First period, once he had actually gotten there that is, dragged on in a slow and steady pace for Isaac Lahey, providing the perfect hideaway for his thoughts to wander off on their own; wandering off to make the structure of a spider web inside of his head. One stemming vine of the web was prioritized around Scott and where he was, what he was doing, if Stiles was okay or not. Another string sought out to think about Allison; wondering if she'd managed to make it to school that day as well. He had seen Lydia Martin in the hallway post collision with the new girl, and on every whim Isaac hoped Allison was there as well. Where Lydia is, Allison is, right? Don't girls travel in groups like that?
There was a distinct branch of the web focused on the words spilling from his teacher's mouth, preparing him to have an answer ready on the off chance that she called on him; unlikely, but not impossible. Lastly, he had a small vine of the web dedicated to the very collision he'd suffered that very morning. It had been horrendously obvious that the girl was new, and he idly wondered if he had been her first interaction at Beacon Hills High; if such were the case, then he genuinely believed that sucked for her.
The thoughts had carried him away into a hazy mindset; lost in a world of swimming thoughts, and it wasn't until the obnoxious ringing of the transition bell that he dwindled back down to reality. He was the first out of the classroom with the prying thought that he would be skipping second period. Romeo and Juliet was the most cliché romance Shakespeare had ever written, in his humble opinion, and he had read it plenty of times prior, enough to skip the heavy introduction from his overzealous teacher. Once the hallways emptied, though, Isaac was reminded that the school would call his guardian, Melissa McCall, if he was marked present for one class and absent the next; and wasn't the whole point of him being present that day not worrying Melissa? Well, with that thought in his mind, Isaac turned away from his prior stride for the rarely used library, and meandered right back down the hall for literature.
He didn't walk into the classroom until after the tardy bell had rung; what he had wanted to do was make straight path toward his empty set of desks completely unnoticed, and blend himself in for the period as well, but luck wasn't on his side... as usual. "Ah, Mr. Lahey!" Came the voice of the Literature teacher once he'd taken a few steps toward his seat. "Nice of you to finally join us."
With a spin on his heel, and a tick of his lips, Isaac popped his mouth open to utter and apology, which was useless for two reasons. The first being that the curly haired brunette he had collided against that morning was standing near the teacher's desk, hugging her books to her like she'd done earlier; the second being that the teacher beat him at finding words. "Since you seem to like roaming the halls so much, why don't you show Miss O'Brien around the school?" He said. "Do something useful with your reading period besides sleeping, huh?"
"I... uh—" He'd started, he was about to argue, say he was planning on practicing lacrosse or something like that, but the quirk of the teacher's brow made him second guess himself; so did his words.
"Why don't you start by showing her to her seat?" It was with a puff of his cheeks and a sigh that he nodded and finally allowed himself to look in the girl's direction; it wasn't a long glance, though it was still enough to see a small embarrassed grin crossing her features, he simply motioned with his head to the back of the classroom and went on his merry way in that direction without waiting to see if she was following. Mainly because the whole class was staring at him, and he didn't like it. "Welcome to Beacon Hills, Miss O'Brien." The teacher said, and Isaac had to fight the urge to roll his eyes at his feigned welcoming voice. Yeah, welcome to the school that has a higher rate of deaths than grade levels. Isaac thought, manoeuvring to the linked seats and dropping himself into one.
The girl's head bobbed in a nod to his welcome and turned around away from him, hugging her books tighter against her chest before walking quite confidently toward the seat Isaac had taken; though it became very evident to the boy that she was as excited of having to be assigned a guide as much as he was to be the guide she had been assigned to as she set her books on the shared desk before settling on the empty seat by his side. "Great to see you too, tall guy." She said in that distinctive accent of hers, looking in his direction for a second with a small amused smile crossing her lips before looking toward her books.
Tall guy. It'd slipped his mind earlier when the girl spun that nickname his way, but in the cold of the collision, and then taking evasive action, Isaac had completely forgotten to even mention his name to her, who was just 'that new girl' to him. Being social wasn't exactly an old thing for him; socializing and talking with people, making friends. Nope, that's what his pack was for; they were his friends.
Still, the girl had been plowed down by him, the least he could do was tell her his name and hope for the same in return. Otherwise, whatever apology he could utter out would wind up sounding half assed and lacking of any care. "Isaac." He said, crossing his arms atop the desk and chancing a glance in her curly tressed self. "Or, 'ay, Lahey,' works just fine." The words were uttered in hushed tones, eyes focussed forward as if solely by looking at the teacher it would make it impossible for him to see that he was talking over her lecturing introduction for Romeo and Juliet. "And you, new girl?"
He was surprised to see a motion at the corner of his eye, making his eyes move away from the lecture, toward the brunette. She was smiling, any sign of amusement drained from her features, she was trying to be friendly, and her hand had raised in his direction. "Brittany." She said. "Or Brit, or Melody, or Mel; whichever you like best, I don't mind."
