When your hands are dirty nothing feels better than washing them. When you're hot and sticky nothing feels better than jumping into a nice refreshing pool. When all you want to do is for the class you're in to be over, hearing that end-of-period bell finally ring is just about the sweetest sound in all the land.
As soon as it did, no one waited for Coach to finish his sentence before they were all standing with their already packed up notebooks and exiting the room. I guess it wasn't a big deal because Coach seemed like he expected this, as he just simply stopped talking, whipped out his phone, and swung his feet up on his desk. I gathered up my books and walked out of the room, trying not to make it obvious that I noticed that all three of the boys had stayed in their seats.
"That's her, that's the girl I was talking about- the one who walked in with the twins this morning!" Stiles said, trying his best to keep his voice down despite the fact that he was excited he had actually been right about something for once.
"The twins never mentioned anything about her." Scott said, still staring at the back of the girl's head as she walked out of the room. "Something has to be going on. Maybe she's a part of their pack."
"If she's part of their pack why have we've never seen her before?" Isaac asked. "And I thought Deucalion only took the rarest of werewolves? She looks pretty harmless to me; I'm not sure if I believe that he'd go through the risk of turning somebody himself. Isn't it kind of a crap-shoot giving someone the bite?" The three of them didn't have to say anything to know they were all thinking of Jackson, Alison's grandfather, and Paige, Derek's childhood love interest.
"I'm sorry, did you not hear what I just said? She came into school this morning. With. The. Twins! What more proof do you need; do you wanna wait for her to sprout fangs and rip your throat out 'cause that's what I'm predicting for the near future. " Stiles was waving his arms wildly as he talked. "Besides, if you both know she's a werewolf chances are she's already smelled you both out too and has your name already added to her hit list!"
"How about we just do the most logical thing and just ask her?" Isaac suggested, putting his hands out. "We could all just be overreacting."
"Even if she isn't with Deucalion, we should still be watching our backs." Scott added in. "Werewolves hardly ever just show up, and it's rare for a lone wolf to be able to survive for an extended period of time on their own."
"Well since it was your idea to just walk up and ask all casual-like how about you go and introduce yourself to the new wolf girl, Isaac." Stiles said.
"MCCALL. STILINSKI. LAHEY. WHAT ARE YOU ALL STILL DOING IN MY CLASSROOM?"
The three boys' heads all snapped up in the direction of Coach glaring at them from his desk. They all quickly fumbled around, grabbing their books and scooted around all the desks. "Sorry, Coach." Scott said, smiling and holding up a hand to his teacher.
"Between the classroom and the field you'd think I get enough of these kids." Coach muttered to himself under his breath, returning back to his phone screen.
Before I had fully exited the classroom my hand was already in and rummaging around my bag for my phone. I had to text Aiden or Ethan; I knew the boys all knew I was a werewolf at this point. Why hadn't I put any thought into what the actual hell I was going to say when they asked me about it? Like yeah lemme just be like, oh hey y'all I'm actually Deucalion's newest addition to your rival pack; he sent me to watch all of you guys also I have super creepy dream powers so I'm probably going to predict your future at some point also you're all really attractive and also could you steer me in the direction of the cafeteria I'm famished.
I had just found my phone when I looked up and bumped into someone who had just blatantly placed themselves in my path. I looked up, startled.
"Aiden, thank God." I said.
"Hey, how'd it go? You didn't mess anything up, did you?" He asked. My brows knotted together. "What? No, of course I didn't mess anything up! Well, alright not yet. The guys all definitely know I'm-" I paused and looked up and down the hallway. "They all know." I said quieter leaning in. "What am I supposed to say to them if they ask?"
Aiden shrugged. "Lie?" He said it like it was the most obvious and easiest thing in the world.
"Lie how?!" I groaned. For starters, I was a horrid liar.
Aiden smirked. "You sure Deucalion picked you to be his insider? You don't seem to know what you're doing" I glared at him.
"Yeah, he did pick me. Now shut up and help me before I dream you up tied to a set of train tracks."
"Just tell them the story we had before: You're a family friend. And maybe your pack isn't in town. Or they all died in a poaching accident. You're the one who's supposed to be figuring all this out."
