Isis walked up to Copperdale High, trying to act calm. Her palms were sweating even in the crisp early-morning air.
She was nervous for her first day of public school, so she arrived early to wander the halls and note where her classes were. She had gone to a small private school her entire life because her parents wanted her to have the best, but begged them to let her go to public high school because she felt she was missing out on something.
This school was SO much larger than her previous school, and the halls slowly started to fill with buzzing laughter, slamming lockers, and groups of kids who already seemed to know exactly where they belonged. She certainly didn’t.
Well… technically she knew one person. Ava was a friend from private school, and the two of them agreed to meet by the vending machines on the first day to compare schedules.
As Isis turned the corner and saw the vending machines, her heart sunk because nobody was there. She stopped and checked her phone but there were no texts from Ava and she didn’t want to seem too eager by texting first. As she anxiously scanned the hall, the 5-minute bell rang. She waited another minute then started walking to Social Studies, alone.
After Social Studies she was looking for her Biology classroom when she spotted Ava walking her way! “Hey Ava!” Isis called with a huge grin on her face. Ava paused for the briefest moment, her eyes widening in recognition before quickly flattening into something cold. “Uhhh. Hi.” Ava said awkwardly, glancing at the girls beside her. “Do I know you?”
Isis froze.
The girls around Ava giggled softly while Ava shrugged like Isis was a random stranger. A flush started to crawl up Isis’s neck. “Ava… what…” she started to mutter, but Ava and the girls continued walking past her, as she covered her face in embarrassment.
The rest of the morning was horrible. She got lost trying to find Music Theory class, accidentally sat in someone’s assigned seat in English, and sat at a table during lunch pretending to write in her journal; although she was painfully aware she was sitting alone.
Then someone dropped into the seat across from her. “You look bored.” The girl said bluntly. Isis looked up. Smokey eyeshadow enhanced the girl’s green eyes, her face was framed by wild red curls, and her fingers were adorned with chunky rings. She looked older than everyone else and definitely cooler too.
“I’m Jackie.” she said, leaning in to peek at what Isis was writing. “And I know school is boring but you’re really killing the vibe.” Isis closed her journal quickly but couldn’t stop herself from laughing at Jackie’s blunt tone and the friendly sparkle in her green eyes.
By the end of lunch, Jackie had introduced Isis to a bunch of her friends and filled her in on which teachers were banging each other. They had PE together and Jackie convinced her to ditch the last twenty minutes to sit by the bleachers where they chatted easily and got to know each other.
“You’re not scared of getting in trouble?” Isis asked. Jackie smirked, “Trouble’s usually worth it.” Tiny alarm bells were going off in Isis’s head. Jackie cursed a lot, flipped off teachers behind their backs, and strolled around like she owned the place. But when Jackie slung an arm around Isis’s shoulder and said, “Stick with me, babe. I got you.” Isis felt the nervous knot in her stomach disappear.
Although she couldn’t help but wonder why the hell Ava blew her off.
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