Shortly after I had finished my lunch, I had a minor heart problem that forced me to tell my dad to take me to hospital.

I was stuck in there for three school days and by the time I returned to school it was already Friday. I doubt Dennis would even remember me now, most people forget my existence after 1 day.

My dad pulled up to the school with his usual worried expression.

"Are you sure you want to come to school today? You can always call in sick."

"No I missed enough days already. I'll see you later dad."

"Bye sweetie. Call me if you're not feeling well."

"Bye dad."

I said with a sigh as I shut the car door behind me and headed to the school. I was eager to be in more normal environment.

"Hey!"

I kept walking lost in thought.

"Hey Octavia!"

I froze in surprise and turned around to see Dennis waving to get my attention from a pick up truck.

"Dennis! Hi."

I waved awkwardly as he jogged over to me.

"Hey. I haven't seen you around much. I was starting to wonder if we were both missing each others classes."

"Oh no, I've been out of school this past week but I'm back now."

"You were out of town?"

"Something like that..."

The warning bell rang and we rushed into the campus to get to class on time.

"What class do you have this morning?"

"Anatomy."

"Wait. In room 23B?"

"Yes with Miss Gutierrez?"

"No way. That's my first period."

"What?"

He wasn't lying as we both walked into anatomy class and he sat down at his desk with his name on it. I wasn't sure to sit in my regular seat in the back or in the spare desk next to him. But feeling everyone's eyes on me I quickly sat down in the spare desk next to Dennis and pulled out my anatomy textbook.

"Now that everyone is here, good morning class, today we'll be learning about the heart and what it does to help the human body function."

Of course I knew everything about the heart seeing as how it affected my every waking day. But seeing it being discussed on the board did little to help my already wavering mood.

"Octavia, how many valves does the human heart have?"

And there we go where we pick the one person with a heart problem to answer a heart related question. But I just briefly answered it with no issue.

"4 valves. Aortic, mitral, pulmonary, and tricuspid."

"Very good. And what are their functions? How do they aid the heart?"

"They all contribute to aiding blood flow through the heart and help produce the heart beat sound since they also open and close."

"Excellent Octavia."

"Or maybe little miss hotshot just read the text book for the answers?"

I flushed red from embarrassment as the class snickered at me from Lacy's remark.

"Says the girl who can't tell the difference between an elbow and the knee cap."

I turned in surprise to find Dennis defending me. Lacy flushed red in anger and glared at me with her demon looking eyes.

"Okay kids enough. Leave this pointless arguing outside my classroom."

"Yes ma'am."

Dennis slipped a note to me without making it obvious. I placed it inside my textbook and opened it curiously. It read: "I'm impressed you actually memorized that. Much better explanation than Lacy could ever come up with. And she reads the textbook while she says it."

I nearly bursted out laughing and wrote a response to Dennis.

"This is true. She once made a report on the human blood vessels and everytime she couldn't spell it right she wrote blood clotting just because she briefly scanned her textbook the day we were submitting our papers. The teacher made her show it to the whole class and everyone never let her hear the end of it."

Justin snorted quietly before wrote his response and handed the note back to me.

"No way. Are you serious?"

"Yes."

We both looked at each other and snickered quietly as the teacher continued the lecture.

~

It turned out I only had Justin for one class and Lacy with three as usual. Here no one would come to my defense since they were all afraid of her parents influence or worse the teachers hated me and would even commend her for patronizing me.

The reasons she hated me specifically I did not want to begin caring to understand. To me she was just shallow, arrogant, and had a superiority complex. I guess maybe she hated me just because I was smarter than her.

After an excruciatingly long math class it was finally time for lunch. I was putting my textbooks away when I failed to notice a foot waiting to trip me and I fell facefirst on the hard floor.

Lacy looked down on me with her usual smug grin. Metaphorically I guess that's how little she values herself because she has to have someone to look down on.

"Don't forget you little loser. That cutie only likes you because you're smart. But truthfully you aren't the least bit attractive. How long will he even talk to you before he finds an even more beautiful girl to wrap his arm around?"

"Beautiful? I don't see anyone here that fits that description."

"Why you little-"

"You again?! How many times do I have to tell you to leave her alone?!"

Dennis said as he towered over the girls enraged.

"I'm only going to say this one more time. Leave her alone. Or you're going to enjoy the football game from the garbage bin."