"Well excuse me I was a little busy trying to figure out how to be a fake high school student I hadn't yet put much thought into being a fake werewolf!"
Aiden's eyes drifted up to the guy walking past us who at the sound of my tone and the way I was waving my arms around, had given me a weird look and continued staring as he passed by. I immediately straightened up and raised one hand as some weird waving mannerism.
"Hey hi wuddup I'm the new girl just tryna' make my way downtown faces pass and I'm homebound."
Permanently confused and potentially scarred by my weird, the boy nodded his head once up and down very slowly and then sped up his walking past us. I practically heard the noise of Aiden face-palming himself.
"You're not very good at this whole 'normal' thing are you?"
"I AM TRYING ALRIGHT?" Aiden laughed, making my shoulder slouch more.
"You are absolutely no help, you know that right?" I whined.
"You love me for it." He said. "I got to get to class, and you should too. Try not to permanently damage your brain trying to think too hard. I'll see you later."
Aiden started walking around me and I called after him, "Oh yeah sure thanks I'll try. And I think the word you're looking for was actually loathe but hey think whatever helps you sleep at night." He held up a hand over his shoulder. I hadn't even looked at my schedule to figure out where my next class was. I turned on my heels and started walking down the hall. I hadn't made it ten steps before I heard a different set of fast-paced footsteps behind me.
"Hey."
I turned and stopped. I can only imagine what my face must've looked like but whatever it was, it was very much so the face of a girl who was a little bti lost and not totally expecting Isaac Lahey to be chasing after her down the hall.
"Uh, hi." I said, suddenly overcome with self-consciousness. I straightened up a little bit and brushed a random strand of hair behind my ear before I untucked it, which was immediately followed by a rush of self-loathing because that was such a stupid thing to do and he most likely definitely noticed me do it.
"Do you know where your next class is?" He mentioned with his shoulder in the direction back down the hall. "Coach seemed pretty annoyed no one was showing you around so I figured maybe you needed someone to, well, show you around?"
I literally didn't know what to say. Like my mind actually drew a blank. My mind. The one that makes more images a night than the entirety of Google.
"Oh, um, I'm Isaac by the way."
"I'm Kalel." I forced myself to say. "And yeah, I mean that'd be great; I have about zero idea where I'm supposed to be going." I awkwardly laughed at the end of my sentence. Why was he being so lackadaisical with me right now? Were we really just going to ignore the looming elephant in the room screaming that we were both secretly raging werewolves? I paused at the thought of a screaming elephant. Yeah I can't talk to boys but I can think of ridiculous two ton, wailing grey creatures. Why brain, why do you do this to me.
"What's your next class?" He asked.
"It's, uh," I started as I yanked the piece of paper that was my schedule out of my bag. "Science I guess." He leaned and took a quick peer at my schedule before smirking. "Looks like we have two classes in a row together then."
"Cool." I said, immediately wanting to shank myself for sounding as lame as I was.
"Follow me." He said as he started walking. I did just that, practically holding my breath the entire time. That's when the thought came into my head: I was supposed to be ninja-ing around, not forming crushes on these people. After all, Deucalion had made it quite clear that we were on too separate sides. Although as far as Isaac and anyone else was concerned, I didn't even know who Deucalion was. I was going to have to keep it that way.
"So did you just move to town or something?" Isaac started, making conversation. My eyes flickered from off into space where I was completely currently caught up in zoning out to him as he looked over the back of his shoulder at me.
"Kind of..." I said, racking around in my head for words that could be potentially used together to form the story I had settled on. "I'm a family friend of Aiden and Ethan, uh, if you know who they are."
I could be wrong, but I thought I saw Isaac laugh lightly to himself. Being a dumb blonde was hard when you were only playing stupid.
"Yeah, I know them." Something in his voice indicated that he knew better than I thought. "Are you staying with them?"
That was the ultimate question. If I was staying with the twins I was staying with Deucalion.
"No. I'm not; I'm just staying at some hotel in town." Now excuse me while I pray to sweet Lord that there is actually at least one hotel in Beacon Hills.
