Lapis felt the soft click of her locker's handle snapping up before watching it slowly swing open.
An empty locker. She didn't think something like this would've scared her as much as it did. Up until that point, Lapis didn't think this new school would be so bad, but once she saw the cold navy blue of the hollow locker in front of her, trepidation wordlessly settled in. She tried drowning her worries in the sound of the junior class milling about behind her. She listened to the chatter, the sound of lockers opening and closing, and the faint melody of laughter. She closed her eyes, letting this white noise soothe her nerves.
She took a deep breath and put all the supplies she wouldn't need for her next class in the tall metal safe. She put the supplies she did need into a fair sized cloth handbag with seashells and sand dollars meticulously sewn onto the front. She pulled out her schedule for the day and started walking toward her first class until she spotted a rather intimidating student headed her way. She was tall and well-built, clearly a player in one of the school's sports teams. She had very long platinum blond hair and brownish-amber eyes. This student had a group of friends that seemed to be following her as well as a casual look on her face that portrayed a strong sense of confidence and control over her surroundings.
The student stopped in front of Lapis. "Hey, the name's Jasper," she said, extending her arm in greetings. "You're new here, right?"
Lapis paused before slowly taking Jasper's hand and shaking it. "Yeah, I'm new here. And… my name's Lapis."
"Oh, pretty name," Jasper said, raising her eyebrows while still keeping her eyes half-lidded. Lapis chuckled awkwardly in response. She didn't expect to meet someone this early on who was willing to be friends with her.
"That schedule," Jasper pointed out, snapping Lapis out of her thoughts, "it'll take you far, but there are a ton of things that that schedule won't help you out with. If you need anything, come to me… or any of my stupid friends over here." The nearest group member to Jasper responded to her with a punch to the arm. They both seemed to laugh it off, but Lapis felt strangely uncomfortable watching them interact.
"Thank you," said Lapis. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind if I run into trouble."
"You got it," Jasper replied as she started walking away. Lapis followed her with her gaze and caught her sending a casual wink and a finger gun in her direction as a strange way of saying "see you later." Lapis wasn't quite sure how to respond to this encounter, but she took it positively. It was nice to think that she'd have some support in case she needed it, and despite the uncanny feeling she got from the strange bunch, she could see herself becoming friends with them.
Then, as she was watching Jasper walk away, she spotted another girl. She looked smaller than everyone else and had pale blond hair as well as a nervous demeanor. She was hugging her books tightly to her chest and hunching over slightly as if trying to avoid bringing as much remote attention to herself as possible. Her green eyes peered through fairly thin rimmed glasses and darted around like a scared cat's would.
Then they made eye contact.
Somehow, Lapis felt no urge to avert her gaze as she stared into the girl's eyes. The girl appeared to be experiencing the same thing, seeing as her gait slowed down and her worried expression began to change. Lapis was pondering why it was this one student who didn't make her nervous as she watched the girl's shoulder suddenly collide hard with one of Jasper's friends. The girl was jolted back into reality, losing grip of a few of her pencils, watching them fall to the floor with a faint clicking sound.
Jasper's friend, barely phased by the collision, promptly turned around to glare at her. "Hey, watch it!" she barked as she hit the back of the girl's arm, sending her papers and folders sliding onto the ground. She yelped at this and immediately kneeled down, scrambling to gather the scattered supplies. The group, as well as quite a few bystanders saw this and laughed - even Jasper, to Lapis's surprise. They then casually continued to walk away, as if nothing had happened at all.
The girl looked unbelievably flustered as she quickly, but not very gracefully, gathered her papers into a wrinkled pile of notes and equations. Once she was almost done reclaiming her belongings, a random student walking past kicked her pencil case a couple of yards away just as she was about to grab it. The girl unceremoniously stuffed her papers into one of her folders before awkwardly scooting forward to retrieve her pencil case. She then froze, nervously looking up to see Lapis kneeling down on one knee, pencil case in hand. "Here," Lapis said, handing the pencil case to the smaller student.
The girl looked shaken at this, hesitantly grabbing the pencil case from Lapis's hand. "Thank you- I-I-I'm sorry," the girl stammered in a timid, shaky voice. Lapis didn't have time to respond as the girl hastily fled down the hall and around the corner.
Lapis just stared for a while at the corner the girl disappeared behind. She didn't know what to think of all this. After a little bit, she decided it was best not to try, and she started down the hall for her first class.
As she entered the room and took her seat, she tried to distract herself from her thoughts by organizing her supplies. She slipped her relatively untouched notebooks and binders out of her bag and set them down. Then, she did the same with her pencils, pens, erasers, and calculator. She placed them in convenient locations on her desk and proceeded to close her eyes, taking a deep breath and letting her head hang back in the chair. There was clearly a very deep social pool in this school that she could see nothing but the surface of. She decided it was in her best interest to stay as far away from that pool as possible.
Even though the thought of this plan gave her comfort, she was finding it surprisingly hard to get that girl in the hallway out of her mind. She hadn't seen her do anything that Lapis would consider deserving of the treatment she got. She considered the possibility that she'd done something bad that only people in the school last year would know of. She saw a flaw in this theory, though: the girl in the hallway didn't appear threatening or devious - quite the contrary, actually. Her worrisome movement and oddly apologetic thank you to Lapis told her that the girl was naturally timid, especially since she acted this way to someone she'd never met before. This left Lapis perplexed, to say the least.
More people were starting to file into the room, making it uncomfortable for her to stay retreated in her mind and think about these things. Lapis surveyed the room, hoping to find something to pay attention to when she suddenly froze.
