Hello Lovelies, I hope you're all doing okay with the weather if you're dealing with winter storms. I'm going through an intense snowstorm that has the power, heat, and water going off and on at all hours, so stay safe and don't forget to leave your faucets dripping to reduce the likelihood of water pipes bursting. Shoutout to spud329, ukitakeitalialover041757, and GirlNextDoor01 for reviewing. You three made my day 3 Also, GirlNextDoor01, a little shock factor never hurt anybody ;)
Enjoy the chapter.
Location: Keystone High
Date: Sep 6th
Time: 08:58
Emmy was, once again, not happy to be in school. This Monday marked the beginning of her fourth week. She had a few people she talked to casually in class but still hadn't met anyone she could tolerate for more than a minute. 'Ikk'som de andre' by Kaert Barn was playing in her ears. She had been meaning to look up what language it was and find the lyrics, but she hadn't gotten around to it yet. It didn't really matter to her though, she chose songs for the beat. A side effect of living with a deaf kid for so long. She was doodling in her notebook and intentionally avoiding the redhead in the seat next to her. Thankfully, he and that scrawny guy made up a while ago, so he and Wally were talking. Her teammate was evading her with the same concentration that she was implementing.
When they got back to the mountain yesterday, they all immediately went their separate ways for showers and sleep. He had been gone by the time she woke up, and she hadn't seen him again until he walked into the classroom 2 minutes ago. Emmy increased her music a bit and zoned out for the rest of class. Mrs. Espinosa inexplicably liked Emmy's writing style, so she was doing really well in English without too much effort. The 50-minute Great Gatsby symbolism discussion finally came to an end, and she threw her notebook in her backpack. She was almost out the door when someone crashed into her roughly. Emmy stumbled into the hallway and whirled around to find Wally glaring at her. Of course, it was him.
"Watch where you're going," he snipped. Emmy tugged an earbud out.
"Could you be anymore spastic, Mr. Happy Meal?" She glared.
"Could you be anymore vile, Swamp Hair?" He scowled.
"I could actually," Emmy pretended to pout, "but it would be wrong of me to engage in a battle of wits with someone completely unarmed."
She flipped her hair in his face as she walked past, and he glowered at the back of her head.
"Trouble in paradise?" Brandon snorted.
"More like the usual in hell," Wally muttered and headed to his locker.
Emmy rounded the corner too quickly and sent a warm body flailing to the ground. Dammit. Twice in one minute? She yanked her earphones out and knelt down, papers still fluttering to the ground like autumn leaves. She had hit a short, plump girl with brown eyes framed with thick baby blue glasses, dark olive skin, and curly black hair pulled into a ponytail. Emmy guessed that she was Latina. The girl had landed roughly on her ass, and people were laughing and pointing. Emmy sent warning glares at the laughing people around them and dropped to her knees, scooping up a couple books.
"I am so sorry," Emmy plucked a piece of paper off the girl's head. "Are you okay?"
The girl blushed prettily and nodded. "No, I'm sorry. I should have been looking where I was going." Emmy pulled the girl onto her feet.
"Don't be ridiculous, that was definitely on me." Emmy picked up the last book. "I'm Emmy, by the way. I'm sorry I introduced myself by knocking over your books like every teenage boy in a movie ever."
The girl smiled nervously. "I know who you are. We have Chemistry together."
Emmy smirked at the girl. "Wow, we just met, and you're already telling me we have chemistry together? Maybe the movies were onto something with the book knocking move. What's your name, Hallmark Protagonist?" She started walking toward their next class and nodded for book girl to follow.
The girl laughed softly. "I'm Zara."
Emmy and Zara did basic introductions on their way to class. Emmy gave her cover story: her parents recently died, so she and her two siblings moved in with distance relatives in Central City. Zara had lived here her entire life. Her parents had immigrated from France before she was born.
"C'est clair." Emmy said. That was French slang for, 'you don't say'.
Zara raised both her eyebrows. "Parlez-vous francais?" You speak French?
"Un peu," A little, Emmy shrugged. Way to be ignorant and assume she'd speak Spanish, East. "I'm not fluent or anything though, so don't get too excited."
