Ch. 2: Sean and Raquel

CHAPTER TWO:

Mr. Chiu led me out of the indoor hall that connected his office and the other counselor offices with the main school office. We left the warm air and went straight back into the chilling fog. We passed three dark blue doors on our right, the carved mountain on the left, and at last Mr. Chiu came to a door beside what looked to be another random indoor hallway. I have no idea who the hell designed this school.

Mr. Chiu pulled out keys and unlocked the door to our side, just as a small group of students began to appear from the randomly placed indoor hallway next door. I followed him inside, and took a seat at the fourth table from the door. 

In came students, easily identified by their more mature features and confidence as upperclassmen. Suddenly I was feeling a little nervous. I was now not just the new-girl, but the new-girl in a class of seniors. Trying to breathe through it and tough it out, like the new Rachel should, I didn’t notice the two girls boring holes into my side until one of them plopped down in the chair to my left. The girl was tan and plump, with long dark lashes and dangling earrings. She wore a bright yellow shirt and highlighter-purple pants.

She looked at me with the intrigue of a toddler seeing a kitten for the first time and exclaimed, “Hey! You’re new! Wow, we never see ‘new’! Where did you come from? What’s your name?” 

Before I had the chance to reply, and right before this florescent girl could run out of breath from the speed at which those words flew out of her mouth, another girl sat down to Bright-Girl’s left. We were now in a half circle. 

I tried my best to not look so uncomfortable, while this tall, lean, sunshine-haired girl drawled, “Marsh, don’t attack the girl.” The golden-haired girl next to the literal glow-in-the-dark Marsh beamed at me with a relaxed kindness.

Catching up to the conversation as to not look dumb as all hell, I answered Marsh’s questions.

“I’m Rachel, transferred from P.H.”

Marsh became more interested. And she scooted towards the edge of her seat. 

“Your name is Raquel?” Marsh asked, not believing.

“No, uh  - it’s ‘Rachel’.” I still have no clue why thirty percent of the population thinks my name is Raquel when I say it for the first time.

“Oh, okay. That’s my cousin’s name is all... Wow, a new girl in our senior year from P.H. Max, I’ve now seen everything,” Marsh looked over at Max, pulling her hair back and nodding with exaggeration. 

I felt like I was missing out on an inside joke.

Max smiled at me after breaking eye contact with Marsh and added, “Nice to meet you Rachel, I’m Maxine, that one there is Marsha.”

Mr. Chiu cleared his throat at the front of the classroom and made a few announcements about upcoming school events, including something that sounded delicious called the Food Fair. All the while Marsha continued to go gaa-gaa eyes at me from the corner of my vision. Uncomfortable is a word that couldn’t quite describe it.

We started talking about all crappy things P.H., and they validated all the things I hated about it. Maxine told me about how P.H. hates Pacific in this weird one-way hatred that went back to the time between when the school was a military school and when it became a charter. Apparently when the school was a ‘normal’ high school they had a football team, one that rivaled Piso High’s. Even though Pacific hadn’t had a football team since the eighties, the old hate grew from P.H., while Pacific just stopped caring. 

Marsha was in the middle of explaining a really shitty thing P.H. did to the school, involving setting fire to a vending machine, when an incredibly tall guy stood up from the table next to us and walked straight toward me. The guy was so fast, he was across the distance in three milliseconds. He was good looking, with light brown skin and piercing green eyes that contrasted against his incredibly dark lashes. When his eyes connected with mine, I forgot to breathe. It was him, the guy I had glimpsed in the office earlier. The tall guy leaned down a bit and smiled, a wide, toothy grin. He looked unsure of himself all of a sudden, taking a breath in, then just freezing. As if he had planned his whole life to march toward this table and stare me in the eye, but never had bothered to plot his next move. 

Marsha and Maxine didn’t make a sound. He broke eye contact for a second, looking at the chair to my right, looked back at me and grinned again. I swallowed hard while he walked behind me, placed a gentle hand on the back of the seat to my right, and slid it out. He plopped down excitedly, and after a brief flicker to where Maxine and Marsha were seated, he leaned toward me. I almost choked. He was so suddenly close, and the charisma rolling off of him set my heart into a frenzy of erratic beating. 

“Uh, hi,” he grinned like a fool, making his unsure speech endearing as hell.

“Um.. hey.” I responded just as stupidly. Idiot. Rachel: new school, same love-struck idiot.

He moved his hand by his ear and propped his elbow on the table, now leaning on it with his tilted face. Eyes never leaving mine, “So,” he laughed, “this is a little weird. But uh -” I waited, silent, afraid I would say something idiotic if I said anything to this ridiculously handsome guy. 

