Wow! Two updates this week! I've officially surprised myself. This chapter is going to sound like a filler, but I think it's important to character development. And people...over 200 hits and only 8 reviews?! I didn't want to have to beg, but I will! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review! PLEASE!!! please? :-) So anyhoo... R&R. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyer. If I was, I probably wouldn't be writing fanfiction for...free!
Walking through the halls of the Quileute Tribal School had never been too wonderful of an experience. Today was not going to be an exception. As it turns out, having your best friend groveling behind you as you make your way to the section of the school reserved for the older kids, affectionately deemed LPHS, is quite annoying.
"I'm SO sorry that I wasn't in town for your grandmother's funeral, Kim. I would've been there if there was any possible way for me to get back home."
"Why on earth would I be mad at you Lindsay? You we're visiting your sick grandpa." I had told her this same exact thing at least six times and in four different ways. And yet she still continued her little siege on my sanity. Thankfully, we had to part ways for first period, and I probably would have been elated if it hadn't been for the bundle of nerves that assaulted my stomach as soon as I walked in the door.
This was nothing new. It had been happening ever since my grandmother relayed her vision to me about my true love, because it was just so wonderful and she was just so happy for me that she couldn't keep it to herself. Never mind that I was in the fourth grade when she told me, and just a simple girl still learning simple grammar and how to use her not-so-simple-gift to lift a simple jar of cookies off the top shelf in the kitchen-simply.
Sometimes I really wish she would have kept that particular occurrence to herself. Not that I minded that I was the 'imprintee' of a sensitive, hot, smart, hot, did I mention hot?, HOT…
Ahem.
I was mentally debating on ways to get him to move from my spot when the wonderful (insert sarcasm) Mrs. Arroyo called me over to her desk.
"Kimberly!" Oh, how I loved to be called Kimberly.
"I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed proofreading that scholarship essay. Those metaphors were very elegantly composed."
"Thanks, Mrs. A."
"You're welcome, dear. If only your classroom journal entries could be so well thought out…"
She trailed off, and, taking that as my cue to leave, because I didn't want to tell her the real reason my journal entries sucked, I moseyed back over to my desk as she called the class to order.
As long as I sat next to Jared Dakota Talon, any and all work that had to be completed during class would lack significantly in the proficiency department.
The period went by surprisingly fast. Too fast for my liking, but third period would come soon enough, I told myself. Linds met me in the hall outside of my classroom, and I was amazed that she had been able to make it there from Chemistry so quickly.
"Kim!" Oh God, she was waving her arms. Like I couldn't see her. How could I not? She had insisted on buying that hideous, eye-burning, neon green polyester raincoat she was now clad in during our last outing to Port Angeles. I rushed over to her, jerking her arm down before she could mortify me to the point of the color of my cheeks not being a color appropriate for even the Crayola 150 count Telescoping Crayon Tower. Kind of like the color of her raincoat.
"Do you have any idea how strange these people think we ALREADY are?"
"Jeez, Kim. Pissy much?"
"Sorry, it's just…nothing." Not only was it mortifying, but attention wasn't something that I often welcomed. You know, because of my 'condition.'
"Okay, so, change of subject, how was lover boy today?"
"Lindsay Elizabeth Acres! I can't believe you just said that!"
"What?! Holy crap, are you PMSing or something?" She started laughing.
"Remind me why we're friends again…"
"BEST friends, and it's because our souls have been drawn together by the cosmos, meant to be as one for the rest of our sentient lives." I couldn't contain the laughter that bubbled up from my chest.
"Have you always been this weird?"
"You tell me. You've known me my whole life." She was trying to seem offended, but I knew better.
"Go ahead and laugh. You know you want to." She gave me one of her signature side glances, and started giggling.
"If I'm weird, what does that make you?"
"The kind-hearted nerdy girl who feels sorry for the stargazing schizo." We started laughing harder.
"The 'cheer up emo kid' is staring at you again, Lizard." That sobered her up pretty quickly.