They all ran off screaming because we all knew they cared about their appearances more than anything.

I stood up and Dennis dusted off my shoulders. I was wearing a striped shirt with a denim jacket and pants and I had my brown wavy hair hair tied up in a scrunchie.

"What was their problem?"

"Oh just rich girls being rich girls. Pay them no mind."

"They seem intent to keep bothering you though. I think it would be best if you stick with me so they leave you alone."

"I'll take any back up I can get when it comes to them."

"Hahahaha. With that said you want to share a table together?"

"I would love that."

~

Even though I was sharing a table with Dennis, Lacy still had not finished with me yet. So she had one of her friends walk by our table and accidentally spill her milk on me.

"Ack!"

"Hey!"

"Oops sorry." The girl had said unapologetically and patronizingly.

Lacy's laughter rang out across the cafeteria as she pointed at me and her posse laughed with her.

"Octavia here take my napkins while I go get some more." Dennis said before running across the cafeteria.

"Thanks." I mumbled as I struggled to wipe the milk off my eyes.

I waited a few minutes for him to come back when I spotted him out of the corner of my eye, standing right behind Lacy. He gave me a quiet gesture as he pulled what looked like a wad of ice out of a cup and slid it into the back of Lacy's shirt. I sat there dumbfounded as I watched the most hilarious scene unfold.

"AIEEEEEEEEE! AUGH! COLD! COLD! COLD! GET IT OFF!"

Dennis managed to slip away in time as Lacy made the most awkward almost break dancing like moves to get the ice out. A few of the cafeteria patrons were laughing at her, and her group struggled to help her because she wouldn't stop freaking out.

I couldn't hold back my laughter as I wiped my eyes away of hysterical tears. Dennis smiled proudly as he handed me a handful of napkins and sat back down.

"That was so rad Dennis. Where did you get the ice from?"

"My gym-mates had mentioned before how they all had dated Lacy and she had unceremoniously broken all their hearts, and all had a mutual hatred for her now. So when they saw what they did to you just now, they gave me a handful of the ice from their icebox and told me to prank her and I did just that."

"Your gym-mates saw that? Where are they?"

"They're over there, about 5 tables away."

I looked around until I spotted a group of basketball jocks laughing at what happened to Lacy. One of them spotted me looking at them and they all waved eagerly at me. I flushed as red as a tomato and shyly waved back at them.

"They seem nice."

"Yeah, they are the best group of friends a guy can ask for. They helped me out a lot since I transferred to this school. I wouldn't have any friends if it weren't for them."

"What school did you transfer from?"

"Bennington High. About a couple of hours away. I got transferred to be closer to home and honestly the students over there were not as nice as the ones here. Over there they loved to mention my hertiage quite a lot and I was outcasted because of it. At this school nobody cares about superficial stuff like that and I really felt at home."

"Yeah I know how you feel. Here the students think I'm stuck up because I miss a lot of classes."

"Wow how 1950s of them."

"Hehhehhahahahaha."

"Heheheheheheh."

We sat there and ate in comfortable silence. This is really good salad. My dad always told me what I could eat and what to look out for in my school lunches.

"Are you going to the football game tonight?"

"Hmm?" I said as I popped a slice of tomato in my mouth.

"The football game. Are you going?"

I didn't want to tell him I've actually never been to a game before. My dad told me anything too exciting could strain my heart and I could have cardic arrest or something. But I think he was just being ridiculous and honestly I really wanted to go.

"I would but I don't have a game ticket. Why do you ask?"

"Well I managed to snag two of them, and I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go together." Dennis pulled out two tickets and I gaped at them like I just won the lottery.

"I could pick you up after school and from there we could head the game."

"I'd love to go but I need to ask my dad for permission first."

"No problem. Give me a call if he says yes and I'll pick you up at your house and then we head to the game together."

"Sure thing Dennis. What's your phone number?"

"Oh right."

He pulled a felt pen out of his book bag and took my hand before writing his number on my palm. I flushed so hard and tried to ignore his hands holding mine as he wrote down the numbers.

"There. Call me if you have permission to go from your dad."

"Yeah I will."

The bell rang signaling the end of our lunch break.

"May I escort you to class?"

"That would be nice thank you."

As he walked me to class, I was wondering how I was going to sneak out of my house and call Dennis. Of course my dad was going to say no to go to the game. I'm sure I'll think of something.

This will be my first ever football game after all.