Kelsey walked into room 204 and looked around the room. No familiar faces from earlier. 'great.' Kelsey thought to herself as she walked up to the teacher's desk and introduced herself.

"I'm Kelsey, i'm new..well, obviously."

She laughed and continued talking to the teacher, while scanning the room out of the corner of her eye. She recognized two or three of the faces, probably from the hallways earlier. 'that's the boy from the locker earlier..' Kelsey smiled and looked towards him. Eli looked behind him and then back towards her and smiled back weakly. Kelsey's smile faded, as she wondered why he didn't look a little happier to see her. All the other boys had. She turned her attention back towards the teacher as she was pointing Kelsey to her seat. How convenient, it was right next to Eli. Kelsey walked over and slid into her seat and turned towards Eli.

"Hey. I'm Kelsey. and you are..?"

She smiled brightly and held her hand out across the small distance separating them. Eli looked between her face and her hand. He placed his hand in hers for probably a millisecond, not even bothering to shake it. Kelsey's face crumpled in confusion as she slowly pulled her hand back to her side. She turned to face forward as Adam's face popped out from behind Eli's head.

"Kelsey! Kelsey, hi, i'm Adam!"

He extended his hand eagerly towards Kelsey and smiled. It was possibly one of the biggest smiles Kelsey had ever seen in her life. She smiled out of politeness, and took Adam's hand, shaking it lightly before yanking it away from Adam. Adam started leaning back into his seat. While doing so he managed to whisper into Eli's ear,

"she digs me."

Eli, trying not to laugh, ended up letting out a noise resembling some sort of snort as he put his hand slightly over his mouth, trying to hide his amusement out of Adam's comment. Kelsey looked over towards them, trying to figure out what was so funny. As she opened her mouth to demand what Eli was so amused by, a girl ran into the classroom, and the teacher spoke out.

"oh clare, so nice of you to join us! alright class, w're going to get lab partners. I've assigned them, oh i know, that's so terrible. you will be sticking with these people for the year, there will be no changes, i've got the names on the board, take a look."

Clare slid into the other open seat next to Eli. The teacher smiled as she backed away from the board, allowing the students to read the pairings on the board. Kelsey found her name, and saw 'Eli' scribbled next to hers.

"Eli, well, who's Eli exactly?"

She looked around the room and heard Clare let out a disappointing, angered sigh.

"this idiot right here is Eli."

Clare was pointing to him, and got up, moving to the back of the room with Adam, her partner. Kelsey smiled towards Eli.

"what's her deal?"

She nodded her head towards Clare and Eli sighed, turning to face Kelsey fully for the first time.

"she's my girlfriend..things are..i guess rough right now."

Kelsey nodded slowly and watched as Eli got out a notebook and threw it on the desk.

"are you sure she's still your girlfriend?"

Kelsey rose one eyebrow, playfully questioning Eli. Eli closed his eyes and shook his head.

"so, we gonna do this lab or what?"

Kelsey's smile faded from her face, once again, upset that Eli was not taking the bait and flirting with her. She quickly grabbed a pen out of her bag. After working for a good 20 minutes in silence, the bell finally rang. Eli stood up quickly, grabbing his stuff and beginning to walk out of the room. Kelsey grabbed his arm and glanced back towards Clare who was watching them intently. Eli turned around and pulled his arm out of her grasp.

"what the hell are you doing?"

Kelsey stopped and bit her lip, suddenly embarrassed. She hadn't expected Eli to react like that.

"um, well I just..okay. It's lunch time, i'm the new girl, I have no friends..I'm assuming Adam sits with you, and he's the only person around here that seems to enjoy my company, and I just don't want to be the new loner girl sitting alone at lunch.."

Her voice trailed off and Eli's annoyed expression had not changed at all. He shrugged.

"you're jenna's cousin, sit with her."

Kelsey rolled her eyes and laughed, secretly wanting to jump for joy knowing that Eli payed attention to the gossip that was floating around about her, but at the same time her blood was boiling with anger at the fact that Eli seemed to have no interest in her at all.

"it's like you don't even go to school here, you're such an oblivious..idiot.."

She paused and put her hand on her forehead as Eli shook his head laughing.

"i'm an idiot? that's a good way to get a spot at lu-"

Kelsey cut him off, speaking over him, in a much louder tone.

"JENNA GOES HOME TO EAT LUNCH. SHE IS PREGNANT. ALRIGHT?"

Adam ran up to them and pushed Eli and Kelsey apart. They had unknowingly stepped a little too close to each other in their argument. Eli turned away from Kelsey and walked out the door, Clare following close behind him. Adam looked over at Kelsey and held his arm out.

"come on, you can sit next to me, it's going to be an awkward lunch anyways, with those two fighting."

Kelsey smiled and linked her arm through Adam's as they walked out the door towards the lunch room.

Adam and Kelsey entered the lunch room to find Eli and Clare sitting across from each other, clearly ignoring each other's presence. Clare jumped up at the sight of Adam and waved him over, her sudden excitement vanished as she spotted Kelsey trailing behind Adam. Clare sat back down as Eli glanced over his shoulder. Kelsey saw him roll his eyes as she approached. She slid into the chair next to Eli and clapped.

"well, let me just get my knife out so i can cut this tension.."

No one spoke. Kelsey cleared her throat and began digging in her lunch, examining the contents of it. There was a loud squeak and a tapping. Kelsey looked up to find an indian looking boy standing up at the microphone, tapping it and mumbling check into it. The boy cleared his throat and smiled.

"Hello students of degrassi, sav your president here with holly j. to bring you some exciting news. tonight, there is going to be a dance. the first since vegas night.."

Kelsey noticed Eli tense up and Clare glance over at him, chewing on her lip. Sav continued.

"we are aware that vegas night turned out to be a very..traumatizing..event for some, but we finally got Simpson to okay the request for a spring dance. I know this is short notice, but Simpson just got the school board to give us this okay. tickets will be on sale in the foyer for 10 dollars, it is a formal event."

Sav stepped away from the microphone and the lunchroom erupted in laughs and shouts, people making plans for the dance. Eli turned towards Clare and locked eyes with her, for the first time the entire lunch period and sighed.

"Clare?"

He nearly whispered her name and she looked up, twirling a piece of her short hair around her finger. She sighed.

"you're buying my ticket."

She smirked and got up, throwing away the remainders of her lunch. Eli smiled for the first time all day. Kelsey turned towards Adam and smiled.

"need a date?"

She winked and Adam nodded. Kelsey felt slightly guilty, using Adam to make Eli jealous, but Adam was all she had. Kelsey watch Eli out of the corner of her eye, and saw he was looking back and forth between herself and Adam. He looked a little dumbfound as he slowly stood up and walked away.

alright so i know this isn't much better, but i needed to get some tension going on between kelsey & eli, & a little something to fire clare up before i can start the actual drama. the next few chapters should have some more exciting plots seeing as they'll take place at the dance. :'D