Chapter 2: Where Savannah Crane Makes an Unusual Statement About America

The next day. . .

"Hey, if you'd stop looking up the Avengers on Tumblr for two seconds, you'd see that Clayton Summers was coming this way."

GAH! Just when I needed it the most, my brain decided to go on break and leave my body. My heart thudded in my chest; what the hell was I supposed to do? Quick! Screamed every fiber of my being, oblivious to the fact that my brain was somewhere eating PopTarts. Hide your nerdiness!

I fumbled with my phone, facing my locker with my back to the crowd as I turned the screen off and shoved it into my pocket. And then I remembered that I was wearing my school uniform (because I was in school). . .and I had no pockets. My phone crashed against the floor, back popping off and battery flying.

"Damn." Jonesy tisked. "You're really horrible at this." "Oh come on!" I groaned quietly to myself. I bent down, snatching up my phone and its back before reaching for the battery. But someone reached it before I did. I watched as my battery was snatched up by a face I couldn't see.

I looked up and was frozen by the sight of a pair of dazzling brown eyes. God those were some gorgeous eyes. A pale, light brown; the delicious kind of brown, like the color of caramel that you drizzle on top of ice cream. I realized a little too late that I was gawking. "Umm. . ." a baritone voice began awkwardly. "This. . .this is yours?"

My brain choice then to return, only to tell me that I was staring at him like an idiot. "Huh?" I murmured. "Yeah! My battery. That's. . .that's my battery. Yup. Good ol' battery. Uhh. . .thanks." I outstretched my hand and was very embarrassed to find it shaking. Clayton Summers dropped my battery in my palm, avoiding eye contact with me before quickly shoving his hands in his pockets, turning, and walking away.

Yep. I'm pretty sure he hates my guts.

Still, my knees were quaking and my head was spinning. My eyes wouldn't move from the spot where he once stood. "He touched my battery. . ." I whispered with a love filled sigh. "Eew," Emmy murmured. "Please, never say that again. Just. . .so wrong." I felt Jonesy repeatedly poking my left arm and giving me a teasing kissy face. "He loooooves you!" she sang. "He thinks your preeetty. . .he wants to maaaarry you, he wants to loooove you!"

Could that be any farther from the truth?

"Oh shut up!" I snapped swatting her fingers away. "We all know he hates me. I spilled a slushie on him, how couldn't he?" Emmy hitched her shoulder bag higher on her shoulder. "You tripped because his size three-thousand and eight shoe was in the middle of the aisle." She said sardonically. "Personally, I think he tripped you on purpose." I glared at her angrily.

"Would you please stop complaining about his feet!" I hissed. They're probably gorgeous feet! I mused in my head. Jonesy was smirking, which meant she was about to say something really gross. "Hey," she began. "You know what they saw about boys with big feet—" "JONESY!" Emmy and I chorused before she broke into hysterically loud laughter.

"Oh please, Johanna, stop with the hyena laughter." A drawling, valley girl voice echoed from behind me. I rolled my eyes because I knew exactly who it was. I turned, finding myself face-to-face with Erica Grey and the Wannabes. Let's see. . .how do we describe Erica Grey. . .picture your usual snobby blonde popular, queen bee sort of girl.

All you have to do is make her a brunette, extremely rich, give her some glasses, an IQ of 203, make her a teacher's pet, and there you go! Erica Grey. So, basically, she's me without the glasses. Which is probably why we hate each other so much. If it wasn't for my love for Avengers and my eccentric, "anything-to-be-anything-but-mainstream" qualities, we would have been best friends.

We almost were best friends.

Almost.

Erica looked me up and down, her hands on her hips and her lip stuck out in disapproval. Her Erica-Wannabe friends—Jenna, Violet and Savannah—did the same. "Hello Erica," I said, attempting to be friendly. "How was your weekend?" My compassion and nicest was revoked my Erica's palm in my face. "Save the act, Wilde," she sighed. "I hate fake people. Look, all I did was come over here to tell you that you better not have forgotten about our science research."

I dug into my bag as Jonesy asked smartly; "Would it kill you to answer a question, Erica? Geez, she just asked how your damn weekend was." "Would it kill you to keep your mouth shut?" Savannah quipped in a sweet, sugar coated voice. "Hey!" Emmy hissed. "That's my friend you're talking to, and b—" I snatched out the printed white paper, holding it in the air. "HEY." I interrupted. "Let's not have a fight in the hallways here, people. Erica," I outstretched the papers to her. "Here's the—"

She snatched them out of my hand. "All I needed." She said dryly. "Alright. I'll work on the project, and we'll get an A, as usual." She looked me up and down again, seemingly more bored than anything. Emmy and I were stuck as partners in science.

I don't know how it happened, it just did, and whenever we have a project or something, we work at a distance. I do the research, she does all the legwork and craftiness. And we always get an A+ because Eric and I are two of the smartest people in the classroom. But suddenly Erica flashed us a smile and waved. "Bye-bye now sweeties!" She called before walking off, her followers going behind her in a single file line.

Savannah stopped in front of me, her platform shoes making her a good four inches taller than me. "Oh yeah," she whispered quietly. "And Clayton Summers? Forget about him. There's no way he'd want a nerd like you." My fists balled at my sides angrily. Nerd was one word I hated. Especially coming from people like Savannah Crane. "And why not?" I replied, trying to sound nice and reasonable, even though I wanted nothing more than to rip her head off.

Savannah sneered down at me before glancing up and realizing that her posse was leaving her. "Because I. . .am what America wants the world to see," she whispered sharply. "And you. . .are what America wants to hide." And with that, she flipped her ebony black hair in my face and sashayed off.

I stood there, unsure of what to do yet again. Behind me, Emmy scoffed. "Was that supposed to be some kind of smart, deep quote?" she asked. "Uhh. . ." Jonesy murmured, thoroughly confused. "I don't know. I'm confused. . .so that means it had to be deep." "No Jonesy, that was stupid." Emmy corrected. "You can't let that bitch get to you, Olivia." I didn't say anything; I really couldn't.

In a way, Savannah was right, wasn't she? Her crew was the girls who were their skirts short, their blouses tight and their shoes with heels up to the hilt. They were the ones with perfect skin and beautiful hair and flawless bodies. They were the ones you saw in magazines, on TV and in movies.

And me? What was I? The nerd, the underdog. And I knew that, usually, underdogs ended up with the guy and they got everything they wanted in the end but. . .I really wanted to be pretty. I wanted to be the "perfect" one for once, not the nerd. I wanted to be the girl who had guys tripping over themselves and fighting to get to her.

But I'd never have that, would I? I was too ugly for that.

"Olivia?" Emmy asked, sounding worried. I didn't look at them. I started quickly down the hall, clapping my hands as I went. "Wheels up," I murmured to them in a hardly audible voice. "Rock and roll."