Gabriella sat, basking in the emotion that surrounded her, trying to tune out the sounds of the teacher desperately trying to control the class. She looked around the room, so many different people, with different personalities, and yet all a big blur of hormones and teenage gossip that didn't know what was soon to be before them.
Gabriella had been at this school for four long and uneasy years and now, two weeks into her senior year, a lot of things had changed. Recently, her best friend had changed; she had, for lack of a better word ditched her for a more popular group. She had said that Gabriella wasn't fun, that she really was just a drag. Sure, Gabby had other friends but until now she had never been that close to them, she had always been known as a sidekick.
Things had never been any better in the boys department for Gabriella either. There had only really been one boy she had really had a huge urge to go out with, but when he and his family had moved to Spain last year, even before she had the chance to tell him she liked him, it broke her heart and she turned off going out with anyone. Although at times she felt like she needed a guy, it didn't really matter because in her heart she didn't feel like she wanted to go out with anyone else but him, she still wasn't over it, but she pretended she was.
But right now Gabriella was sitting in her math room, an empty seat on her left that was usually occupied by Taylor, one of her good friends who stuck by her through this whole ordeal with Allison. On her right sat another empty seat, which no one sits in. It wasn't exactly that they hated Gabriella; it was more that they were indifferent, not many people knew who she was and so they just didn't talk to her.
Gabriella didn't exactly mind though, she liked being by herself, she liked sitting in class while everyone else continued to pretend they were doing the work while she had already finished to read a calming book in which characters lives were nothing like those of our reality. Sometimes she felt lonely but honestly, gossip and school talk was not as sweet as silence and the sound of your ipod calmly playing in your ears.
"Gabriella, GABRIELLA," snapped the teacher bringing Gabriella from her Trans to the reality that was the mathematics classroom. He continued as everyone in the room dropped their private conversations, turning to stare at her as if she was an alien from the planet pawpaw that had just eaten a spoon, "Gabriella move your bag off the desk this instant. You have clearly not been listening to me so I will once again repeat myself. Troy is our new transfer student from New York and will be trying out east high for a few weeks before he and his parents decide if he is going to stay. Gabriella he is going to be sitting next to you and since you clearly did not listen when he was telling the class about himself, I'd like to inform you that Troy plays basketball and he was the captain of the team at his old school."
Gabriella scowled and shoved her bag off the desk, she hated when the teacher patronized the students like this, ok no, she hated it when he patronized her like this, she hated the attention. As Troy sat down she didn't look up, instead continuing to stare at the page that before her consisting of some old drawings and a poem she wrote hat she was concentrating on way to fiercely.
"I'm really sorry to impose on you Gabriella, the teacher said it was the only place he could find to seat me and if you want I can try and…"
"no, it's fine, really, really fine, just get on with your math work and it will all be fine, just leave me be please", Gabriella said frustrated and began to ignore him, and the rest of the people in the room.
He didn't try to talk to her again for the entire lesson, he looked at her, wondering why she was so unsocial. She however went back to dreamland, thinking about how things used to be, how things are and how she wished they could be. The minute Gabriella heard the chimes of the school bell and listen to the teacher dismiss the class she walked out of the room in a rush headed for her locker.
She reached the senior locker block in no time, not even thinking about Troy or the fact that she didn't even look at him, she thought nothing of it.
He however spent the next hour thinking about her. It wasn't exactly like he thought she was hot and fell in love with her, but there definatly was a feeling there. It was curiosity, but there was more to it than that, it's like, she told hjim nothing, and he wanted more, but he needed to figure out a way to find out more, and he was pretty sure she wasn't going to talk.