"C'est genial!" Zara was already too excited. "Literally no one in this city speaks any French. The school only offers Spanish, Russian, Latin, and American Sign Language."
Emmy quirked an eyebrow but appreciated the ASL option. Batman should have put her in that class, the rat bastard. Or Batstard, she chuckled mentally before remembering that she was in the middle of a conversation. "That's…an interesting selection."
"I know," Zara rolled her eyes. The shy and reserved girl had bloomed as rapidly as a lotus flower the second Emmy spoke in French. "I chose Latin because it's mainly just reading assignments, and everyone gave me merde for not choosing Spanish." She narrowed her brown eyes at the general population of the chemistry classroom as they took seats next to each other in the back. "My family moves to France from Spain 100 years ago, and now I get shit for not being 'Hispanic enough'."
Emmy glanced around the room. The school was about 10% black, 20% Hispanic, 10% Asian, and 50% white. Honestly, considering that they were in Missouri, she had expected an even higher white percentage.
Emmy shrugged, "Les blancs aiment dire aux autres comment vivre." White people love to tell others how to live.
"Même toi?" Even you? Zara smirked at her.
"De temps en temps," From time to time. Emmy joked. "I usually only tell my siblings what to do though."
"I'm sure they love that."
Emmy sighed. She and Sage had another fight last night after Emmy recovered from the mission. Sage was getting more and more upset about living in a mountain, but Emmy didn't see any other way around it. Emmy pinched the bridge of her nose. She was wearing a long sleeve dark purple crop top and high-waisted black jeans with combat boots. It was still fairly warm outside, but she had to hide the gauze on her forearms and knees.
Zara hummed quietly, her eyes at the door, "Il est très mignon."
Emmy turned to see who the 'very cute boy' was and frowned when she saw Wally heading to his seat. Zara liked that dork? She turned back to the other girl.
"Is he? I hadn't noticed." Emmy said through gritted teeth.
Zara leaned toward Emmy with a slightly panicked look. "You two aren't together are-"
"Nope!" Emmy said very quickly and a little too loudly. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. "Definitely not. Why? Want me to wing-woman you?" Emmy adopted an overly casual grin.
Zara blushed. "No, nothing like that. He wouldn't like me anyway."
Emmy furrowed her brows at that. Why wouldn't Wally like Zara? She was pretty, sweet, and had to be at least decently smart if she were in this Chem class. Emmy voiced this to Zara. The curly-haired girl had confusion and humiliation flash across her face.
"Right. You're new," Zara turned to the front of the class as their teacher started today's class.
Emmy looked at Zara puzzled but started listening to the lecture. Her phone dinged halfway through the period. She pulled it under her desk, part of her wondering if it would be from her most infuriating teammate.
Trent – school redhead:
Heyy so the outside lunch deal ends today…you should sit with me and my friends instead of going for a joyride ;)
Emmy blinked at the screen. Not the redhead she was expecting. He had mentioned her lunch habits a few times over text or in the halls, but he hadn't overtly asked her to eat with him. The last thing she needed right now was some civilian boy potentially flirting with her. It wasn't like asking someone to eat lunch with you in a crowded school room was a date. She broke up with Akio in January, had two rebound dates so he'd leave her alone, immediately been shot off to an alien planet, and had been going on Lantern Codes and Team missions since returning to Earth. That meant that it had been about seven months since the last time she thought about anything remotely romantic or quixotic. Except for the whole…Bialya ordeal. Emmy swallowed and despised how her body temperature kicked up a notch at the memory of what she had done with the speedster. The weekend had been bizarre. They kissed without any knowledge of who the other was, and then suddenly regained all their memories and started fighting. Emmy was doing her best to pretend nothing had happened because she was not sure how to analyze actions taken without context. If she and Wally had woken up in the desert together with their memories intact, there was absolutely no way in hell they would have ended up fraternizing in the middle of a mission. But they hadn't woken up as themselves, and mistakes were made, and it was impossible to examine something that happened in a vacuum once you left the vacuum. The only option was to ignore it ever happened.
