Carrying my tray I pointedly put it down in front of Stiles before moving his over, giving him a sharp look. "Uh, move?" He stared at me open mouthed as several more of us began to join him and McCall at the lunch table they had occupied alone up until this moment. Stiles scrambled to get out of the seat he had been sitting in, clumsily making it scrape and almost tripping over his own feet to hurriedly comply with my order, making me roll my eyes despairingly for the idiot. Sitting myself down I smiled at Danny, situated next to me with a flirty glance over him. "Hey Danny."
"Hey Cordy." He answered in kind, making me brighten all the more. God. It really sucked that he was gay.
"Cordelia." Jackson greeted me frostily and instantly my face dropped into a hard scowl as he himself appeared.
"Jackson." Ugh, I seriously couldn't stand the sight of him sometimes. He too ordered someone to vacate their seat so he could sit down next to Lydia, mirroring my exact same actions with Stiles, though he still looked like a lost little lamb with so many new faces at his lunch table and wasn't sure whether or not to believe it.
"How come you never ask Danny to get up?" They guy complained as I began to pick at my salad, fishing out all the cucumber because I didn't care for it much.
"Because I don't stare at his girlfriend's coin slot." Crude but true. "So I hear they're saying it's some type of animal attack. Probably a cougar." Oh right, the whole bloodbath scene we all happened to stumble upon this morning. One of the buses looked like it had been used as a slaughterhouse last night, which was not a good look for the school and definitely would require several students to go to therapy if they had an issue with blood. Excessive or otherwise.
"I heard mountain lion." Jackson supplied and I didn't think anything of it until Lydia pointed out that a cougar was the same thing as a mountain lion, making everyone look at her before she quickly backtracked by questioning herself with a false sense of dumbness on her face. "Who cares? The guy's probably some homeless tweaker who's gonna die anyway."
"Actually, I just found out who it is. Check it out." Having searched for the news, Stiles held out his phone so that we could all see the scene of the attack, the reporter's voice coming through naming the poor guy who'd almost been eaten alive as Garrison Meyers.
"So gross, they can't even put up a screen or something to hide all that blood? Looks like whatever attacked that guy really wanted to make a meal out of him." I mused bluntly, hiding my nausea and slight worrisome fear behind a wall of contempt and coldness.
"I know this guy." McCall straightened, recognising the victim when his photo appeared on the screen. "When I used to take the bus back when I lived with my dad. He was the driver."
"Can we talk about something slightly more fun, please?" Lydia suggested and I couldn't agree more, putting my hand over Stiles's phone and making him turn it off so that we didn't have to look or listen to that any further. I was so glad I was a vegetarian, I don't think I could handle eating meat after seen all that blood this morning. "Like, oh, where are we going tomorrow night?" Turning to McCall and Allison, both of them froze as Lydia inserted herself into their plans for themselves. "You said you and Scott were hanging out tomorrow night, right?"
"Um, we were thinking of what we were going to do."
"Well, I am not sitting home again watching lacrosse videos, so if the four of us are hanging out, we are doing something fun." Oh boy, this is bound to be good. Already Stiles was making faces at his best friend, who turned to his girlfriend a little stupidly.
"Hanging out? Like, the four of us? Do you wanna hang out, like us and them?" The poor boy was a bit slow on the uptake. Sharing a look with Danny, both of us silently agreed that this was probably going to end in disaster, especially if Jackson and McCall are thrown together.
"Yeah, I guess. Sounds fun."
"You know what else sounds fun? Stabbing myself in the face with this fork." Jackson informed us all, picking up Lydia's fork to demonstrate so I sent him a malicious grin.
"Oh please, do entertain me. Who knows it may even make an improvement." In return Jackson merely sneered back at me which I accepted, unbothered and now uninteresting in their conversation as Lydia suggested bowling. It proceeded with the usual masculine competitiveness which only seemed to continue to escalate until Danny smartly changed the topic again, cooling down the tension around the table.
Finishing my food I began to pack up, gathering my stuff together to leave. "You going?"
"Yeah I have practice to get to. Singing." Shouldering my purse I kicked my chair back under the table with a deft flick of my leg before I bent down and stuck out my butt so that the jocks behind us could get a good look, pointedly kissing Danny on the cheek. "Bye Danny." I drawled teasingly, smiling at him before winking at Allison and Lydia. "See you two later. McCall, a pleasure." Stopping briefly to sardonically smile at Jackson, I arched an eyebrow testily at him. "Jackson."
"Cordelia." Ugh, such a terrible name. Throwing away anything I'd left untouched I then put my tray aside and walked out of the lunch hall in order to head to practice. The music rooms were the only place in the school I actually liked. I liked the smell of the instruments and the music sheets, the cacophony of sounds coming from tune ups and recitals all around. Choir practice was something of an escape for me, like swimming. When I was underwater I could tune everything out. When I sang, it was like letting everything back in again. My voice had a tendency to carry and sometimes would naturally rise above the others, distinguishable in its melodic sound which I would have to consciously rein in so that I could blend with the other voices even when all I wanted to do was simply let my voice burst free and sing to my heart's content. Sometimes it was like a powerful urge or instinct to sing, to allow my voice to sing with everything I had in me as the sensations of thoughts, feelings and impressions seemed to swell as they surrounded me, flowing in.
It was difficult to explain, but I always relished in the feeling yet felt a bitter sweetness at having to restrain myself from letting go. When my solo came I allowed myself to release a little of what I was holding back, focusing on the flow of the music as I closed my eyes to let it completely surround me. I could almost feel what other people were feeling, my voice warping their senses to bring all focus upon me. I really liked it when all eyes were on me, I just couldn't help it. However, when I started to get the sense of someone staring, I quickly looked towards the door which was slightly ajar to see someone standing there.
For a brief moment I caught them looking at me and recognised it as that Isaac guy but in a quick movement he disappeared, jumping away from the door to hide as if I hadn't already seen him. What a dork. Oh well, I should take it as a compliment really. When my solo ended I returned to the ensemble choir, now allowing my thoughts to take the lead so that I was only partially focused on singing. It's been a while since I've dated someone. Since Lydia has Jackson and Allison has McCall, perhaps I should think about finding myself a boyfriend. Although I liked my bachelorette status, I wasn't about to be left out on any future double dates, because that, my friend, is just so not cool.