With his brow quirked, Isaac kept his focus away from the teacher and attempted to push his thoughts of Danny, Stiles, and Scott to the back of his mind; instead, he chose to focus on the two opposing names the girl had given him. Maybe she was a theatre lover and chose to go by a penname; or is that authors? Or... maybe her full name was Brittany Melody O'Brien. Narrowed hues challenged an inquiry at the choices before a deft hand grassed hers in a minor shake. "Well, Brittany," He nodded, "for lack of care earlier... sorry for steam rolling you over in the hallway." He let go of her hand. "Nice to see you made it out without injury." A subtle nod of his head accompanied his words before he rested his chin atop the cross of his arms, eyes honing in on the dents at random and faded doodles decorating the desk.
Her hands stretched on the desk, eyes looking in the direction of the teacher the same as his. And he thought that was it, that her attention was on the teacher, but a whispered scoffed breath left her lips seconds after his words, and in a tone much like his, she whispered a response. "You say that now, but I've got this pain at the lower part of my back that I think might bruise." The words left her easily and without thinking, not at all surprising the blue eyed boy at all.
"I hear ice solves that problem." He stated, sitting up slowly shortly after. "So does keeping your eyes unglued from a sheet of paper." Though his eyes continued to focus forward, the faintest of grins ticked just at the very corner of his lips. Whether Brittany was being earnest or not was beyond him; though he could only detect sarcasm from the brunette sitting next to him. It was with a prolonged sigh that he dipped his hand into the backpack that rested on the flood amidst their feet, lazy fingers fetching out the first notebook they could rest on. Slides illuminating the blackboard signified that the class would be taking notes; taking some participation grade for writing down useless facts that no one would ever revisit. "Got a notebook, or do you need paper?" He asked her, eyes flicking in her direction. He didn't have to enjoy the task of toting the girl around the school for an entire forty minutes, but it wouldn't kill him to push other thoughts aside long enough to show her some kindness that she clearly deserved on her first day in Beacon Hills High; especially after the incident earlier that may or may not have bruised her.
A rather diverted smile crossed her lips as her head shook, eyes falling to the desk under her hand and the ends of her curls dancing along with her negative motion, making Isaac's brow lift as he watched her reach inside her shoulder bag for an equally themed notebook –the outline of a white gas mask in the middle of a black cover and the words My Chemical Romance adorning one of its sides–, and set it on the table. "I've got notepads."
Isaac's shoulder lifted in a shrug, turning away from her and allowing his eyes to look past her notebook toward his own. Some part of him wondered what the girl had with the band name that seemed to cross every piece of seemingly everything she owned, the rest reminded him that being obsessed with something wasn't a strange feat; in fact, it was found in six out of ten people in high school. "And, by the way." The girl said in another whispered note, pulling Isaac away from his mental statistics. "I do believe there's a rule that you're not supposed to run in the hallways, yeah?" His eyes fell on her, brows raised. "Or maybe you rushed reading through those too."
He watched her open her notebook to a clear new page, and he didn't miss the neat title that adorned the cover to announce that it was the notebook assigned to Literature. He had to fight the urge to scoff as he looked down to his own notebook; it lacked organization in every sense of the word. Pages were crinkled, some doodled on, the subjects varied; math on one page, and science on the page opposite of it, Literature and Music Appreciation just pages after that, some notes on Film and Fiction, and then scribbles from College prep; nothing but lack luster skills in cleanliness, which compared to the girl's notebook seemed to be an outright mess. "Rules are made to be broken, don't you know?" He tapped his pen on the blank page he had opened in his notebook, turning away from her the moment the lights dimmed to illuminate the glow of the projector pointed at the blackboard.
Even in the dark, it was easy for the wolf to make out every detail of everyone around him; including the girl at his side, who chanced a look at him and a roll of her eyes in feigned annoyance; feigned only for the amused smirk that adorned her lips even as her head shook and her hand moved swiftly in wording motions to easily copy what shone upon the blackboard. It made Isaac look away with a partly victorious grin of his own, doodling over his sheet of paper as if he were taking notes, when really, he was drawing a skateboarding chicken. It wasn't until he'd turned away that she decided to speak. "Maybe so, but last time I checked, bones are not."
The boy dully noted that he would have to have the notes the girl so eagerly wrote at some point the next day in order to have his participation grade, but the girl's words completely interrupted whatever thought he'd been having over asking Allison for her own notes later on the day, and made him earnestly unable to do anything but crook a minute smirk at Brittany's retort. Witty, aren't you? It had almost become a personal challenge to beat her at her own verbal game. "Since when did a bruise equal a broken bone?" He wondered, shaking his head and adding a second image to his doodle, making it into a small comic. "I think it's best if you don't take Anatomy."
