have to pass the entire student body. Call me paranoid (and maybe I am), but being the new girl didn’t exactly help me here.

“Can I get you ladies anything? Soda, blueberry muffin?” a beefy guy at the table asked the girls at our table, standing up and tossing his hair out of his eyes. He had blonde hair and blue eyes- the typical all-American teenage boy. He looked at me, his eyes straying down south before coming back to my face with a smile. “I’m Ben, by the way. You must be Alex.”

Before I could even draw a breath, Rayne interrupted.

“She’s taken, Ben.”

Taken? What is it with this chick? Who interrupts an innocent conversation by publicizing one’s romantic status?

“What? By who?”

“Sean.”

For the first time I looked up to where Sean was seated and saw that he was glaring at Ben.
Talk about staying in character. If I hadn’t known I would have thought he really wanted to knock Ben out.

“Oh…” he muttered, his annoyance quickly wavering in front of the other boy’s glower. “…er, so how about those muffins?”

Five minutes later I was sipping my Coke- courtesy of Ben- and chewing thoughtfully on a chocolate chip muffin.

Not that there was anything wrong with blueberry, but c’mon! It’s chocolate!

Chocolate and ice-cream; my two biggest weaknesses.

“So, Alexandria, how do you find Bridgewood High? Seeing as you came from Melbany, our biggest rivals,” Rayne just had to open her mouth.

“Hard to tell, I’ve only been here for three periods,” I said sarcastically. Zach, Jake, and the guys chuckled.

Somehow I don’t think Rayne appreciated that, if the dangerous glinting in her eyes were anything to go on.

“Hey, did you guys see last night’s game? It was completely fixed!” Skylar announced, and soon the male population of the table was engrossed in a heated debate on whether the game was predetermined or not.

He winked at me: I owed him one.

Tiffany started discussing this season’s must haves and soon the cheerleaders were analyzing every girl at the next table.

“Eww! She, like, totally has split ends!” a girl with bleached blonde hair cut short (who I later found out was named Megan) said. “She should, like, seriously go to our stylist, like, immediately!”

Two things amazed me; the first being that she could see split ends from six feet away. The second was the amount of times she used the word like. She was really something… else.

The bell rang, announcing the end of lunch. We all stood and headed out to our next class, those who had ate disposing of their trays on the lunch lady’s trolley.