She sighed, sneaking a glance at Wally out of the corner of her eye. He was in jeans, white sneakers, and had a plaid navy shirt open over a white t-shirt. He was writing in his notebook, but his face was turned out the window, and the morning sun was caressing his profile as dust particles danced and glittered through the air toward him. The light warmed his red hair and tan skin in a soft gold that momentarily turned him into a woodland nymph. He almost looked ethereal. Emmy gagged. Nope. No boys at all. Stupid distractions. She preferred being alone anyway. At least, that was what she told herself.
Class ended, Zara disappeared out the door so quickly that Emmy briefly wondered in Central City had more speedsters than they admitted to, and she had the misfortune of walking out the door next to the clown himself. He looked at her askance.
"Have fun eating in the bathroom today."
She arched an eyebrow, "Is that what you do in there? I always thought you took so long because you had to wait for an adult to come wipe you."
"Outside lunch is over," Wally smirked, "and in case you haven't notice, you're kind of a social pariah."
"You're right. Talking to you does make me a social pariah. Good call, Wall-boy."
"Hey, don't get mad at me just because you can't make any friends who aren't fresh to the planet and trapped in a mountain with you. You do know that Megan starts school in a couple weeks, right?" he leaned, his voice cruel. "Do you think she'll still bother hanging around your caustic ass when she finally has options? You might wanna make a change."
Emmy snarled at him, bumping his shoulder roughly as she passed and went to history. Wally felt horrible for a second. He might have been overcompensating to get back to their normal level of fighting after the Bialya Anomaly. He had an inkling that he'd gone too far but shoved it down and went to third period. Emmy was seething. And then the rage turned to mild concern. Megan was a very sweet and outgoing person. She would walk into school and everyone would automatically love her the same way she walked into the cave and everyone on the team automatically loved her. Emmy didn't have that ability. She wasn't sweet, and she wasn't kind, and she rarely enjoyed talking to people. Megs would go to high school and probably become a cheerleader and be on the student council and be prom queen, and she wouldn't have time to hang out with Emmy anymore. Emmy and Supey had become friends through their frequent workouts together, but he was head over heels for the Martian. He would be gone as soon as Megs was. Superboy was stoic, but he was handsome, so the people at school would like him too even if only because Megs told them to. Emmy knew her green friend could not wait to start school. She had been asking all three of the Easts what their days had been like as soon as they got back to the mountain since they started classes. Megan wanted to get the full earth teen experience, so she would take advantage of every opportunity Happy Harbor High offered.
Emmy bit her lip. M'gann was her first best friend. She had a few friends when she was really little and still going to elementary school, but her parents had hard wired silence into her from a very early age. She wasn't allowed to talk about her home life at all, she was always covered in cuts and bruises, and she missed weeks and even months at a time when her father sporadically showed up and kept her home for training. That didn't exactly create an environment suitable for friendship fostering, and most of the kids just avoided her. It really pissed her off that not a single teacher had sent a social worker to the house. Not once. There's Gotham for you. Once Sage was born, and her father became even more violent, she used to pray every night that Batman would stop him. That Batman would come find them and save them and take them away to a house that was warm and full of food and laughter and possibly even love. But Batman had not come. And she was forced to take matters into her own hands. She swallowed as memories of the fire swirled through her head and smoke of years past made it hard for her to breathe.
Emmy locked the past back into the vault and thought to the matter at hand. What Wally said hurt, but in all honesty, he was right. She really liked Megan. She liked having a girl her age to talk, laugh, and cook with, be around, and just generally get to know. Emmy had never met someone so optimistic and happy as Megan before, and the Martian had quickly become an integral part of Emmy's daily life. She had not realized it until meeting the team, and she tried to deny it to herself, but Emmy was incredibly lonely. Yes, she had Sage and Hunter, but they were five and ten years younger than her, respectively, and she was more a parent to them than a sister. They couldn't really count as her friends when she was always on them about flossing and guilted them into eating vegetables with horror stories of changing their diapers. Now that she wasn't used to being so isolated anymore, the idea of hardly seeing Megan and Superboy anymore left her heart in a deafening silence. Just the thought of being alone in the mountain each afternoon while her friends traded her out for their better, nicer classmates made her feel sick and like all the sunshine and air had been sucked from the room, like she had experienced her first rainbow just in time for the world to become black and white. Solitude was only enjoyable when it was self-inflicted. She sighed in defeat. Emmy needed to make her own friends. She couldn't rely on her team as her only source of companionship forever. They all either had vivid lives outside of the team or were about to. She looked at the invitational text from Trent again. Maybe a civilian teen boy was exactly what she needed.
