Enchanted to Meet You

It was only about fifteen minutes later that Alex took hold of my hand and led me to my locker. How on earth he knew where my locker was, I had no idea. But, I wasn’t about to ask him now-not with all the nerves in my stomach. “My locker is a few rows down, Bella. I’m here for you though, okay?” I slowly nodded and he smiled, walking down to his locker. I set my backpack and guitar case down on the floor and started looking through it. I found my song notebook and breathed a sigh of relief. I always felt safer having my song notebook with me. The one thing I could count on was having that with me. I stood up and started placing my books and binders in my locker when the loud slam of a locker next to me made me jump a foot in the air. When I landed, my foot caught the wrong way and I stumbled backwards, falling on my back. I was embarrassed and my face turned red as a tomato when I heard people laughing behind me. I was startled to see someone kneel in front of me and hold out their hand.

“Are you okay? I guess I slammed my locker too hard and it startled you,” a voice said. I took the hand and its owner pulled me to his feet. Slowly, I raised my head to look at the owner of the voice and the hand. He was tall- about 5 foot 4-and had dark blue eyes and long brown hair just like Alex. The thing that startled me the most about him was his smile. He had two straight rows of pearly white teeth and I noticed his eyes were twinkling with happiness. “My name is Niklas…Niklas Kronwall What’s yours,” he asked. I let out a gasp and blushed. No boy had ever asked me for my name before. This was a total first. It took me a minute to get over my shock enough to answer him.

“My name is Isabella McNealy, but you can call me Bella or Izzy,” I replied, surprised I was bold enough to tell him all of that information. Niklas’s grin got wider and I felt another blush come over my cheeks.

“Nice to meet you, Bella. Tell me, are you new here,” he asked. I was busy picking up my books I had dropped, but I stopped at his question. How much was safe to tell him?

“Yes, I’m new here, so I don’t know where everything is,” I replied. I had stopped myself from asking him to show me around the school, for I wasn’t sure how he would take it. –why does it matter how he takes it? He’s not interested in you, no boy ever has been so why should one be now-I thought before I could stop myself. I shook my head, erasing the thought from my mind as I stood up again. Niklas was still standing there, holding out his books, that boyish grin still on his face. I took the books from him, making sure not to touch his hand. “Thank you,” I said, giving him a small smile of my own.

“You’re welcome, Bella. Tell me, what is your first class? If you have the same class as me, I’d be delighted to take you there,” he said. My eyes widened and I blushed. When was the last time someone asked me if they could take me to class? No one but Alex had, that was for sure. I was stunned into silence for a long minute before I looked up at him.

“S-sure y-you can take me,” I stuttered, looking down again as I blushed. My blushing didn’t seem to have an effect on him, but my stuttering obviously did. He looked at me with concern, worry even.

“You okay? You sounded….scared,” Niklas told me. I shook my head.

“No, not scared. I’m just very shy. And no one has asked me that question before,” I finally replied, looking up at him. Niklas looked at me and smiled.

“You don’t need to be shy around me. I’m very friendly. I don’t like seeing people hurt. That’s not the type of person I am.” I bit down hard on my lip. Could I really trust him? I sighed and glanced down at my schedule. I grinned and looked up at him.

“I have history as my first class? You?” By the giant grin on his face, he had the same class as me. My only other hope was that Alex had the same as us. I was getting worried about him. Normally he’d see someone with me and question them. Why wasn’t he doing that with Niklas? That scared me more than anything in the world. I glanced down nervously in his direction and my eyes went wide when I saw him on the ground. Was he hurt? Was he playing around? I started shaking and tears filled my eyes. Was he getting hurt because of me? Niklas must’ve seen the scared look on my face and frowned.

“Bella? What’s wrong,” he asked me. I pointed in the direction of my brother.

“That’s my brother, Alex. What happened to him? He’s on the ground,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to fight the tears that filled my eyes. Okay, so not only was I really shy, I also had very bad anxiety, especially if someone got hurt. Right now, my high anxiety was kicking in. Niklas frowned, narrowing his eyes at the group of boys surrounding Alex.

“I’ll go check it out,” he told me, but before he could move, Alex got up and punched the tallest boy in the group directly in the face.

“Don’t talk about my sister like that! She’s a human being, not a piece of meat,” he snarled. The boy reeled back in shock and glared at Alex.

“Your sister IS a piece of meat and I WILL have her,” he hissed, glancing in my direction and winking at me. I whimpered and shrank behind Niklas shaking in fear. A piece of meat? Even I knew what that meant and I didn’t like it. I was scared ….I couldn’t go to school now. Not after that. Peeking out from Niklas’s back, I noticed Alex walking towards me. I came out from behind Niklas and threw myself in Alex’s arms, shaking and crying in anger and fear. At home when I had anxiety attacks, Alex was usually the one that calmed me down. And this had to be my biggest attack yet. Why did people have to act like such pigs? I hated people like that boy…..and I hated him.

