So… thanks to the other people who have encouraged me to keep writing. And CrystleIceFire – sorry about the name thing, but I did go back and edit it. I don't want people trolling on you saying, "She did spell your name write!" And thank you for your suggestions and an actually beneficial review, not that I don't enjoy reading that people just genuinely like the story. I will try to update more often, despite my having clearly failed in the past… Here's chapter 4 in (as promised) Fang POV!
Disclaimer: All credit to JP for characters and such
Chapter 4: Fang POV:
English class was a bore. I already knew that a sentence had to have a subject and a verb, and I was raised in a lab. It's just common sense, right? Apparently not.
Max didn't seem to like the class at all. When it comes to her, I'm always perceptive. It's just my nature to keep an eye out for her, even if she doesn't always like it. It's easy to tune everybody else out. The entire duration of the class she was fidgeting in her seat, her eyes darting around the room. She would send harsh glances to what seemed like everybody in the room, save the teacher. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was making her so uncomfortable.
After I diverted my attention from Max, I did start to notice that, quite often, girls were turning around to glance at me. Maybe they were hoping to catch my eye. Whatever it was, it was rather annoying. After a couple minutes of listening to the teach drone on whilst trying to ignore the girls' flirtatious glances, a girl actually tried to talk to me.
She was in the same row as me, two desks down. This meant that she had to lean over Max's desk to get to me.
She had her elbow on Max's desk and her manicured hand on Max's notebook. Her significantly long, bright pink nails put Eraser claws to shame. She looked at me and said, in a whisper to not catch the attention of the teacher,
"Hello there, it's Nicholas, right?" The girl was pretty, but a little too fake for my taste. Too much makeup, ridiculous hair, and she smelt very pungently of artificial strawberries.
"Just Nick," I said plainly and a bit curtly. Max had a look of disgust on her face. Then she turned to the girl expectantly, thinking that she would withdraw to her desk. She didn't. The girl simply threw a sideways glance at Max, turned back to me, and continued with,
"Oh, well I just wanted to welcome you as a new student and say we're very glad to have you here. I'm –"
"Hi, my name's Max, I'm also new here. Though I get the sense you're less excited to welcome me." Max said, cutting off the girl's introduction.
Max continued on, saying, "Just as an introduction, I enjoy reading, spending time with my family, and PERSONAL SPACE." Max said with authority in her tone. It was the voice she used when she was making someone do something. I knew that voice, I fell victim to it many times.
The girl just looked at Max, sneered, and returned to her seat with a huff.
I smiled and spoke quietly, discreetly leaning toward Max.
"Was that really necessary?"
She looked at me as if I was mental.
"Completely, I could have died from toxic perfume intake," she said matter-of-factly.
"Good point." I said, slouching back into my desk. Then I added with a smirk, "and we can't have that, can we?"
Max smiled. It was genuine.
The bell rang and I glanced down at my schedule. I had Spanish next and I'm pretty sure Max had Biology. Ooh, Spanish. I think Max had that later in the day. I couldn't wait to see how she handled learning a foreign language. Hmmm, maybe I would actually try to learn in Spanish class, and then I could tutor her a bit. There's an idea…. Girls love that kind of stuff, right?
Spanish was a little… weird to say the least. Then again, the whole concept of spending 8 hours trapped in a facility specifically dedicated to letting adults prove their higher intelligence over adolescents was weird to me as well. Maybe I will adjust. Then again, maybe I won't.
I walked into the cafeteria and saw Iggy, Max and Ella all sitting at a table. Ella had a couple of her friends there as well and they were all laughing and having fun. Looking at Max just relaxing and letting go was comforting to me. It made me want to try and adjust to high school.
I walked up to the table, about the sit in the vacant seat next to Max, when that little dweeb from gym class freaking swooped in! (Get it? Swooped? See, I have a sense of humor, even if it only consists of horrible bird puns) Anyway, he decided to take my seat and start chatting up Max. Of course, being myself, I put on my best stoic face, sucked it up, and sat across from Max. And it's a good thing I have self-control. A lot of self-control. It's a good thing for Sam, that is. The whole freaking lunch period he was flirting, making her laugh, and he actually had the nerve to "casually" drape his arm over the back of her chair.
Dear god, this is hard.
By last period, I was utterly wiped. Constantly having my eye out for Max as well as dodging these random girls all day, would do that to you. There was one girl in particular. What was her name? Laura? Lissa? Lizard? I chuckled at the astonishing appropriate-ness of the latter. Not that it mattered to me anyway. But when I have to convince her once and for all that I am not interested, I figure I should address her by name.
Turns out, guitar is pretty cool. I wouldn't mind finding something that I could do with my time… My teacher said I could use his acoustic guitar to practice on because I was the only person without one. And I don't know, this just felt like something that could… stick.
I checked my watch as I waited outside the school entrance doors. 3:10. Max is really running late today. Iggy and Ella left 10 minutes ago in the car and I had seen almost every student eventually trickle out of the school.
Finally, almost 10 minutes later, Max emerged from the school.
"What have you been up to?" I asked.
"Just staying after in photography," Max said.
"Has Max found a new hobby?"
"Well it doesn't beat flying by any stretch, but I do really enjoy it," she said thoughtfully.
Wow. She really does like this. Her first day and she's already hooked. I can't wait to see what she turns out, I'm sure it'll be amazing. There's no way it couldn't be amazing.
"So… Am I going to see anything you have been working on?"
"No, probably not for a while." She said looking a little self-conscious. It was not a look I often saw on her.
Dang, shot down. I can understand that, though. It would probably be a while before I would even reveal to the rest of my family that I could even pluck at a guitar.
I nodded, still in thought.
"We better get going. I – I mean WE have a lot to talk about with my mom. Let's go." With that, Max sprinted towards the cover of the trees, eager to fly home.
All right, guys, thanks for reading! I know it's short but I am just getting back into the swing of writing and am still figuring out what direction I want to take with the story. I'll try and get the next chapter up soon.
Until later,
Grace