Me:
Sure
Mr. Taylor was very passionately talking about the significance of tea in the American Revolution. So much so that he didn't even send a single glare at 'Twelve', and Emmy went through the period without a problem. She was heading to drop her books in her locker when she saw the bounce of Zara's ponytail. Emmy thought about the conversation she had with herself in history. Make an effort. Make a friend.
"Hey, Zara!" Emmy called out and shouldered a few people to meet the girl in the crowd.
Zara turned around slowly, "Uhm, salut, Emmy."
"Do you want to eat lunch with me?" Emmy blurted out. She must have sounded desperate because Zara blinked in shock. Emmy felt her cheeks heat up slightly and cleared her throat. "What I mean to say is, I got an invited to sit with that Trent guy from the basketball team and his buddies and thought you might want to join?"
Zara looked uncomfortable.
"No pressure!" Emmy rubbed the back of her neck, "I'm sure you have your preferred group of people to sit with and whatnot."
"It's not that, I-" Zara halted and looked at the ground. "I can't today."
"That's totally fine," Emmy smiled uneasily. "My siblings refuse to learn French, so I could use someone to practice with if you, um, want to. Do you want to uh, switch numbers or something?" Emmy winced.
I am horrible at this. She sounded like an awkward boy trying to get a date. She liked it better when Batman just assigned her teammates she happened to like. She could enter a fight with a man five times her size whose only goal was to beat her until she couldn't move without so much as a nervous eye twitch. But now, standing in front of a potential friend and facing the possibility of rejection, her stomach was flipping like a hyperactive dolphin and she thought she might hurl her breakfast onto the floor.
"Sure," Zara looked startled but not opposed.
Emmy relaxed and traded phones with the girl. She beamed and waved at Zara as she left for her locker. Within a minute Emmy was approaching the double doors to the cafeteria. She cocked her head to the side as she approached. It had been a long time since she'd stepped into one of those. The only things she knew about high school cafeterias came from Mean Girls, she really needed to censor more of the movies she let Sage watch now that she thought about it, and Emmy seriously doubted that real life would be anything similar to Tina Fey's imagination. Emmy could hear the low din of a hundred simultaneous conversations as she walked into the room. It was a gigantic rectangle. Much larger than the one in her Gotham elementary school. There were too many circular tables to count, and there were rectangular tables lining two of the walls. The section to her right housed the kitchen and food stations, and a long line of students were wrapped around trying to get their lunch. Emmy was glad she brought her own because it didn't look like the line was moving quickly. She had been distantly aware of the fact that the school was big, the hallways were usually crowded and busy in between classes, but seeing so many students spread out around the cafeteria at once was a jarring experience. There were hundreds of teenagers in the room, laughing, eating, talking, throwing small handfuls of food at each other, wrestling. Emmy quirked an eyebrow at the chaos. It smelled like reheated gas station food and a battle to the death between Victoria's Secret perfume and Axe body spray. There were large windows on the far end of the cafeteria, but most of the lighting was artificial and coming from fluorescent orbs hanging from the ceiling. Emmy narrowed her eyes at the green grass and outdoor seating area. It was still warm enough for outside lunches to be allowed…maybe she should just ask Gibbs to make an exception for her. A boy with braces sprayed grape soda all over a guy across a round table to her left, and she stepped away from the droplets, unimpressed by the display as Grape Soda Covered Boy threw his pudding in Braces Guy's face. Emmy sighed. This was a mistake. She had Zara's number. That was enough social interaction for the day.
Emmy had just turned to walk out the door when a squeaky voice sounded, "Oh my gosh, New Girl? Buenos días. I like, totally haven't seen you in here before."