“Bella, it’s okay. He won’t hurt you, I promise,” he whispered, holding me close to him. I collapsed his arms and became to sob hysterically into his chest. I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t be here-I didn’t belong here.

“Alex, I need to go home. I can’t handle this. I can’t do this. I can’t,” I said. Alex pulled away from
me a bit to look me in the eyes.

“Look, let’s go talk to the principal and tell him what happened okay? He can do something about,” he said. I bit my lip hard and nodded, tears still flowing down my cheeks.

“I can take you there, if you don’t know where it is,” Niklas offered. Alex looked up at him.

“Yes, please show us. The sooner this school knows about her anxiety, the better,” he said. Niklas agreed and Alex pulled me to my feet, his arm wrapped around my shoulder as I was still shaking like a leaf. We followed my new friend down a long hallway and I stuck close to Alex, shivering at every kid that bumped into me. Being around so many people caused my anxiety to skyrocket, but as long as I was with Alex, I was safe. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we had finally reached the principal’s office. Like all the other doors at the school, the principal’s door was a dark blue and the lettering that spelled “Mr. Wood’s office” was black. Alex took my hand and Niklas opened the heavy door, leading us inside. I was shaking, but instantly the soft color of the baby blue walls started to calm me. Yes, looking at certain colors will calm me down. Strange, isn’t it?

“What can I do for my young students,” a deep booming voice asked, causing me to let out a high-pitched squeal of fear. Booming voices like that scared me when I was least expecting it, which is why I was glad daddy didn’t have a voice like that. Niklas’s back straightened and he looked the principal in the eye.

“Mr. Wood, one of the students here made inappropriate remarks towards a new student of ours, Isabella McNealy,” he explained, nodding in my direction. Mr. Wood looked in my direction and smiled, causing me to relax my body…at least a little bit.

“You’re Isabella? Nice to meet you, I’m Mr. Wood, the principal of this fine school. Why don’t you tell me what happened,” he asked, sitting in the chair next to me. I started shaking with fear again, but Alex’s tight squeeze on my hand made me calmer.

“Sir, I was innocently talking to Niklas near my locker and I got worried about my brother, Alex. Usually when we start a new school, Alex always comes over to check on me. He wasn’t doing that so I got worried that something had happened to him, so I looked in his direction and saw that he was on the floor near his locker. He was surrounded by a group of boys and Niklas offered to check on him, but before he could do that, Alex got up and punched the tallest boy in the group in the face. Alex then said something like ‘Don’t call my sister a piece of meat, she’s a human being.’ And then the tallest boy-I don’t know his name, sir-said ‘your sister is a piece of meat and I will get her.’ And then he winked at me and I got scared and started crying,” I managed to get out, swallowing back the tears that were flowing freely down my cheeks at this point. I couldn’t talk anymore, so I buried my face in Alex’s chest and cried silently. Niklas picked up my story from there.

“Sir, I know this boy. His name is Dylan Brown. He’s made these comments before, but usually he was playing. I could just tell this time-not just because of her reaction, mind you-that he was being serious. And I’m scared for her.” Mr. Wood didn’t say a thing for several minutes before he looked at Alex.

“Alex, could you tell me what happened before the comment towards your sister?” Alex kept his arms tight around me, which was a great comfort. I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
“Sir, the only thing I have to add is this. I was innocently looking down at Isabella to see how she was doing. She has super bad anxiety and I needed to make sure she wasn’t having an attack or anything. So Dylan came along and “accidently” shoved me to the floor. He was looking at my sister as well, but I could see by the look in his eyes that their meeting was not going to be pleasant. So he made some comment about wanting to “get some of that ass” and that’s when I punched him in the face and it started from there.” Mr. Wood was again quiet for several minutes before he spoke.

“Isabella, I will find Dylan and talk to him at some point today. As for now, stick with Niklas and Alex as much as you can and avoid him at all costs. If he continues this behavior, come talk to me or a teacher and we will suspend or expel him, whichever is necessary. You are free to go.” It took some willpower not to run out of that room, but even more willpower not to call my mom and tell her to take me home. Only about….an hour at this new school and I already hated it. I just didn’t understand why people had to be so mean. A tap on my shoulder made me flinch, but I realized it was only Alex. Niklas tilted his head, frowning at Alex.

“Does Bella always act like this when someone taps her shoulder? I’m not being mean, but she is awfully jumpy,” he asked. Alex shook his head.

“You’re not being mean, but she does it when she’s in deep thought or she’s scared. She gets scared very easily with her anxiety, so we gotta be careful about where we take her.”