School friends

The new girl.

It was the first day of tenth grade. Piper knew she had to really start focusing on her grades and be focused. Grade nine was a mess for Piper. He marks dropped a bit but that was enough for her father to get angry at her.

piper started off her year by running 10 minutes late. "I'm going to kill Cal for changing my clock." She said as she raced to find her class.

She walked into her class to find all the students sat talking to each other. The teacher was paying no attention to what was going on. Piper looked around the class and spotted two of her friends in the back seats of the classroom. She walked over to the two of them and sat beside her friend Sarah.

"So what's with this teacher?" piper asked.

"He's known to be a really laid back guy, but a really hard marker for whenever he gives us stuff to be marked" Sarah replied.

Piper looked over at him, he was sat with his feet up, reading the paper and sipping his coffee.

The class started to get louder as more students turned up late.

"Hey, have you guys ever seen her before?" She said pointing over to the new girl who had just entered the room.

Everybody in the room had got a bit quieter. People had stopped talking about their previous topics an moved into the new girl, nobody was subtle about it not even Kathryn or Sarah.

There were only 2 seats left in the classroom one beside the teachers desk and one diagonal from Piper.

The girl walked to the back of the room and sat diagonal from Piper. Kathryn shot her a look and turned back to Sarah and Piper.

"Hey new girl" Sarah shouted over to her.

The girl slowly turned her head and said in a sarcastic voice "yeah?"

"What's your name?" Kathryn asked.

"Uh Alex...." she replied, she opened her bag and grabbed a book she turned back to the girls and gave them a sarcastic smile then turned round and started to read.

Alex was a tall girl, her hair was long and black but most of it covered her thick rimmed glasses. Her eyes were the most beautiful shade of green Piper had ever seen. She wore a black hoodie with a grey shirt, ripped skinnies and worn out converse, she was more than beautiful.

"Hey we weren't done talking to you" Sarah said loudly. She grabbed a piece of paper, crumpled it up and threw it at the back of Alex's head.

"You may not be done talking to me but I'm sure as hell done talking to you." Alex snapped.

Sarah had no idea how to reply to that so she just turned back to Kathryn and Piper with a snotty look on her face.

Piper was just sitting there watching the whole thing as if she wasn't even there. She had no idea what to say to her friends, they were being such assholes!

The Bell rang for last period and somebody shoved Alex to the ground. She stood up and wiped her knees, sucked it in then walked off as calmly as she could.

"people are such cunts" she mumbled.

Alex was use to this kind of stuff, so she didn’t fall hard. She landed on her knees. It hurt a lot, but she just stood back up and walked out the door. 

She left the school building. She looked around outside and saw a group of trees on one side, and a big tree on the other all on it’s own. She decided to go to the single tree standing on its own. 

It was a warm day, the sun shining brightly. Alex sat down in the shade leaning against the tree. She opened up her book. Only a few pages got wet. She was still very annoyed about it, but worse things had happened to more than one of her books before. 

Before long groups of people started to pour out of the school. Thankfully no one had bothered to go near her. 

Alex got lost in her book. She was so into it that she didn’t realize that someone had actually come over there. 

“Hey.”  

Alex looked up to see Piper standing over her with a small smile on her face. 

“Uh, hey.” She said. 

Piper sat down beside her and gave her a little wave. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you. My friends and I normally sit here so…”

“Oh shit. Sorry. I can move.” Alex pulled her bag closer, closed her book, and put it in her bag.

“No no. It’s fine. My friends went to go buy food anyway. So i’d be alone here…”

“Oh uhm… Okay…” Alex didn’t really know what to do. She had no idea who this girl was and she didn’t really want to sit there with her in an awkward and uncomfortable silence. All Alex knew was that this girl was the nicest person she had met today. In fact, Piper was being nicer to her then anyone else had ever really been. 

“Hey i’m sorry about my friends this morning. They were being assholes and well- i just want to apologize.” Piper said as she turned her head so she could see Alex. 

“Wait- Are you apologizing for them, or are you apologizing for just sitting on your ass and not saying anything to them?” 

“I uhm… I was uh…” Piper once again, didn’t know what to say. She looked away from Alex, and looked down.

“Wow. You are really easily flustered, aren’t you?” Alex said laughing a bit. Piper just kept looking down. She looked kind of sad, and she looked like she was genuinely sorry about what had happened.  “Your names Piper, right?”

“Yeah” She nodded her head and looked back at Alex. 

“It’s good to meet you Piper. I’m Alex.” She stuck out her hand. Piper took her hand and grasped it firmly.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Piper smiled a small smile, which was enough for Alex to smile. 

“I should probably be going somewhere else. I see your friends and we aren’t big fans of each other. I’ll see you later though.” Alex stood up and grabbed her backpack and put one strap around her shoulder. She started to walk away. 

Piper watched as Alex went and sat alone by herself. As Sarah and Kathryn and Amy spoke about boys and clothes, all Piper could think of was Alex. They had spent almost no time together, but already their conversation was ten times more interesting than the one being had now. 

For the rest of the day Alex was all Piper could think about. This new girl who was being picked on for no good reason was someone special. Piper has always had friends, but she didn’t see what she sees in Alex in any of them. 

It was their conversation under the tree that made this one thing very clear,

Alex was different.....