Even that simple word had thoughts of Danny pressing to become forefront in his mind regardless of how hard he'd tried to suppress it; Danny'd taken that class, Isaac could remember him asking one of his Lacrosse team mates for the assignment one day. Lacrosse may just be a sport, but the team was almost like a little family, and Danny was gone; it did make Isaac sad regardless of how little he spoke to him compared to most of the other guys. The sorrow of the school radiated through everyone, unignorable, ever-present, and every time Isaac allowed his mind to slip into such a void he could feel the sorrow beat into his own brain and heart himself.
It was exactly why such thoughts had to be pushed back and away until he could talk to Allison or Scott, because there were some things that simply didn't add up, and if the conversation he had had with Scott the previous afternoon had led to anything, it was the belief that Danny had not, in fact, died of his own accord. "Why, are you taking that class?" The girl's voice shook him away from his reverie; a thought pond so deep that he hadn't even noticed the girl's quietness until she had spoken once again. Silence had been his companion, and he realised that his hands had delved into tracing over the little blue lines that lay across each smooth sheet of paper in every single spiralled notebook in the world.
He'd been lost inside his own mind, and he figured Brittany had simply been occupied with the notes illuminated in front of the class; not that he even thought much about her with all the mind strings webbing inside his brain already. He knew most new students, and studious ones like his friend, Lydia, would be as set on copying every note the way the new girl seemed to be, but the silence had been slightly too long. It made his brows pinch together and his eyes shift in order to look in her direction with a seemingly confused expression that wasn't at all feigned due to the question she voiced in his direction. "Nah, Chemistry is my preferred lab." He replied, noticing the lack of snark in his own voice and feeling somewhat self conscious when the girl's surprisingly blue hues looked away from her notes and in his direction, lowering to his notebook and then lowering toward her own notes while a soft shake of her head displayed her disapproval over his lack of note taking. The motion made Isaac's brows raise and a sigh escape his lips. "Anatomy is for the real smart people." he informed her while pushing his notebook aside to flip it shut in order to pry it away from her disapproving orbs. "Like the ones who want to become doctors and such." Gentle hues flitted towards the clock that hung on the wall, watching the second hand tick by.
Did an hour really go by that fast? Isaac wondered; the bell was two minutes, maybe one, from ringing, and he deemed that close enough to slip his supplies right back into his bag, slender digits tapping an impatient rhythm on the table and unable to miss the girl's suddenly accomplished look when she set her pen down with a little grin crossing her lips; he looked down toward her notebook. Not only was it incredibly neat, handwriting curvy and fancy in ways he would only remember seeing in movies of stories dated in the fifteen hundred's, but it seemed complete; clearly she had actually finished writing everything that had been displayed on the blackboard, assignment included. "I decided to take biology." She announced, clearly willing to continue the conversation they'd invested themselves in and making Isaac's head shake slowly. "It's not the same as Anatomy, is it?" She asked, moving swiftly in order to place all her things away into that black shoulder bag of hers.
"No, Biology is cells and mitosis." He stated. "Anatomy is... well, muscles, skin, organs, bones... the extremities." That's when the bell rang; it was as if its ringing had been the go to a bull race, everyone around them started moving as if someone were holding a gun to their head and would shoot if they didn't get out of the classroom in the next ten seconds. He stood up, though, watching the girl look curiously around her with an amused grin on her lips; it was that glance in her direction that had Isaac remember he wouldn't be attending reading period that day, for he'd nearly started making his way for the door. He had to show the new girl around.
Great. The straps to his bag made smooth movements in the way they were flung over his shoulders, and slender digits wrapped around them, basing at the bottom just as a hand placement. Weight rocked back onto his heels as he turned in the girl's direction, patiently waiting for her to move; a few moments later, once all her things were neatly placed inside her bag, she held the two books she seemed to be happy to carry around with her all day against her chest, and nodded in Isaac's direction prior to moving along toward the exit.
The boy discovered the use of the two books when, a few beats later, he stood with the girl outside their classroom, debating hues ghosting left and right as he pondered which direction he could lead the girl in first. "Let me see your schedule." On cue, he held a hand out for the paper he required. It didn't take long for a surprised expression to raise her brows upward even though she opened one of the two books to take out the paper.
"Please?" She said, closing the book and offering the paper to him. From the other book she pulled the school's map. "Did no one teach you the two magic words when you were a child?"
Pressing his lips together with a slow exhale through his nose, Isaac faced the girl with a feigned look of innocence written across his features. "May I please see your schedule so I can, y'know, show you were your classes will be?" Again, he lifted his palm up and graciously took the paper she offered him. The map was there as well, but he disregarded it. Odds were that the classrooms weren't up to date, and he could map Brittany through the school probably easier than any map could.
He watched her place the map back in the first page of the two books she held and then watched her manoeuvre in order to place the two books inside her bag. Had she really just had those books out so she didn't have to fold her schedule and map?
Clearly showing the new girl around would be an interesting task.
To Be Continued.
