It's Whatever - Chapter 2

The bell that signaled the beginning of homeroom blared in my ears. I was in a desk in the back left corner of the room, trying to appear busy by flipping through my phone and pretending to text. Out of the corner of my, I saw a group of sporty looking guys whispering and laughing, that taunting laugh that high school jocks seem to have trademarked. I sunk lower in the seat in an attempt to escape their notice.

When I looked up I saw a chubby girl staring at me. When she realized that I had noticed her she gave me an excited wave. I smiled bashfully and waved back. She took that as an opportunity to introduce herself and started making her way over to me.

Unfortunately when she walked past the group of guys, she tripped over a pile of books, causing a bout of mocking laughter. After she got closer to me I noticed that her cheeks were a deep shade of red and her eyes flitted nervously back and forth.

"Hi," I said feeling sorry for the poor thing. "I'm Gracee."

"I'm Charlotte." She said with a smile revealing a dimple on her chin.

"Ok guys take a seat," said the teacher, "I'm Mr. Tate." He was young and scruffy looking, and his clothes hung off his lanky frame in a sexy careless kind of way. And based on the appreciative look on majority of the girls faces, they agreed.

Mr. Tate talked for a few minutes about opportunities to join clubs and different activities and then let us talk amongst ourselves.

Charlotte turned to me after he stopped talking and said brightly, apparently she'd gotten over her momentary embarrassment, "How do you like JFK?"

"It's nice," I say vaguely.

After a long pause Charlotte turned to me and gushed in a quiet voice, "So, do you like anyone?"

"What?" I said confused at how I could possibly like anyone after being at the school for twenty minutes.

"Well you have to at least think someone's cute!" She prodded.

I glanced around the room in search of a decent looking guy. When I got to the whispering group, one boy got my attention. He had blond hair, gorgeous cheek bones and a lovable boyish smile.

"He's kinda hot." I say to Charlotte with a shrug.

She didn't respond but let out a loud snorting laugh. I stared at her puzzled but when I was about to ask her what she meant the bell rang ending homeroom.

The rest of the morning was uneventful, several teachers made me stand in front of everyone and tell the class my name, but other than that nothing particularly interesting happened. Until I got to lunch.

I met Lisa by the vending machines and she walked me to her table. It was filled with gorgeous girls with trays filled with food that was more like props because no one was touching it. I sat down between Lisa and pretty girl with a prominent mole on her cheek.

"So have any guys tickled your fancy?" Lisa said playfully nudging me.

"Yeah, one." I said the cute guy from homeroom popping into my head.

"Who?!" She asked.

"Him," I said pointing at him from across the cafeteria.

Immediately the entire table went silent as if everyone had been half listening to our conversation. Lisa's happy inviting features turned cold and hard. "You might not want to go after him." She said in a tight voice."

"Why?" I asked genuinely curious.

"Well he's my boyfriend so that's one reason." With that she got up and stormed out of the cafeteria and another girl who I remembered from the bathroom pursued her.

"Don't worry about her." The girl with the mole said, "She just get, like, super protective over Ben."

"Yeah, I got that."

"I'm Bianca," the girl said holding out her hand.

I shook it and told her my name. She had long wavy dark hair and a friendly open face.

"Yeah, anyway, so Ben used to cheat on Lisa, like all the time and now Lisa, like, freaks out every time she thinks that someone is into Ben." She said. Something in her voice led me to believe that she spoke from experience.

"You would know B." A girl said from across the table shooting Bianca a smirk, turning to me she said, "Hi, I'm Sophie."

"Gracee." I was slightly intimidated of these girls. There were about five at the table and each seemed to exude a special kind of confidence and beauty, that it seemed a miracle that so many apparently perfect girls could actually be friends.

They went around the circle introducing themselves. There was Scarlett, who can only be described as a blond bombshell. Julia, a Brunette who was about five feet tall, Molly and Gabby an adorable set of twins, you know, the stereotypical kind that wear matching outfits and finish each others sentence, and Audrey, the one who'd gone after Lisa, both of whom had come back.

"I'm so sorry about that, I had no idea he was your boyfriend." I said apologetically to Lisa.

"Oh my God, don't worry about, I totally overreacted," Lisa said with a reassuring smile.

"Not like you'd have a chance anyway." Audrey said bitterly under her breadth.

I stared at her for a minute but shook it off, positive that I must've misheard her.