corrupted lungs | d.w #Wattys2016

o n e

I walked down the hallways that I was way too familiar with by now. It'd been one week since I came to Westside High School and it felt like my mind had been imprinted with more information about all of the students than it had with information from the classes. I sighed, as I walked up to my locker, unlocked it and stuffed my backpack in there. I pulled out my math and exercise book, since I always started with math in the morning.

At my past schools, we'd always start with different subjects each day. But here at Westside, we always started and finished our day with the same subjects. It was a bit odd, but pretty relieving. I felt a tap on my shoulder, and already knew who it was.

"Good morning, Sarah." I said as I turned around and was met by Sarah's brown, glittering eyes.

"Good morning!" She replied with a smile and hooked her arm in mine. We started walking down the hallway, chatting about all kinds of things. It was pretty cool, to already have a friend after such a short notice. Sarah was nice. I liked her, because she was so easy to talk to and she didn't judge me for the things I liked. She was cool and so was the people she hung out with.

She had a lot of friends, and I only knew a few of their names. So far I'd met Patrick, Breezy, Ryan, Spencer, and her crush since way back (after what she told me), Brendon. He looked good, I'd give him that, but he wasn't really my type. Not that I had a specific type, but he just wasn't the kind of person I'd date. But he was nice and really funny to be around, and as long as he'd treat Sarah right, it was fine by me.

We entered the classroom, were half of the students already were sitting in their seats, or on the desks, chatting to one another. Sarah released her grip around my arm as we sat down in the middle row, placing our books at the table and leaning back. I looked around the room. Ryan and Spencer was here, sitting in the row behind us, talking to some guys I'd never seen before. The rest of the people I had no idea who they were.

My eyes suddenly landed on the boy who was sitting in the back of the room, rolling his pen in between his fingers. I'd seen him on my first day here and then sometimes in the halls, but never more than a few seconds. He always seemed to vanish in crowded spaces. I always found him so interesting though. He wasn't like the other kids. He seemed very mature, looked way older than most people here, but still, he was always alone. I'd asked Sarah about it, but she didn't know why he spent so much time by himself.

I didn't have much time to think about it before Mr. Wentz entered the classroom, making everyone quit talking and go back to their places. Mr. Wentz first name was Pete, and I think everyone had a little crush on him, simply because he knew how to play the bass, he was good at math and always came dressed in nice clothes who showed off his features.

"Good morning, class. Today we're going to be working with algebra, and I want you all to pair up..." Sarah immediately hooked her arm in mine, before Mr. Wentz could finish his sentence. His eyes landed on us as he ended, "with the person I assign you to work with."

"Sarah, pair up with Ryan." Sarah let out a sigh and slipped her arm out of mine. It wasn't like she didn't want to work with her friend, but I'd noticed Ryan could be pretty bitchy towards the teachers and sometimes not even working in class. She whispered a quiet 'bye' before getting up from her seat and walked over to Ryan. Everyone got assigned a partner, until it was me and the boy in the corner left.

"Gabrielle, pair up with Dallon." Mr. Wentz said, and I looked over at the boy who suddenly raised his head. Our eyes connected again and I felt the same feeling as the first time our eyes met. I just nodded, grabbed my books and walked over to the boy whose name was Dallon. So that's why his nickname around the school was D. I sat next to him and he straightened his back a bit as I did.
I mumbled a quiet "Hi", but he just nodded his head a bit and opened up his book.

"Alright, open up the pages 64 and 65 and work together from there." Mr. Wentz said and everyone got to work.

I glanced over at the boy next to me who turned page after page in his book, not saying anything. I decided on opening up my book as well, not really knowing what else to do. I skipped to the page we were supposed to work on and opened up my exercise book. I started with the first assignment in the book and looked over to see he'd already done about four of them. Jesus, the guy was fast.

He noticed me looking and looked over into my book. I thought I'd get some smug smirk from the boy, like he'd laugh at me for being so slow. But he just turned back into his own book and continued to work. I seemed to be in some kind of trance and it was first when Mr. Wentz showed up at our table, looking at the both of us, that I realized I'd been staring at Dallon.

"How are things going for you two?" He asked us and Dallon shrugged, still staring into his book. Mr. Wentz sighed, like he'd seen this before. Dallon didn't seem to be much of a talker. But that was okay.

"Just fine," I replied and then pointed at an assignment in my book. "But, could you help me with this one? Dallon's tried to explain how to solve it, but I guess I'm just not that smart." I shot a smile at my teacher, who looked over at Dallon before bending over to look in my book.

I looked up at Dallon and he gave me a smile, before it quickly faded and he went back to his book. I smiled a bit to myself. I might have just made contact with the boy that no one seemed to notice and to me, that felt great. I always wanted people to be around, to feel happy and to feel welcomed.

Dallon didn't seem to be very welcomed around here, which was odd, since everyone else loved each other. Why didn't they love him as much? Why didn't they at least try to talk to him? I didn't know. But I wanted to be around him. At least I wanted to try. If he didn't want me around, then so be it. He didn't seem like a bad person, so it wouldn't really hurt to try to make a new friend, right?