Emmy looked toward the voice. It was the tiny cheerleader from her first day. That Stacy chick who'd called herself the queen of the school. She must be the Keystone equivalent of a Regina George. Best to let bubble gum girl know that Emmy wasn't one to be pushed around and just wanted to be left alone.
Emmy gazed down at the girl blankly, "Sasha, right?"
Stacy's left eye twitched, but she smiled brightly, "Stacy, actually. You know what, you should totally come sit with me and the squad! We are always looking for potential additions to the Wildcat cheer team."
"The what now?" Emmy asked.
Stacy blinked at her in disbelief. She pointed to the logo on her red and black cheer uniform. "The school's mascot. We're the Keystone Wildcats."
"Ah," Emmy nodded. "Pretty sure those only exist in Africa, but okay."
Stacy popped her pink bubble and ignored Emmy's comment. "You seem to be…" she ran her hazel eyes over Emmy's form critically, "fairly active. Any previous Cheer or gymnastics experience?"
Emmy smirked, "You could say that."
She heard her named called above the din of the room and looked up to see Trent jogging toward her with a smile. He threw his arm around Emmy's shoulder playfully. Her head was barely to his shoulder.
"Long time no see, Stranger," he smiled down at her. He turned to Stacy. "Stace, I know you're probably trying to get Emmy on the squad, but I'm going to interrupt the recruiting and let her eat."
Stacy beamed up at Trent and twirled a long black curl around her finger. "No prob, Trent-y. See you around, M&M."
Emmy quirked an eyebrow at the nicknames and Stacy's aggressively swinging hips as Trent led her through the cafeteria room. His arm was still around her shoulder. She was about to whack it off when she remembered that she was trying to be nicer and more approachable. It wouldn't kill her to act a little more like Megan. Whatever, I'll leave it. He smells pretty good, so it's fine.
Trent grinned down at her, "You're welcome for the save, by the way. The second an attractive girl walks between Stacy's crosshairs she's pressuring her to join the cheer squad. She likes to have pretty ones under her control since she's the captain."
That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Emmy smiled back at him instead of relaying her thoughts and said, "Wear a skirt and maybe she'll try to recruit you too."
Trent threw his head back and laughed a little too loudly. He winked at her. "My legs would look fantastic in a skirt."
He reached the table he was looking for and waved his arm at it with a flourish. There were 7 guys and one other girl seated. They were all in casual clothes, and she could tell from the arm definition and lanky builds that they were all basketball players like Trent.
"These are my friends," he smiled. "Friends, this is Emmy."
She nodded at them and waved with the hand holding her black lunchbox. They waved in return, some of them snickering. This is going to suck. A voice cut through her comment as soon as she thought it.
"For Pete's sake, Trent, let go of the poor girl," the one girl was shaking her head at Trent. "It has got to be hell for her to be pressed in your armpit like that."
Trent let go of Emmy with an overdramatically offended look. "What are you talking about? I smell like a meadow." He lifted his left arm up and shoved his armpit into the girl's face. "See!?"
His call sent the guys at the table into hysterics. The girl punched him in the ribs roughly and he pulled away with a grunt. Emmy chuckled at that. The girl grinned at her and tugged Emmy's wrist to get her to sit down next to her. Trent grumbled and sat on Emmy's right.
"I'm Jessica, but everyone calls me Jessie," Jessie was still grinning. She had long wavy blonde hair in a high ponytail, ridiculously long and black eyelashes, brown eyes, and freckles all over her face. She was cute, and even in their sitting positions, Emmy could tell that the girl was at least a head taller than her. Now that she thought about it, she was probably the shortest person at the table by about five inches. Jessie continued her introduction. "I'm the only one here who matters, so don't even bother letting them tell you their names."
The guys started protesting and Jessie winked at Emmy, earning herself a snort. The boys went through brief introductions just to spite Jessie. They were all juniors and seniors and on the varsity basketball team. Emmy didn't know what that meant, but it probably implied that they were good at the game.
"So, what made you decide to join us for lunch today?" A tan brunette named Chad smirked. "Trent finally wear you down after three weeks of begging?"
