Chapter 2

Always Left Out

Aria trudged down the hallway along beside Vanessa as they both headed to their homeroom class. She could not help but feel down about not getting invited to Kendal's party. Vanessa looked over and noticed Aria's crestfallen expression.

"Oh, come on. You don't want to go to that party anyway. You'll be in the same house as Kendal. Kendal!"

Aria knew Vanessa was right. Kendal was not exactly a pleasant person to be around. She never understood how Kendal got to be so popular. She's mean to everyone, even her so called friends, Lacey and Karin, and her boyfriend, Ian. Another thing that puzzled Aria was why Ian was still dating Kendal. Back in middle school, when he first asked her out, Kendal was significantly more pleasant to be around. But now, she constantly would tell him and to do and call him stupid. Who would put up with that? Aria supposed it was similar to the reason she wanted to get an invitation to the party, to be socially accepted by her peers and unfortunately for this school, Kendal's the one who decides who is cool and who is not.

The girls and Walter went in to their homeroom class and sat down together. The first thing Aria noticed about the teacher was that she was about eight months pregnant.

"Hello, class," the teacher clapped her hands to get everyone's attention. "I am Mrs. Norbert. Many of you will have me again later for English. I will go ahead and tell you now, the first piece of literature we will read is Romeo and Juliet ."

Most of the boys groaned, not thrilled about reading a love story. Aria did not mind that, but she was not entirely comfortable with Shakespeare.

"Now class. This is a beautiful story about true love. For those of you who have never read the play, please, at least give it a chance." Mrs. Norbert then spent the rest of the ten minutes of homeroom discussing the school's policy, academic honesty, and when tryouts for sports and cheerleading would be.

When the bell rang, most of the class got up and left. Aria noticed Vanessa remained seated.

"Aren't you coming?" Aria asked.

"I have English this period," Vanessa replied.

"Oh yeah, that's right. Well, see you later."

Aria and Vanessa had compared schedules and found that this year besides homeroom, they only had biology together. Aria just hoped that Derek and Kendal were not in many of her classes, but knowing her luck they would be. At least she knew for sure they would not be in Band, which was another positive attribute of that class. Plus, Walter was in Band as well. The only thing that would make it better was if Vanessa was in it, but Aria knew that would never happen.

As Aria walked to her locker, she overheard Ian and Kendal.

"So we're reading Romeo and Juliet. It will be like reading about us, won't it?" Ian winked at Kendal.

"You know they both die at the end." Kendal looked at him sharply.

"What? I never actually read it."

"It's common knowledge, you idiot."

Aria rolled her eyes. Kendal always got so annoyed with Ian's dumb remarks. She wondered why Kendal didn't just date someone smarter. Aria sighed as she continued to walk on to her next class. Walter walked up behind her.

"Are you in Latin next?" Aria asked hopefully.

"Yes, I am. Do you want to compare schedules?"

"Sure." Aria glanced at Walter's schedule. It appeared that after this, they only had Biology and Band together. Well, at least that's something.

The rest of the day went by rather slowly. All the teachers talked about what there class was going to be like and went over some rules. Aria was happy to finally get to Band, her last class, but then disappointed when she realized they were not going to play today. Oh well, at least after this, she would have survived her first day of school.

Once Band let out, Aria and Walter walked together to their lockers, which happened to be next to each other.

"Well, today wasn't so bad, was it?" Walter began to pack up his backpack while talking.

"Maybe not for you. It turns out I have every single class except Band and Gym with either Derek or Kendal, some of them with both. They are the very two people I want to avoid more than anyone."

"If you want to avoid Kendal so much, then why were you disappointed when you didn't get invited to her party?"

Aria looked over to see that Walter honestly look befuddled by this. He just did not get why it seemed so important to be popular. "It's just that…uh, I don't know… hey Vanessa!"

Thank goodness Vanessa showed up at that moment. Aria just could not come up with a way to explain why she wanted to be invited to Kendal's party to Walter.

