The Ballerina and the Rocker

Zacky

Fuck high school. Zacky had the band.

Quinn

The first day of school never held much meaning. She had never walked into a school and thought “this is where I’m going to meet my best friends and have the best years of my life.”

That feeling was being saved for Juilliard.

Forever the “new kid,” Quinn was always determined to make a good first impression with her teachers, but was relentless with making sure she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb to her classmates. She decided on a pair of slightly distressed acid wash jeans, a navy blue cap sleeve t-shirt, and her favorite grey and white flannel shirt tied around her waist. She slipped her feet into her Sketchers, stretching them instead of taking the time untying and retying the laces.

“Fucking pale,” she muttered to herself as she took a look at herself in the mirror. Her steel blue eyes looked especially piercing against her smooth, light skin. She never wore makeup, except for when she was dancing, of course. But even then someone else painted her face on for her.

Most of the time she looked like the love child of a snowman and a zombie.

She let her long, wavy hair hang loose, but grabbed a scrunchie in case it got unmanageable throughout the day. With one last peek in the mirror, she sighed and grabbed her backpack.

Zacky

As he walked with his brother to the bus stop, he saw Quinn and her mother drive past in their station wagon. Quinn rolled down the window, stuck her arm out, and waved at him. Zacky smiled and waved back.

Quinn

A blue and white banner reading Welcome Class of 2004 stretched across the entryway of Ocean View High School, while another similar looking banner just inside the main hallway said Seniors! with a shimmery golden 2000 directly beneath it.

Quinn became one in many rushing through the hallway. It was always obvious to tell who were the freshmen; not only were they relatively tiny, but they all scurried around with back packs twice as big as themselves and kept their faces glued to their schedule.

Jansport slung over one shoulder, Quinn proceeded to room 207.

“Ah, you must be Ms. Hartford,” Quinn heard a woman say as soon as she stepped foot in the classroom. She looked to the left and saw a short, chubby blonde woman wearing a pink blouse and black slacks.

“Uh, yeah. Quinn,” she responded.

“Nice to meet you, Quinn. I’m Mrs. O’Reilly,” the woman replied with a smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just figured since you’re the newest member of the senior class I’d get you situated before the day kicks off.”

“Thank you, that’d be great.”

Quinn followed Mrs. O’Reilly over to her desk, and was thankful she wasn’t making a spectacle of her being a new student. The entire freshman class was enough to deal with.

Mrs. O’Reilly gave Quinn her locker assignment and explained the typical school day procedures; She was expected to check in to homeroom every morning, change classes when the bell rang, and all that jazz. It was easy enough.

“And if you ever have any questions don’t hesitate to ask me.”

Quinn thanked her homeroom teacher before taking a seat towards the back for morning announcements.

Zacky

Why couldn’t this day be over already? Zacky was itching for some band practice. He hadn’t been paying attention to his classes at all.

Then again, it was difficult to concentrate when Jimmy kept flicking him with a pencil.

“Will you fucking stop that?” Zacky said to Jimmy, a little too loudly.

“Zack,” Mr. Beck said, “don’t make me give you a detention on the first day.”

“Sorry, Mr. Beck,” Zacky mumbled. Jimmy snickered. Zacky punched his arm.

Quinn

Every class was relatively the same. Passing out a syllabus, going over what they were going to learn…

U.S. History was going to be a good class, so was English Literature. For some odd reason she had been placed in Pre-Calc even though she had taken it at her last school, but she wasn’t going to complain since math wasn’t her strong suit.

Another bell rang, signaling the end of her Earth Science class and the beginning of lunch. This was the time all new students feared.

The cafeteria was noisy and crowded. Kids were moving chairs around to pack more friends at a table, while freshmen were timidly asking if it was alright to sit at a table. Thankfully, Quinn wasn’t fazed by this anymore and had come prepared.

Having brought her own lunch, Quinn bypassed the cafeteria craziness and instead headed for outside (that was definitely a perk of Southern California schools).

From what she could tell, the upperclassmen basically monopolized the tables that made up the outdoor patio portion of the caf. She quickly scoped out an unoccupied picnic table to sit at - it would be far less embarrassing to have others sit down than if she were to sit at a relatively full table. Sitting comfortably at the end, Quinn took out a tuna sandwich, a can of Coca-Cola, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Zacky

Whenever a fight broke out, the kids at this school swarmed in on it like a moth to a flame. They stood around either in a silent shock or jeering on the sidelines. Zacky was used to fights at school, but they usually never happened on the first day.

“Wanna say that again to my face?” one of the fighters said.

“What, didn’t I say it loud enough the first time?” Zacky’s friend Cam shouted back.

The two boys lunged at each other, each throwing a punch here and there. Matt and Jimmy each stood on either side of Zacky, watching their friend duck and punch.

“So it’s gonna be another one of those years,” Zacky said.

“What the fuck even happened?” Matt asked. Zacky shrugged. “At least he’s holding his own.” Cam’s left eye met the boy’s fist.

“Never mind.”

The three quickly jumped in to help return the favor.

Quinn

Quinn hadn’t even finished reading a page of her book before someone sat down on the other side of the picnic table and addressed her.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” Quinn replied as she looked up from her book. The brown haired, brown eyed boy sitting across from her wore a friendly smile and a small studded nose piercing.

“I’m Brian - Zacky’s friend from the other day,” he reminded her.

“Oh, that’s right,” she remembered.

“Quinn, yeah?” She nodded.

“Cool name.”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“Oh, that’s ok.” She closed the book.

“Harry Potter fan?” Brian deduced as he looked at the book cover.

“I may or may not have gone to Barnes and Noble at midnight when this book came out,” Quinn confessed. Brian let out an amused snort. “So, uh, Zacky sent you over?”

“Yeah, he mentioned you didn’t know anyone. And I guess he thought I’d be a good samaritan and sit with you at lunch.”

“Well I guess he was right.” Brian smiled.

“Yeah, I guess he was.”

“It’s really nice of you, too. To actually come over.” Brian shook his head and waved his hand as if to say “no problem.” Quinn smiled and continued. “Don’t you have a group to sit with or something, though?”

“Eh, not really. Jimmy -- you remember him, the tall crazy one -- he transferred to Huntington Beach High last year so I’m pretty much the lone wolf on campus. Well, except for these fuckers!” Brian stood up and pointed at two boys - twins, obviously - who had walked up to the table.

Quinn had a feeling she was about to make more friends this year than she had planned, and she felt oddly ok with that.