Trent elbowed Chad while the table cackled. Jessie leaned to Emmy with a stage-whisper, "He's been talking about the new girl with the Camaro nonstop since you got here."
Emmy raised an eyebrow at Trent. He was blushing slightly but grinned at her. "I have not. I just think the tradition of southern hospitality is important!"
"Right, the famous Missouri hospitality," Emmy deadpanned. She told a version of the truth, "I just figured it was probably time I meet some people. Evidently my nickname includes the word 'antisocial' and I try to avoid descriptors that get used on serial killers."
Jessie laughed. "I like you, Em. And because I like you, I'm warning you now that Trent is a total waste of time."
Chad choked on his protein shake as he laughed with the table. Trent glared at Jessie playfully. "Are you trying to go another round with the pit?" He leaned in front of Emmy a bit and lifted his left arm up threateningly.
"Are you trying to go another round with the fist?" Jessie threw up her right fist, also leaning in front of Emmy. Her thumb was pointed upwards and would break if she hit anything with it like that. Emmy moved Jessie's thumb into the right position on instinct. Jessie looked at her in surprise.
"A gal needs good technique to throw a solid punch," Emmy shifted uncomfortably but kept her voice light.
Trent gasped, "The betrayal! Et tu, Emmy?"
Jessie smirked appreciatively, "Emmy clearly drinks respect women juice. If only you morons would chug some."
The boys grumbled while the girl's fist bumped.
"Hey, Emmy could stand to chug some respect men juice," a senior named Johnny smirked. "She annihilated Mr. Taylor her first day, and he's still pissed at her."
Emmy groaned and rubbed a hand down her face. She knew that guy looked familiar. He was in history with her. Suddenly the whole table was interested, and Emmy and Johnny were conveying their versions of the event to the group's delight.
"And then she kicked all his stuff off his desk and was all, 'Want to give me that A now or later, you little bitch?'" Johnny did a z-snap in the air and moved his neck sassily. Emmy's ribs were starting to hurt from the laughing.
"Did you really call him a little bitch?" Jessie beamed at Emmy in amused horror as the boys lost it.
"No!" Emmy threw her hands in the air, but she was still chuckling. "I called him 'Rumpelstiltskin' and 'Frodo'. Sheesh, get it right, Johnny."
The snickers returned. "You are one crazy chick, Em," Trent shook his head while he smiled down at her.
"For the last time, I was trying to get expelled!" Emmy rolled her eyes, but the jaunty grin wouldn't leave her face. She hadn't been around a group of teens like this before. It was fun, and it also helped that they seemed to like her.
Emmy was actually surprised by how much she enjoyed the casual camaraderie. She had experienced it with her team before, but even when they were having fun and relaxing, there was always an understood readiness. A thread of perpetual alertness interwove all their interactions as they prepared for a last-minute mission assignment or emergency to interrupt them. Yes, the team hung out some, but it was encouraged by mentors because 'the stronger their bond was, the more successful they would be on missions.' Emmy liked being around her team, but there was a sense of obligation when they hung out. They had all entrusted their lives to each other, and if finding out their favorite cookie flavors helped them stay alive, then they were more than happy to debate the merits of chocolate chips versus peanut butter. But sometimes it felt like the ulterior motives were too great, and that they wouldn't be friends at all if they hadn't been thrown together by Batman. Emmy hoped that would change as they got more comfortable with each other, they were only two months in, but there was no guarantee. This was different. This was just a group of civilian teenagers being dumb and talking for no reason other than to enjoy the passage of time. She was actually enjoying her lunch.
…
Wally was not enjoying his lunch. He had been at a table with his main friend group when Emmy entered the cafeteria for the first time. She had talked to Stacy for a second, which he had not liked, at all, and then let that Trent guy manhandle her over to his table. Evidently, Emmy had some secret comedy skills she had hidden from the team because those dolts were laughing at everything she said. Wally had started a debate about whether a werewolf or zombie would win in a fight on the moon last week, and they were still arguing about it. The table was split evenly, and the issue was hotly contested. Wally was in the middle of finishing his brilliant argument that the zombie should be capable of anaerobic respiration and would therefore only need to fight for the 10-15 seconds it took for the werewolf to die from suffocation when an obnoxiously loud 'Chug, chug, chug' chant came from Emmy's table.
