Unexpected

Gabby the Sassafras

The cafeteria is a whole different creature during lunch time. This morning, it seemed so much bigger and peaceful with the chairs stacked on top of tables and new sunlight filtering in through the skylights. Now though, it feels cramped and ready to consume me into the loud chatter and swarming students.

I texted Catrina asking her to join me and the group for lunch, and right as I'm considering going for cover she appears by my side, visibly as stressed as I am.

"Yeah, this is why I usually eat in the computer lab." She says, looking out at the chaos before us.

"Did you bring your lunch?" She asks, looking down towards my hands. She looks back up to meet my eyes and says, "The food here isn't half bad, don't worry. It's just the lunch lines that motivate me to bring a sandwich everyday." She leads me to the lines and I see what she meant. Although they're moving at a decent rate, the sheer amount of people waiting is intimidating. There's only two lines and we take our pick, although there's not much difference between them.

People glance my way, probably out of curiosity about a new face, but that doesn't stop me from being paranoid that it's because of Austin running his mouth.

"Apparently Austin's been talking about me." I say to Catrina, close enough for only her to hear.

Her eyes widen and she asks, "Really? What's he been saying?"

"I didn't find out, but the guy who told me called me "Austin's Gabby". Didn't slow him down though, he was kind of creepy." I say, glancing around to make sure no one is listening. I make eye contact with a few people, but it doesn't seem like they heard what I was saying.

"What was his name?"

"Derek I think." I say, noticing the way Catrina's face contorts in response.

"Yeah, avoid him if you can. He's on the basketball team, Austin and him used to play together before he stopped showing up for practice."

It's not all too surprising Austin was on the team and that he's no longer on the team. Everyone somehow knowing this though, even people completely unrelated to sports like Catrina, is still taking some getting used to.

"You're kidding. Kill me now." I mumble to Catrina as I notice who's cutting to our place in line.

"You don't mind if I join, do you?" Austin asks, lips upturning into a smile. He glances between the two of us, neither of us speaking up yet.

"Guess you already have." I say, noticing the small smile Catrina tries to hide as she looks down. Austin doesn't seem to notice either of our reactions to his sudden appearance, instead saying, "I brought my lunch today, but Zach was wondering where you were."

"How thoughtful of you, to cut the line and keep us company." I say, giving him a sarcastic smile. By now, Catrina's got her smile covered with her hand and more than a few people are looking our direction. Finally, Austin seems to take notice and glances around. His tongue darts between his lips nervously as he shoves his hands into his pockets.

"How's your first day been?" He tries again, eyes settling on me. It bothers me he hasn't addressed Catrina at all, but now that he's toned down the flirting I decide to entertain him.

"Decent. Math was... math. Then I got art with this one," I say, playfully elbowing Catrina who grins in response. "And Spanish with Zach. Did you see his nails?"

"Of course I did, dude was showing them off to everyone." He grins, now taking notice of Catrina's painted nails running through her hair.

"Do all your friends get their nails painted? How come you didn't offer to do mine?" He jokes, feigning offense as he places a hand to his chest.

"We're friends?" I ask, mirroring his look of upset and raising my hand to my chest with wide eyes. "Someone should have told me!" I exclaim, exasperatedly throwing my hands up. Catrina bites her lip, smiling at Austin's conflicted expression. He seems unsure of how to respond, probably not used to being the butt of jokes.

We've moved up towards the trays at this point and I pass them between the three of us, resuming conversation with Catrina while Austin hangs back uncertainly. As Catrina and I continue to talk, almost giddy from outmatching Austin's advances, someone sparks conversation with him. He lights back up immediately, conversing with returned ease and charm.

As we leave the line with full trays in hand, for the first time I'm grateful for Austin's presence as he guides us through the madness, but I'm less grateful for the added attention that seems to come from being around Austin. A couple girls give Catrina and I dirty looks, and that's when it occurs to me not everyone must agree on his reputation. I think back to what Catrina said about people thinking his looks mean more than they do. It would be hard to be a player without anyone to play.

After we've sat down and Catrina's gotten acquainted with the group, Zach notices their matching nail color and goes, "Ah, so you're Gabby's other clients."

The rest of lunch goes well, even conversing with Austin goes over better with jokes being thrown around more often than the french fries on Robert's tray. Sarah seems grateful for yet another girl present to combat the excessive testosterone she's around daily. Even though Catrina's got her robotics friends, I'm glad she's spending time with the goons I now comfortably call my friends.

AN: I'm writing these chapters so fast ya'll don't understand. I'm SPRINTING through this while trying to maintain standards and whatnot since my end goal is getting warmed up for my other story. Which I have not worked on in awhile, because I'm scared I'm not good enough to execute the vision I have for it. Cute writing tingz ammirite. Well anyway, I'm aiming to have this whole shebang finished by the end of the month, which means writing around an average of 8-10 chapters a week :,) Dunno if I'll actually manage that, but I sure am trying.

ALSO! I'm gonna start posting a chapter every Tuesday now that I'm ahead and have written a handful of chapters that are waiting to be published!