1. First Day
First day of high school, second period, Mr. Adams’ film class.
Hetty sat down stiffly next to Hannah, a domineering girl she’d disliked since kindergarten. They had drawn towards each other today like magnets, the only two freshmen from Orange Grove Junior High in a sea of high schoolers.
A skinny, freckled girl joined them at the table of four. This girl seemed to know Hannah from summer basketball tryouts.
“My friends are coming. Wanna move over there so there’s room?” She asked Hannah, motioning to the empty table next to them. Hetty apparently didn’t exist or didn’t matter. Hannah nodded, and the pair stood up, leaving Hetty alone as upperclassmen streamed into the room. Two muscular and obnoxiously loud dudes made their way towards her table, plopping down without looking at her. Momentarily terrified at the idea of sitting next to them for an entire semester, Hetty sprang up from her chair and stood awkwardly, scanning the room for a better option. A hot wave of anger flushed through her body as she glared towards the girls who had abandoned her.
Hetty took a deep breath and blinked hard. She squinted in a brief moment of reflection as she noticed Hannah and her new gang chatting in high pitched squeals that revealed an underlying insecurity.
Taking one more long inhale, Hetty held her head high and smiled inwardly, relieved she had not ended up at the same table with Hannah. She shook her head at herself for clinging to someone she despised merely to avoid sitting alone. This sort of first-day-of-high-school panic was wholly unnecessary, Hetty thought to herself.
Her next move came unexpectedly, on instinct fueled by residual anger over having been treated in a way she herself would simply never treat someone. With seats filling up all around, her eyes caught on an incredibly attractive guy with sandy beach colored hair–clearly a junior or senior. Feeling strangely poised and collected, she took a few steps and sat down right next to him without hesitation.
Hetty exhaled and calmly arranged her things, taking out a pencil and notebook. The guy watched her with a half-smile, waiting to catch her eye. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Still on enough of an adrenaline high from the bullshit with Hannah and the basketball girl, Hetty forgot to be nervous and instead looked directly into his eyes for a full second.
“Hey,” she replied quietly, with a slight look of amusement. Hetty was surprised he had spoken to her. In this initial encounter, she interpreted his posture and tone as that of a hot, popular senior giving a shy freshman a little bit of a hard time–making the tiniest bit of fun.
An unfamiliar swirl of danger and excitement churned her stomach.
The senior, on the other hand, interpreted Hetty’s half-smile as a confident smirk and almost felt that she was making fun of him, though he wasn’t quite sure what for.
He felt the urge to talk with her.
“I’m Ryan,” he said, his eyes dancing over her face without a trace of insecurity or bashfulness.
“Hi,” she replied, her cheeks not quite blushing but subtly tinting into a lovely shade of rose-pink. “I’m Hetty.”
Her name escaped her shy lips like a gentle shake of tiny sparkling jingle bells. When Ryan didn’t respond right away, she spelled it for him.
She was apparently accustomed to her name being unfamiliar to people, but she seemed cool and matter-of-fact rather than annoyed. Hetty held his gaze for a brief moment, smiling slightly, then dropped her eyes timidly.
“I’ve never heard that name before,” Ryan stated simply. Several compliments seemed to be swirling vaguely around in his brain, but none of them made it out his mouth. He sort of wanted to tell her how pretty her name sounded when she pronounced it.
Ryan was generally outgoing and never found it difficult to talk with others, though he was very sporadic when it came to socializing. There was something about this cute little freshman that he found intriguing. He liked that she had sat next to him yet didn’t appear particularly interested in conversing with him. Usually, girls were always looking to forge an encounter. Sometimes he enjoyed the attention, while other times he found it irritating as hell.
The way she held herself was... refreshing. Most of the girls he’d interacted with in high school over-smiled and giggled at anything he said.
“How’s your first day going so far?” Ryan asked, not ready to allow the conversation to die out just yet.
“It’s good so far,” she responded. That was it. Voice silky smooth. Again, that little half-smile of hers made Ryan squirm for a moment. She held his eye contact, and he felt her gaze scrutinizing him.
“What class did you have before this?” he asked, pursuing more words from her.
“Spanish. How about you?”
He smirked when she finally asked him a question in return.
“History. So freaking boring.” As the conversation continued, Ryan saw Hetty herself squirming the tiniest bit, her discomfort escaping from beneath the layer of poise she first displayed. He felt vaguely satisfied.
She was clearly introverted. But she also seemed to know exactly what she wanted to say and how much she felt like smiling. As class started and Hetty turned dutifully away from him to face the teacher, Ryan let out a tiny chuckle of intrigue.
After being unexpectedly interrogated by the gorgeous boy next to her, Hetty’s heart was still pounding three or four minutes into the start of class. Normally, she despised small talk and being put on the spot with questions from strangers. But the conversation with Ryan left her with a buzzing sense of thrill.
She procured not to look in his direction during class, terrified of giving herself away. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught Ryan glancing her way a few times during the lesson.
What is happening right now?, her brain silently screeched at one point.
As the class period concluded, Hetty gathered her things and placed them delicately into her backpack, keenly aware of the presence of her new table mate not far away. Again, she felt his eyes on her.
Mustering up all her fake confidence, Hetty peered up and into his handsome face. Her lips pursed together, suppressing an ecstatic reaction at the fact that he was smiling towards her.
“See ya tomorrow,” he smirked with bright eyes.
“Yeah, see you,” she replied, barely able to emit speech from her completely collapsed lungs.
Hetty left for lunch with a spring in her step. She felt really great about how the stupid encounter with the snotty girls had played out. She could envision a different outcome, one in which she let their little game of musical chairs hurt her feelings. Or in which she panicked and rushed to sit with any other freshman or female she could find. Hetty still didn’t know what had possessed her to sit next to Ryan–it hadn’t been a conscious decision–but she was thrilled she had.
He was outlandishly cute, and even though she was certain he was merely messing with her with the small talk and sideways glances, it was still exciting to interact with him. It seemed like he wanted to make her nervous or cause her to blush, but she realized she had acted quite calmly, for the most part. Why couldn’t she always act that way, instead of clamming up under the pressure to say a certain thing a certain way?
Well, today would be a lesson in poise, and she would attempt to carry it with her throughout the rest of her day. Pressing her lips together to suppress a bursting smile, Hetty subtly strutted towards the cafeteria to find her best friend Stephanie.
