"Class, this is Harlow Mark. She is new to Beacon Hills and I expect you all to be warm and welcoming." I waited patiently for the principle of my new high school to finish introducing me. He turned to me and gave me a head nod, which I thought was odd and he walked out. I was left standing at the front of the classroom. I gave a small, shy wave to the class.
"Well, Harlow. It's nice to meet you, however, class has already begun so please take a seat." He gestured to the only empty seat in the class room. "Stiles," the kid next to me spastically looked up to the teacher, the cap from his highlighter was in his mouth. He puffed up his cheeks and blew out the cap.
"Yeah, coach?"
"Ugh, Stiles. Your very existence annoys me. But, catch up the new girl." I thought that he was totally ignoring me but after a couple minutes of frantic writing and highlighting in his textbook and on post-it-notes and sticking those to the pages he reached over and stole my textbook off my desk before replacing it with his own a few seconds later. I mouthed a 'thanks' to him and started to attempt to read his scribble. At first I didn't understand any of it, it just looked like a bunch of crazy to my. It was just a bunch of meaningless words until I saw one of the smaller post-it's and in large letters it said 'ECONOMICS'. I smiled to myself. When the bell finally rung I closed his textbooks and stood to give it back.
"Nah, keep it for the weekend." He offered.
"Thanks." I swung my bag over my shoulder and slipped his book inside.
"Just make sure you bring it back next class. So, where's your next class?" I pulled the slip of paper schedule out of my bag and handed it to him.
"Do we have any other classes together?" I patiently waited for him to look over my schedule.
"I have most of the same classes but not the same schedule. Sorry." He Apologized, handing the folded up paper back to me. "So your next class is going to be straight down the hall and then make the right and it's should be the first door on your... Uhhh..." He was pointing his finger down in the direction he was telling me to go and squinted his eyes while tilting his head from side to side. "Left." He finally declared.
"Thanks. And uh... thanks for the notes too." I made my way down the hall and to my next class. Before I turned the corner I looked back at Stiles who was still standing there. He waved.
When the bell rung for lunch I asked my teacher for directions to the library. I had only been to three classes and already the pile of catch-up work I had to do was a mile high. When I finally reached the library, after getting lost twice, I opened the door and let a couple other students in ahead of me when I heard my name being called.
"Hey! Hey, Harlow! Wait up!" I turned to see a spastic Stiles weaving through the crowd of students that filled the hallway. When he finally reached me I let go of the door handle and backed away, making room for other students to pass by and enter the library.
"Are you ADHD? Because I have a ton of friends back home who have ADHD and you guys kinda act the same." He looked at me a little bewildered for a few seconds.
"Uhh... yeah. Actually I do. Anyways, you are coming to lunch with me and my friends. They tend to want to meet the new kids." I stared at him for a moment. I was planning on spending as many lunches as possible in the library, avoiding the cafeteria as much as possible.
"Actually, I have a ton of catch-up work that I need to get started. So I was planning on working through lunch." I turned and started making my way through the threshold of the library when Stiles grabbed my elbow and dragged me out. "Dude, what the hell?"
"Tell you what, if you come to lunch with my friends and me then I'll drive you home and on our way we can stop at my house and I can give you all the notes you need and you can just copy them. How does that sound?" I contemplated this for a few seconds.
"That sounds like a bribe," I commented, testing the waters. He shrugged and bobbed his head around a few times.
"It may be a bribe. So what do you say?" Without replying to him I stalked off in the direction I was hoping was the cafeteria.
"Just so you know, I'm only doing this for the notes." I told him.
"Just so you know, I'm only doing this to make sure you're human." I looked at him like he was crazy. Of course I'm human. What else would I be? I followed him to a table with a couple other guys and a few girls. "Harlow this is Kira, Malia, Scott, Lydia and Liam. Guys this is Harlow, the new girl I was telling you about."
"Harlow, that's an interesting name." Lydia was the first to speak. "I like your socks." She smiled at me. My socks cam up over my knee and covered half my thigh. The end of my dress a few inches above that.
"I was named after my grandfather." The group tried and failed to hide their smirk.
"So," Stiles gestured for me to take the seat between him and Scott. "where are you from?" Everyone started pulling out their lunches from their bags.
"Uh, Texas. My moms job transferred her here." I pulled out some math homework, the only class Stiles and I weren't in the same level, and started to work on it.
"Where's your lunch?" Stiles nudged my arm with his elbow and gestured to the paper I was working on.
"First day nerves. I can never eat with a nervous stomach." I lied smoothly, clutching my pen tightly in my hand. Stiles looked over my shoulder at Scott who was shaking his head.