Emmy and Jessie were cracking up with the boys around them. All the talk of chugging 'respect women/men juice' had inspired Chad to challenge Trent to chug the gallon of water they were each supposed to have finished before pre-season training that afternoon. They were both gulping like frantic hamsters, water trickling down their chins, seeing who could finish first.
"They're going to get hyponatremia," Emmy quipped to Jessie when she took a break from chanting.
Jessie's laugh was bright and harsh as she replied, "Let them."
Trent won by two seconds, and the group cheered for him. Emmy sent him a sarcastic thumbs up. He leaned down to her. "You know, it's uh, tradition for the winner of one of these to get a prize."
"What kind of prize?" She quirked a slightly bemused eyebrow at him.
Emmy liked the guy and his friends and all, but she wasn't interested in him romantically. He was kind of cute, sure, but his personality was too immature and bland. He just didn't seem to have any fire in him outside of his hair. Unfortunately, Emmy chose that moment to become aware of someone watching her. She looked to her right and made eye contact with Wally across three tables. He was observing her with narrowed eyes, and suddenly, she was livid. She had nine people at this table hanging onto her every word and Zara's phone number fresh in her contact list, and he had had the audacity to tell her that no one could possibly want to be her friend and that Megan would ditch her the first chance she got. That green-eyed asshole almost made her cry in the middle of history class of all places. He also happened to be the last person she kissed, and she refused to let that continue to be the case. Emmy was so furious with Wally that when Trent stood up, dipped her down, and kissed her dramatically with water still dripping down his chin, she let him. Half the lunchroom wolf-whistled and howled, and after a few seconds Trent put her back on her feet and moved to high five his friends.
Jessie smirked at Emmy, "So, how was it?"
She shrugged, "I've had better."
…
Wally's jaw clenched and his fingers dug through a half-empty can of soda, spraying the carbonated beverage all over Andre's lunch tray. There were some unpleasant memories of another girl he kissed immediately turning to the nearest jock coming to the front of his mind and he forced them down. So, in the world of high school, Emmy's a dumb jock? Why is that not surprising?
"Dude!" Andre yanked his food out of the way. "What gives? I'm the one agreeing with you!"
The three arguing boys followed Wally's glare and saw Trent dipping Emmy down in a kiss and then putting her back on her feet.
Brandon patted Wally's shoulder.
"That's rough, buddy," Jacob winced.
Wally dropped his scowl and shook his hand near the floor to sling off the soda. He scoffed at the misplaced sympathy on his friend's faces. "I don't care," he clipped tersely.
He wiped the soda from the table with a few napkins and turned to Brandon nonchalantly. "As I was saying, the zombie would win because it doesn't need oxygen to survive and can outlast the werewolf while tearing through the wolf flesh."
Brandon and Jacob simultaneously groaned, and the table returned to normal. Brandon raised his voice, "I'm telling you, man. A werewolf on the moon would be so crazy powerful that it could decimate the zombie before it suffocated."
"That's absurd!" Andre slammed his hands on the table. "You know damn well a werewolf would need more than 15 seconds to acclimate to moon gravity regardless of circumstances!"
Location: Mount Justice
Date: Sep 6th
Time: 18:09
Emmy was heading to the showers. They had just finished a weekday session with Canary. Emmy beat Artemis and Supey, but Kaldur got the upper hand on her. She was ready for a long, hot shower before she made dinner and started doing homework with the kids. Even though she was tired, there was a slight spring in her step. She hadn't heard from Zara yet, but Jessie had been texting her all afternoon and wanted Emmy to go on a run with her before school later this week. Emmy hated running, but she tried to make sure that she jogged three miles a few times a week so that if she ever needed to run away from something on foot she would be prepared. Besides, Emmy was excited to spend more time with Jessie and running might be more fun with a partner.
