The class was mostly uneventful. AC kept talking to you and you kept getting in trouble for it, but being the gentleman you are, you didn't rat her out of course.

"How chivalrous," Dave muses as you walk out of the classroom. "Did you come here on a white stallion, too? Where's your armor?"

"I didn't bring my horse today, but my armor is in my locker."

"Hyuk, hyuk. What classes d'you got next?"

You look at your paper. "Uh, algebra II, English honors, and chemistry. What're yours?"

"Damn, and here I was hoping that not all people with glasses were nerds." He says.

You roll your eyes.

"Anyway, I have algebra II, woodshop, and chemistry. So pretty much the same. I have English next term."

You feel slightly annoyed that you ended up in a whopping three of the same classes with this guy, but kind of intrigued that he's smart enough to be in algebra and chemistry. The words 'don't judge a book by it's cover' echo around in your head.

"Are you a freshman?" You ask, sort of out of the blue, but you don't really care.

"Yyyup."

Cool, okay. He's in the same boat as I am.

"Do you know anyone here?"

"If you don't count in this instance, then no. I don't think so."

Seriously? I thought he would have known some people. He seems like a popular kid or something.

"I don't either." You say, and then feel kind of stupid. He nods, blonde bangs bouncing in a way that kind of reminds you of a cartoon. You laugh. He gives you a questioning glance and then shakes his head.

"You know, hanging out with me won't exactly do a whole lot to improve your coolkid rep or whatever." You say, and he shrugs.

"Meh. I think you're probably a lot cooler than you give yourself credit for. You just gotta fake it 'til you make it, y'know."

"Is that what you do? Is this all just an elaborate facade to lure people into friendships with you?"

"Nah. I'm hella rad, tried and true. Do you even know where we're going?"

"Yeah, room 14. Riiiight... there." You say, nodding your head towards the door with a 14 in white paint.

"Sweet, this nerd comes with built in GPS. Really getting my money's worth."

You roll your eyes.

He opens the door for you, saying an 'entrez-vous, mon cherie' [after you, my dear.] as you walk in to yet another classroom.

"Mon cherie my ass." You mumble, sitting down and putting your bag on the floor. He sits next to you, pulling his phone out of his bag before setting it on the floor. He clicks it on, looks at the time, and then clicks it back off and puts it in his pocket.

"This fucking day." He says, shaking his head. "It needs to be over."

You take out your notebook and your algebra textbook, opening them both to the first page.

"I forgot my book." He says, and you grumble and put it in between you so he can see it as well. "Thanks dude."

He pulls out a red notebook with scrawling all over the front cover and opens it, revealing a pen drawing of what appears to be several black ravens (or maybe they're crows, you're not sure) flying around each other. There are thorny vines wrapping around the corners of the page and it's beautiful, yet haunting at the same time.

"Damn, you're hella good at drawing." You say, leaning closer to him (but still out of his personal space) to see the picture better.

He laughs uncomfortably. "Eh, I'm alright." He says with a shrug, making a couple of lines to define the wings of another raven.

You watch in awe for a moment but stop after a while because it's apparent he doesn't really want you to.

As the teacher drones on and on about parabolas and dimetrixes and focuses, Dave just keeps drawing, and you keep glancing over to see it.

You cringe when he calls for Dave to answer a question, because it was apparent he wasn't paying attention, and the teacher obviously noticed.

"Mr. Strider, I would appreciate it if you would qu-"

"X is 3. Y is -4." Dave says after squinting at the whiteboard for a moment, much to the teacher's chagrin.

You look at him in awe.

"How did you do that?" You hiss, looking at him and then the whiteboard in complete disbelief.

He shrugs. "It's not rocket science."

So he's kind of an asshole, but you have to admit:

He's pretty awesome, for a coolkid.