"Oh." Isaac sounded genuinely surprised by my answer. "Is it just you staying there?" I took an unnecessarily long pause before I responded with a simple, "Yeah, it's just me." I was surprised when Isaac stopped and whipped around. "Shit, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to pry, and I didn't mean it like, oh it's just you. I hope I didn't, I don't know, offend you or something because you're alone. Not that being alone is a bad thing, it's just-" He cut himself off. "So, um, I'm just going to stop talking because the hole I'm digging myself just keeps getting bigger."
I laughed lightly, taking comfort in the fact that he was seemingly on a certain of nervousness too. "It's okay. Don't worry, I'm not offended or anything. I'm fine being by myself for the time being. My-" I stopped completely. I wasn't sure how I felt about being the first person to bring up the whole werewolf thing.
"Your… pack?" Isaac said taking a guess. I breathed out a sigh of relief heavier than I meant to.
"Yeah, my pack; they're not really from around here. Things were getting kind of messy with a few hunters in the area so a bunch of us were sent away for the time being and I figured I'd just stay here for a while until things blew over. And since I knew the twins I thought, hey why not Beacon Hills? That place seems pretty snazzy to me."
Snazzy. Snazzy? I want to die. I am going to take a blunt object and then I am going to use it to stab myself until I die because I am so awkward I am not deserving of breathing this air in my lungs.
Luckily, Isaac chuckled and then said, "Ah, I see. Well then I hope you enjoy your stay here at Beacon Hills, the snazziest place around."
If I didn't kill myself I might actually die of embarrassment anyways so there's always that too.
The bell rang again. "Shit, is the teacher going to be mad we're late?" I asked, desperate for a change of subject. We were walking again. "Naw, people are pretty lenient around here. So long as you don't go driving a motorcycle into the building through the halls or anything like that." I raised a brow and I could tell he knew I was giving him quite the look. "Ask the twins about that one sometime." He said, chuckling. "They'll get a good laugh out of it."
I was holding my purse firmly by the strap and clutching my notebook to my chest for dear life as I stood stopped in the entrance of the Beacon Hills High cafeteria. The thought that I was going to be the new girl with no friends and nowhere to sit on my first day of school hadn't really occurred to me until it was happening. My eyes were scanning over all the tables of laughing, rowdy teenagers, none of which I was particularly willing to just approach and introduce myself to. I already felt out of place enough; I honestly don't know how Ethan and Aiden just go to school every day and pretend that they're as normal as anybody else here. As soon as I thought of that, my eyes immediately picked out the duo sitting at a table halfway across the room and a mini wave of relief washed over me. I made my way over to them.
They were sitting with a boy with dark hair who was next to, and very closely to, Ethan.
"I really ain't about this whole 'new girl' life." I said, sitting myself down on a cold stool. All three of them stopped what they were doing and looked up at me. I looked back at a table of kids who were all blatantly staring at me and talking; I had already ignored majority of the glances and people who had given me them as I walked past on my short walk here.
"What're you doing?" Aiden asked suddenly. My eyes came back to him, sitting across from me. Then I looked at Ethan and the boy who I didn't know. I blinked once before saying, "Oh, I'm sorry! Where are my manners? I'm Kalel." I smiled at the boy sitting next to Ethan. He smiled back and introduced himself as Danny.
"Not that." Aiden said, nudging me with his foot under the table. "Ow." I said instinctively although it hardly hurt. "What?"
"You can't sit with us." Ethan said bluntly.
I pulled my head back. "Who're you? Gretchen Wieners?"
Danny tried not to laugh and then failed. "Who?" Ethan asked, confused.
"Nevermind." I muttered. "What do you mean I can't sit with you? Who else am I going to sit with?"
"Go make some friends." Aiden said, raising both brows. "Expand your horizons. How else do you expect to meet anyone new here?" He kept looking off to the left and finally I followed his gazes over at a table with all three of the boys, a red-haired girl, and a girl with short brown curled hair.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Come on." Aiden said before leaning across the table towards me. "I'm doing you a favor here. You'll thank me later."
Grabbing my bag in an angry fashion, I stood up and dramatically flattened the hem of my dress. "I'm not sure I will but fine. Have it your way." I lightened my expression and turned to the dark-haired boy.
"Danny. It's been a brief yet exciting pleasure to meet you." He smiled almost nervously back at me. I spun on my heels and began walking in the direction of the lunch table that had the entire list of people I was given sitting at it. Why did this have to be my life right now?