"Tell you what, if you eat half my sandwich I won't blackmail you over the notes." I started chewing on the end of my pen, thinking this over.
"What is that, Turkey?" Stiles nodded. "Well no can do buddy. I'm a vegetarian." I saw him once again look over my shoulder at Scott and I could only assume he was shaking his head again, like last time. Then he pulled out a zip-lock bag of carrots and placed them in front of me.
"Here, eat these." I was tempted to tell him that I have a carrot allergy but decided against it when he gave me a near death glare.
"Okaayyy." I drawled out. If there are 70 calories in one cup then there are proximity about 63 calories in the bag so if I ate half the bag that would mean it would come to about 32 calories. But if I ate the whole bag and I purged then Stiles would be happy and leave me alone and I would be at zero for the day. Maybe if I just slowly munch on them till the bell rings then he'll leave me alone about it. "Are these organic?" I picked up a carrot and eyed it carefully. After a few seconds I realized that the whole group had gone quiet. I looked up to find everyone staring at me.
"Um, no? We don't really do a whole lot of organic's in Beacon Hills." I nodded before putting the carrot halfway in my mouth and biting it in half. "Did you do a lot of organic's in Texas?"
"Yeah, I mentioned earlier that a lot of my friends have ADHD and something that helps with that is organic food so we all decided to go organic and convince our parents too." After I had made sure to carefully chew the carrot thirty-five times and swallowed I popped the other half in my mouth. This was going to be a long lunch.
Stiles had told me to meet him by his jeep after school, which is exactly where I waited. For ten minuted before he finally showed up.
"Hey, sorry I had to talk to Scott about something. You ready?" He pulled my door open and gestured for me to get in. We had been driving for five minutes when he finally spoke.
"So, a vegetarian." I nodded. "How hard is that?" I didn't even have to give the answer any thought.
"Not hard at all. Meat is disgusting. It's not because I don't want it it's because I hate the taste of meat." Which wasn't a lie. I do hate the taste. "It makes me feel like vomiting."
"But I mean it's got to be hard," he looked over at me for a second.
"Watch the road."
"So many great meals are made with meat. Some don't even taste like meat. And what, you don't eat those either?" I was beginning to feel like I was being interrogated.
"Well, Stiles, there's a lot of foods that I don't like."
"Is that why you're so skinny? Because you don't like a lot of foods?"
"I'm just a picky eater." I defended.
"A picky eater that doesn't eat?"
"You don't know what you're talking about. Can you just keep you're eyes on the road, please?" He kept looking over at me and I didn't like it.
"Just admit what you can't admit to anyone else." this conversation was making me dizzy. Or maybe I was the lack of food. The last time I had eaten mom and I were just leaving Texas. The funny thing is I can go days without food if I'm not thinking about it. But when people keep bringing it up it's like my brain realizes that it's starved and I can't help but feel it.
"And what's that?" My chest was starting to feel tight, my anxiety climbing. I could feel it. The panic attack building in my chest. I kept chanting in my head 'Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it.'
"Har, answer me this. Do you have an eating disorder?" the air in the car got tense. And that's when it hit me.
"Pull over." I told him. My brain pleading with him.
"Harlow, we're like two minutes from my house."
"Pull... over." my breathing was coming out in gasps. The tightness in my chest was becoming too much and I couldn't help but feel trapped. Stiles, realizing what was happening, pulled over and slammed on he breaks. I yanked on the handle and threw myself into the grass. Staying on my hands and knees. Stiles appeared at my side, he was saying something but the pounding if my heart was so loud and I was so dizzy that I couldn't concentrate on what he was saying. After a moment my arms got too weak to hold myself up. I laid down on my side in the grass, which was still damp from the morning rain. It was cool on my feverish cheek.
Out of nowhere Stiles' face came into view. He was laying on his side in the grass too. He was still talking but I was even harder now than before to hear him. "Harlow!" He called now, louder than before. "Hold your breath, I know it sounds stupid but it'll help." I closed my eyes and did my best to hold my breath. After a couple attempts at holding my breath I finally got it.
I let out the breath that I had been holding in a and rolled onto my back, breathing heavily. "Sorry." I breathed. My eyelids were becoming heavy much like they did after every panic attack. I knew it would be only a matter of time before I fell asleep.
"Hey, hey. No, don't apologize. And definitely don't fall asleep on the side of the road." He got to his knees and crouched over me and put his hands under my arms, lifting me up. "Let's get back in the jeep." He lifted me into the jeep and buckled me in before closing my door. By the time he walked around the jeep and got in I was already asleep.