Her gaze had fallen on a familiar little girl in the back of the classroom.
The two locked eyes again, but unlike the first time, the girl looked away at once. She wore an anxious expression and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Lapis was really curious now. What was making this girl so apprehensive? Why was she treated the way she was? Did she do anything to prompt this treatment? These questions were really starting to bother her.
As time passed and the class started, her focus slowly shifted toward her work. She successfully lost herself in the warm-up math problems, thankful that the first day wouldn't be as stressful as she'd anticipated. The teacher then told them to partner up with the person sitting to their left starting with the right side of the room. Unfortunately, the girl Lapis would've liked to work with was far back in the right corner of the room, so she sighed and tried to take her mind off of her for a little while.
Lapis sat there before remembering that she, too, had to partner up with the person to her left. She looked over to see a short, tan girl who had long, platinum blond hair and a laid-back posture. She looked tired, bored, or both, but turned to look back at her nonetheless.
"Sup?" She asked, lazily raising her hand in a brief wave.
"Uhm.. hi," Lapis replied awkwardly, "What's… your name?"
"Amethyst," she answered, a friendly grin starting to develop on her face. "Yours?"
"Lapis," she responded.
Amethyst swung her arm nonchalantly toward her. "Nice to meet you." Beginning to find this girl's air calming, Lapis took her hand and smiled back. After their introduction, the teacher started explaining the assignment to the class. However, as much as Lapis wanted to pay attention, she couldn't help but look back at the girl she'd been trying to take her mind off of. She couldn't explain why, but she felt the extreme urge to check in on her now and again.
The girl's eyes flickered anxiously back and forth between her desk and the partner she'd been assigned to. The partner appeared rather displeased with whom she'd have to work with and hunched over, her head propped up with one of her hands.
Lapis watched as the girl started to play with her pencil, spinning it quietly on her desktop. She felt her heart pause as the girl accidentally flicked her pencil onto the floor, watching it roll under the desk to her left with worry. She couldn't hear what the girl was trying to whisper to her partner, but whatever it was, it was completely ignored. Even though the girl's nervous expression didn't change, Lapis felt a pang of frustration for her. The girl then leaned down to grab the pencil herself, but quickly drew back when her partner sniffed and abruptly scooted forward in her seat. With a nervous smile, the girl resorted to reaching her hand up and tapping her partner on the shoulder. This finally grabbed her attention.
Despite having a polite expression on her face, the girl was met with her angry partner straightening up and glaring at her. The girl paused when she saw this and then opened her mouth, probably to explain her little situation, but to Lapis's surprise, her words died on her tongue. She gathered enough information to tell that the partner was discreetly snapping at the girl for disturbing her. The girl looked scared at first but then, a little bit of shame seeped into her face. She just sat there, taking it without fighting back. After that, the partner returned once more to her stand-offish posture, muttering something under her breath. The little girl looked stung at whatever she'd heard and proceeded to look down at the floor, trying her hardest to hide her hurt visage.
Lapis couldn't believe what she'd seen. 'No matter what she's ever done, no one deserves to be treated like that over a goddamn pencil,' she thought to herself.
"What are you looking at?"
Lapis jumped. She whipped around to see Amethyst looking at her with genuine curiosity. The class had somehow begun to work without her noticing. She then perked up, realizing this was the perfect opportunity to ask about the girl. "I'm just… Who's that girl over there? Uh.. if.. you don't mind me asking."
Amethyst leaned back in her chair and craned her neck at the students behind her. "Which one?"
Lapis turned to look at the back of the class and said, "The small one with the short blond hair. She's in the corner of the room?"
"Oh.." Amethyst said, looking a little more alert. "You must be talking about Peridot. She's the nervous looking one, right?"
"Yeah, that's her!" Lapis affirmed, glad she finally had a name to refer to. It did take a bit of the wind out of her sails when it hit her that being nervous was apparently one of the girl's defining character traits.
"Yeah, Peridot is a bit…" Amethyst paused. "It-It's kind of hard to explain."
"Well at least tell my why everyone's being such an asshole to her. Did you see what happened in the hallway?"
Amethyst scratched the back of her neck. "No, I didn't exactly see it. I did see you give her her pencil case back, though. What happened?"
"One of Jasper's friends hit her stuff out of her hand, and another student came up and kicked her pencil case away from her when she was about to pick it up!" Lapis exclaimed. "It was unbelievable! All she did was bump into someone!" Amethyst paused.
"You really are new here, aren't you?" Lapis felt a shiver run down her spine that left her speechless. "Look," Amethyst continued wistfully, "I'll explain it to you sometime later - we don't have enough time now. What to you have next class?"
"Um… French," Lapis answered.
"Which room?"
"Room 602, I think."
Amethyst made a "tch" sound through her teeth and frowned. "You have lunch after that, right?"
"Yeah."
"And then what?"
"History in room 416."
"Rats… I'll just tell you next break," Amethyst finished. "That's after your history class, by the way."
"Ah… thanks." Lapis agreed to meet up with her and they spent the rest of the class doing the project they were assigned, albeit rather cluelessly considering how they both weren't really paying attention during the instructions. Every once in awhile, Lapis would glance back at Peridot to see how she was holding up. Each time she did so, the scene remained the same: the partner seemed to be laying back in her chair with her arms cradling her head while Peridot looked to be trying her best to compensate for the former's lack of effort. Lapis narrowed her eyes.
She was definitely not going to go until break without learning more about this girl.