The girls bid Walter farewell before heading towards the exit.

"Hey, lets go out the side door," Aria said as she noticed Derek by the front door.

"You know you can't avoid him the whole year. Maybe if you start standing up to him, he won't bother you anymore."

"Somehow I doubt that."

xXx

The first week of school dragged on at a slow pace. Aria found herself putting a lot of effort into avoiding both Kendal and Derek. Both of them would call her names and either make fun of her hair or extremely fair skin tone. It real got old after a while. She deeply wished that she had more classes with Vanessa and Walter . The only times all three of them were together was Biology and lunch.

Aria walked into her history class and sat by herself close to the back. She went ahead and got out her homework, when Ian sat down in the desk next to her.

"Hey, did you get number 3?"

When Aria realized her was talking to her, she quickly glances at her homework. What year was the Declaration of Independence signed? That question was not too hard to find in the text and most people already knew that.

"1776," Aria answered.

"Thanks, man," Ian scribbled down the year. "Hey, are you coming to the party tomorrow night. We're having it at Kendal's."

"No, you see, I didn't get an invite." Aria supposed Kendal failed to inform Ian on who was invited and who was not.

"What do mean? I thought everyone was coming. You should come. Kendal won't care."

"Hey, dude, why are you talking to Pippy Longstocking, here?" Derek came in and sat on the other side of Ian.

Aria rolled her eyes. In elementary school, Aria's mom would always do her hair in pig-tails and Derek, of coarse, starting calling her names because of it.

"I was just inviting her to the party. Come on, dude, she's cool."

"Without asking Kendal?"

"Hey, I don't need to ask her for every little thing."

"Whatever, man. Your funeral."

Before Ian had a chance for another retort, Mr. Mosby ordered the class to silence and began the lecture. Aria tried her best to pay attention but she just could not concentrate. Ian actually invited her to the party. This has to be the best Friday ever.

When the bell rang, Aria practically ran to Biology and sat between Vanessa and Walter.

"Guess what! Ian just invited me to the party tomorrow night!"

"Really! When?" Vanessa exclaimed while Walter sighed and went back to reading the text book.

"Just last period. He asked me what year the Declaration of Independence was signed and then after I gave him the answer he asked me if I was going to the party and when I said I wasn't invited he said I could come!"

"You mean he didn't know what year the Declaration of Independence was signed?" Walter looked up from his book.

Vanessa rolled her eyes. "That's not the point Walter!" She then looked back at Aria. "So are you going to go?"

"Of coarse! You should come, too. Since I got a last minute invite, it's probably not a big deal if you come too."

"Well, I don't know." Vanessa was not as interested in going to parties with the popular kids as Aria.

"Come on please! I can't go by myself."

"Ladies, if don't don't mind, I would like to begin my lesson now." Mrs. Stevens looked down at them sternly.

"Sorry," they muttered and fell silent.

At lunch, they resumed their conversation.

"So?" Aria looked at Vanessa with pleading eyes.

"Oh, alright. We'll just get this out of our system. I think after this you'll realize that all it's only a bunch of kids that think they're cool gathered around dancing and drinking."

Aria turned to Walter. "What about you? Are you going?"

"To a party full of people I don't like and don't like me. No thank you."

"Come on, its part of high school." Aria opened her lunch box. "I forgot to pack something to drink. I'm going to go buy a soda."

As Aria walked to the vending machine, Kendal approached her.

"Aria. I need to talk to you about tomorrow night."

"Okay, sure." Aria had a bad feeling about this.

"You see, Ian was confused. I have already planned for a certain amount of people to come and we just don't have enough chips and drinks so you can't come." Kendal faked smiled at Aria. "You understand, right?"

Aria thought about offering to bring more food and drinks or maybe making brownies, but she knew that would only make her look desperate. She just nodded and walked gloomily back to her table.