"Ugh. You know something's wrong with you when the only penis you can attract is attached to a crack-selling bozo who has twenty thousand pimples from the unsuccessful trials of steroids he thinks are working. And stop laughing, Kimberly! It isn't funny!"
"Actually, it is." I was still laughing, and she was still scowling as we walked through the door to pre-calculus.
Ah, the joys of math. I'm pretty sure I was the only person aside from Gerald Atner who didn't travel to la-la land during this class.
Ah, Gerald Atner. My academic nemesis. The bane of my existence. The one area of my life that I was allowed to shine in and he had to go and ruin it by challenging me.
Don't get me wrong, I like a little not-so-friendly competition now and then, but he was just downright vexatious. Yes, it's a word. Look it up.
Ever since the ripe old age of five, this kid and I have been constantly trying to one up each other. I, of course, usually came out on top. Other than the fourth and seventh grade spelling bees, the Mathletes tri-county scrimmage before regionals, and the final exam for advanced biology, he'd gotten schooled. And I'd say that's pretty damn good to have gone to school with him for twelve and a half years.
"Kimberly." Speak of the devil, and he shall stalk over to your desk and leer at you through his color-contacts.
"Gerald." He continued to stare at me with those beady eyes of his. And then his girlfriend, who sits beside of me, by the way, put in her two cents.
"Well hello, Gerry-ferry." Oh. My. God. Was she seriously batting her eyes? Yes. Yes she was. Disgusting.
How is that even Gerald Atner can get a girlfriend, albeit an extremely atrocious and overbearing girlfriend, when I can't even get a guy to talk me unless he wants to cheat off my tests or copy my homework?
"Please don't call me that, Mandy-moo cow."
What's even more disturbing than his nickname for her, other than the fact that they actually call each other these names in public, is the fact that 'Mandy-moo cow' sounds like a freaking insult, and yet she just eats it up, batting her eyelashes and giggling and what not.
I couldn't believe they would act like this. I couldn't believe that society had accepted the idea of them acting like this.
Gerry-ferry went to open his mouth, but the loud buzzer thing sounded through the school, and he moved to take his seat.
"Later, Kimmy Neutron." I gave him a tight lipped smile at his use of the name my peers had given me after I got the highest score on the PSAT in ninth grade.
Pre-calc dragged on forever, and nothing new happened in advanced U.S. history. No, I was the same stuttering, blubbering, blushing Kim as usual when I'm in the near vicinity of Mr. Talon.
Honors Chemistry was a bit unusual though. One of my other close friends, though not as close as Lindsay, Danielle Merran, is one of those people with an extremely bubbling personality. I love her, but sometimes she can be very overwhelming, especially if you aren't in the mood to deal with her.
So, while in the midst of thinking how interesting it would be to jump up during one of Mr. Creekside's chemistry lessons and run screaming from the room, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
"Kim." Crap. "Psst. Kim!"
"Is there a problem back there Miss Merran?"
"Oh, no sir. I was just going to get Kimberly (blegh!) here to explain how to balance charges. Carry on!"
Mr. C. looked scandalized, but Dani turned back to her textbook and he resumed his monotonous lesson.
As I went back to thinking how much better gnawing my own foot off and eating it would be than this class, I heard the seat beside me, which was usually unoccupied because of Sloan Abbott's blatant refusal to participate in anything educational, scrape against the graying tile floor.
"So Kay Jay, about balancing those charges…"
"Cut the shit Dan. What gossip just couldn't wait until we go 'socialize' in the parking lot in thirty minutes?"
"Well, I just wanted to let you know that I, Danielle Lee Merran, am talking to Blake Jessup…exclusively."
"Okay, and…"
"Kimberly Jenae Connweller! You're supposed to be one of my best friends!"
"And?"
"Ugh. Never mind.
"Okay. Thank you."
"Kim!"
"Mrs. Merran, please return to your seat."
"Fine."
And so ends the most eventful part of my day, other than almost getting run over by Taylor (bitch!) Travers' Prius while walking to my car.
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