When Emmy answered Megan's daily 'how was school' question by talking about her new friendships and how she finally ate in the cafeteria, the Martian's face had lit up so much that Emmy immediately felt guilty for ever wanting to keep Megan to herself. She had gotten so used to protecting Sage and Hunter from the outside world, that whenever she cared about someone, she wanted to lock them up too. Megs made her retell parts of the lunch story two or three times as she giggled. Emmy made a mental note to be a better friend to M'gann in the future. Emmy's story time had eventually revealed the quick kiss, and the green girl had squealed so loudly that Superboy ran into the kitchen in a panic. Emmy tried to explain that it wasn't a big deal, but Megs kept telling her to wait for Artemis to get to the mountain to talk about it. The second the archer appeared in the Zeta Tube for training, she was yanked into a huddle by two green arms. Artemis wanted as may details as Megs did, so Emmy had spent the training session rolling her eyes at the two girls and hissing at them when they said Trent's name too loudly. In a way, it had been fun. When she dated Akio, she didn't have anyone to talk to about him except him. Emmy had never 'dished' or whatever Megan had called it. It was stupid and fun, which was evidently the theme of her day. Even if she didn't like Trent, it was still exciting to talk about him in a hushed voice just to get different reactions from the Martian and archer. She rounded the corner to enter the communal showers, they were a lot closer than the one in her room, when Wally walked out. He was wearing nothing but a white towel and flip flops. He looked up at her. They had a standstill for a moment.
"Looks like someone had fun at lunch," Wally started curtly.
Emmy rolled her eyes, "Wow, even when I take your advice for once and make some friends, I still get complaints from you."
"Funny how you interpreted make some friends as make out with some friends." His chuckle was crass. "Then again, you have been known to do that with any old stranger, so Trent makes sense."
Emmy bristled. Did he just…? "Were you saying something? I couldn't hear you over your hypocrisy."
Green eyes glared at her. He had initially thought he would have to hear talk about Zeke in the mountain, but she had shut him down her first day, and Wally had actually respected her for it. But then he was forced to listen to Artemis and Megan giggle about Trent for two hours while Emmy smirked at them, and he suddenly became very invested in each of his matches. Canary even commented that he had sparred better than normal as he left for the showers. He just shrugged at her because he didn't feel like explaining that he kept winning because he actually wanted to hit something for once. "There are plenty of other guys you could have hooked your talons into, but you had to be typical and choose a jock. But, hey, at least you were original enough not to go for a football player, right?"
"It is none of your business who I do or do not 'hook my talons into'," Emmy took a step toward him, hostility growing. "Ever thought that maybe you just don't like athletes because you aren't one?"
He scowled down at her, gesturing to his wet and toned torso. "Right…because people who aren't athletes look like this."
Emmy followed his hand with calculated disinterest on her face, "True, true. Marathon runners are known for looking gaunt and emaciated though. Join the cross-country team, and you'll fit right in."
She sent him a viciously cheerful smile, and he snarled at her.
"You should join the cheerleading squad," he snapped his fingers with fake realization. "That way, when you sleep with the whole basketball team, you'll be a cliché instead of a whore."
Emmy ticked her jaw. "You should really start saving up your money now because a 'whore' is the only way you'll ever get laid."
Robin's laughter rang through the hallway and the duo turned their glares on the interruption.
"Harsh, Em." The bird cackled again. "But fair."
Emmy growled and went into the shower.
"Thanks for the support, Rob." Wally deadpanned.
Robin waved it off but got a little more sincere, "What happened with you two anyway? I thought you were starting to get along."
Wally scoffed and walked to his room to get clothes. "Yeah, that lasted about a week."
-A special shoutout to Yoduvanchik for their artwork. They made the drawing on my profile and the new story cover image! As a thank you, I asked them to name a character, so Zara is their lovely suggestion.
Another random side note, I was a cheerleader in high school, and I promise that the way they get portrayed in the media is super fake, and we're not all dumb and mean. I was valedictorian, my friend who was a year older was her class's salutatorian, and everyone on the team was very nice (unless we were having a bad day). That being said, I think the mean cheerleader stereotype is funny and convenient, so I'm using it lol.
Until next time,
TheDarkAbyss
P.S. ukitakeitalialover041757, I threw in the 'Mr. Happy Meal' just for you. I hope things are going okay for you in Texas.