Then all in one breath he blurted, “Look-my-friend-thinks-you’re-cute-and-wants-to-know-your-name.” He breathed out some sort of small gasp, as if he were simultaneously out of breath and terrified.

His eyes were full of expectation.

My name. I forced myself to unfreeze.

“Rachel,” I responded, adding a moment later, “I’m Rachel. Just transferred from P.H.”

With a once again easy, open grin, he said, “Thanks Rachel, I’m Sean.” He put a hand on the table, pushing up and out of his seat. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

Sean pushed his chair back and waltzed back to the table he had come from. There were three other guys seated there. 

I turned to Maxine and Marsha, whose faces were fangirl freaking out. Their internal squeals could almost be heard by how suddenly large their eyes grew, and I became very relieved that they weren’t facing Sean’s table, which I couldn’t help but glance at - briefly making eye contact with Sean.

The guys at his table were all grossly involved in some conversation, all but Sean, who I could feel looking at me until homeroom ended. The sweet torture of pushing myself to not look over, finally ended with the sound of the bell.

The students all began packing up their things and getting ready to shove out of the door. Maxine and Marsha told me where to meet them for lunch later, and I promised to check in with them later. The classroom quickly emptied, and I snatched one more glance of Sean, smiling and laughing at something his shorter, blonder friend had said. He met my gaze for a split second, light reflecting in his striking light eyes, before following his buddies out the door.

“Alright, ready to head back?” Mr. Chu asked, focused on packing up a few books I hadn’t noticed he had brought in with him.

I took a breath, trying to push Sean’s… everything out of my head, “Sure.”

After re-entering his office, I plopped my things back down on the oversized chair, and after a few minutes it looked like I was finally all set.

I followed Mr. Chu toward the front office entrance and out the door, then down a hallway. We approached a door to a classroom with dark windows and flickering light. Mr. Chu opened the door and I followed him inside the dark, warm, classroom. Projector. The light had been coming from a projector.

“BANG!” a figure in the front yelled, making me jump. “And that was the start of the universe! Steven, sit up! Look alive! We’re talking about the start of life as we know it!”

A light flicked on. The figure in the front had flipped on the light switch. A man with bright red hair tucked partly into a gray beanie, wearing a nose ring and a bright blue t-shirt with army green shorts looked at me. 

He nodded at us in acknowledgment and quickly said, “One second, I’m in the middle of something amazing.” 

The red-headed loud and crazed man pranced to the other side of the classroom, and drew a smiley face on the cheek of a student who had fallen asleep. The class all watched, eyes glued to his doodle, all trying not to laugh too loud. They were all so captivated with this vivacious man, that only a few students had bothered to flick their eyes toward me.

The student with the fresh art now on his right cheek stirred, smearing part of the man’s artistry. The man waited a moment, and when the student still did not wake, he grabbed a feather, from seemingly nowhere and began to tickle the sleeping student’s nose. He woke up.

“STEVEN! GLAD TO HAVE YOU WITH US! You missed the most amazing part of my presentation!”

The whole class shook with laughter, as the formerly sleeping Steven realized he was the mockery of an entire class. I wasn’t sure what to think. I just came from a school where everyone was so obsessed with partying and looking picture-perfect… this would’ve given a P.H. kid a heart attack. But here this Steven guy was, laughing and apologizing to Mr. Lewis.

“ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT,” holy hell how loud was this guy? “Let’s refocus! Teams, back to your original seats!”

The class got up and started moving their chairs to different desks. Mr. Lewis walked back to Mr. Chu and me. 

The brightly colored man, with his brightly colored hair, and ecstatic personality smiled broadly at me and put his hand out to shake. 

“Hi, I’m Mr. Lewis, but please call me Levi. I hate the name Lewis.” He vigorously shook my hand. He nodded at Mr. Chu while leading me to the opposite side of the classroom, near where he had been standing when he startled me earlier, and guided me to a table with three other girls near the projector screen. 

“You’ll join this team for the time being. We change teams every six weeks to shake things up. Next time you’ll have a choice to sit wherever else, but this should work for now.”

I sat at the open chair at the obsidian table he had gestured towards. These appeared to be something like lab benches.

Levi turned to the blond girl seated next to me, “Sarah, get Rachel here as up to speed as you can, as things come up.” Looking at me he added, “Rachel, stick around a few minutes after class so I can catch you up on anything you miss, and I’ll get you a list of supplies needed for the class.”

Alright. Science looked like it was going to be interesting.