Okay. Okay. This is it. I'm not going to spend my third year here sitting alone. Oh, God, is it hot in here? Is it just me? Do I have sweat marks on my t-shirt? How is my t-shirt? Okay- no one will be able to see the coffee stain if I just casually rest my hand on it- why do the buses have to fly? Especially when I'm trying to drink scalding liquids… Jesus- it is really hot in here. Okay- one foot… in front of the other… like that… okay, it's fine. I'm fine. This isn't so bad. Ok, who do I know- who do I know? Umm… that girl… what's her name? I'm so bad with names… the plant girl… Layla! Like the song. Layla- she smiled. Good sign, okay Kate smile back… smile… good. Go… walk…Oh no, she's with WILL…he looks so cute… I can't turn around now, it's too late, they saw me coming… this was such a bad idea…
"Hey Layla, mind if I sit with you guys?" She smiled nervously at Layla, who was sitting with Will and their friends Magenta, Warren, Ethan and Zack, though only her best friend would have recognized her as anything but composed.
"Yeah- Katherine, sit with us! How was your summer?" She'd chosen Layla for her friendliness, sure she wouldn't be snubbed, but her enthusiasm was a bit, well, enthusiastic for Kate… And also Will. Kate had a thing for boyish guys, but she was 98 positive from the puzzled look on his face that he didn't even know her name. After two years. In the same small high school.
"Um, it was good, I guess, what about you?"
"Will and I went to Raging Waters and Hurricane Harbor and Magenta finally got her license so now she can drive us wherever we want, and we hung out at Will's, because he has a pool, it was so fun! What did you do?" Layla's eyes sparkled happily; she'd gotten prettier over the summer. There was color in her cheeks, making her dark eyes shine and contrasting prettily with the sun highlights in her hair. Kate felt washed out next to her, her cheeks remained stubbornly colorless and sheet-white.
"I worked, hung out with my best friend- nothing really." Oh god, she's making me sweat more. They're all looking at me… I'm going to throw up… breathe… breathe.
"Oh, who? Does she go here? I always see you in the library during lunch, are you a teacher's assistant then?" So… many… questions… She couldn't fault her for being nice, though. Even if she might want to.
"Oh, no. Johnny goes to public school… he's just a normal guy."
"Ohhh, Johnny? Is he cute? Are you guys, like, going out?" Kate could see that Layla was trying to make conversation- she knew she wasn't exactly the easiest person to talk to. She laughed, somewhat uncomfortably.
"Johnny's gay, so we're definitely not going out." For the first time her voice showed the barest hint of emotion, almost as if challenging Layla to object to her best friend. The one person she would stand up for, herself included. Layla giggled uncertainly, and Kate stood up to leave. "Well, it was really nice talking to you guys, but, uh, I have to go finish my Mad Science homework before next period." She walked quickly for the side exit of the cafeteria, swinging her long and impossibly perfect-looking French braid over her shoulder when it fell against her face as she bent to dump her tray into the bin. Homework? She thought to herself with a wince. On the first day? Good thinking fast, they're gonna think I hate them… Oh, shit.
"Mmm. Uptight much?" It was Magenta, and Zack and Will stifled snickers under Layla's disapproving gaze. "Come on, Layla- if that stick up her ass got any bigger the Dodgers would be using it as a baseball bat." Layla merely frowned amid the laughter.
"Katherine's just shy, she was my lab partner last year and she is really nice." It wasn't so much what Kate said, but that she was so stiff… rigid-seeming, even. It was their first day- she couldn't have Mad Science homework.
"She just thinks she's too good for us," Zack said, puffing himself up. "Thinks she's too good for everyone here." Magenta poked him under his ribcage, he deflated in one harsh exhale as he laughed. Ticklish guy.
"Um, who isn't too good for Zack?" Magenta deadpanned, though the joke's object wasn't laughing.
Warren pulled his headphones up from their spot around his neck, scrolling up the volume and burying himself in a book. Sixteen year olds…
In the bathroom, Kate leaned over the sinks, her forehead touching the mirror as she watched her breath grow and fade in the clouds fogging the glass. She breathed a streak of fog against the mirror before writing I hate school in tiny, condensed letters in the steam. She stepped back to examine herself. What was so wrong with her? My eyes… are still brown. Hair… still brown. Skin… still shows no signs of any contact with sunlight in the past three years- nope, nothing different. She shook her wrists as one would do if they were trying to psych themselves up for something, and grabbed her bag off of the floor, clumsily swinging it over her shoulder and wincing as it hit the sunburn on her back. Johnny was always making her lay out, but while His Brazilian Highness browned to mocha, Kate was allowed approximately two minutes in the sun before she turned a rather unusual shade of magenta and had to sit her pale, non-exotic ass in Johnny's mom's cabana for the rest of the afternoon. Johnny's dad was some kind of business hotshot, which basically translated to free pool access while Johnny's mom Adriana chain smoked in the home gym and Johnny's dad Mario came home about an hour a week. If Kate was lucky, she even got to watch Johnny's older brother Adam swim laps… in a Speedo. Twenty-one years old, he worked part-time as a "talent consultant," as he told his family. Translation: he secretly supplied teenagers with a "talent" for their parents' money with whatever supplies they might be requiring- legal or not. Even Johnny didn't know, but people had a way of not noticing Kate when they were talking- she knew too many strangers' secrets for her taste. He was a dick, but still. She was only looking… and who wouldn't? He was hot, one of those blue-eyed boys with freckles under their tan and shaggy hair. Who cared if he called her Caitlin more than Kate or Katherine? At least he knew the first letter of her name, more than she could say for Will… the boy she actually liked. The boy she'd spent countless hours of work stocking shelves in the library thinking about talking to.
And yet… I didn't even look at him once, at that table. Stupid. She shook her head as if trying to dissuade herself of something and left the bathroom at a swift walk, letting the door bang shut behind her. She was almost late to Mad Science- it'd taken her a good twenty minutes to work up the courage to even go into the cafeteria. She darted quickly into the room, trying to inconspicuously find a seat in the back out of view of Medulla and her classmates. She didn't need to worry much, his Sidekick classes weren't anywhere near as strict as for Heroes, she'd heard. Too nervous to power up on her first day, she knew most people didn't think she even had a power, so Sidekick she was. It wasn't so bad at all.
"Hey Katherine!" Layla called to her from the doorway, and wound her way through students and tables to plop her bag beside the seated girl's, smiling broadly. What the hell- I don't want to be alone for the next half of high school
"My friends call me Kate," she ventured tentatively. Layla's broad smile grew broader.
"Kate," she said, and turned to face Medulla, who'd begun talking about the strangely colored orbs in their glass cases on his desk. Kate felt a strange warmth in the pit of her stomach. Was it good, or bad? She genuinely liked Layla…. And her boyfriend. Will.