One

Freshman. He hated them. Annoying, clueless and helpless. Of course, he’d been one once so he really had no right to hate them, but still, he did. Sophomores weren’t as bad, and seniors were cool to chill with. He himself was a junior. Hands stuffed in his pockets he made his way through the crowds, mostly of freshman. The first day of school was never fun for him and freshman just made it worse. He suppressed his want to yell at them to get out of his way.

“Hey Gary.” He’d made it to his lunch spot. He gave a nod to Dave and Joey, his best friends, they were waiting for him. “Fucking freshman.” He said under his breath. Joey shrugged. “What are you going to do about it.” Dave and Joey hadn’t waited for him to move their table, they had moved under an overhang next to a Coke vending a machine and a few other snack machines. It was an ideal spot, most freshmen didn’t hang out there and if they did they weren’t too bad. Plus, it was under an overhang, so it was protection from rain and being the target of birds and their crap. He sat down at the table and took a look around. Some sophomores at the vending machines, seniors at another table close by and three freshman girls by one of the vending machines. It wasn’t common for freshmen to hang out by upperclassmen without being friends, but those three were just there. Two of them were laughing and another one was just rolling her eyes. The first one was tall, taller than the other two, she was wearing denim jeans a tank-top and a black jacket, and her dirty blonde hair was tied up in a bun and bangs hung in her face, she tucked them behind her ear. She was pretty, for a freshman. The second girl was wearing a plaid black skirt and a black t- shirt. She had short black shoulder length hair. The third girl, who was holding back her laughter, was wearing jeans and an orange sweater. Her dark brown hair was all pulled back and tied up.

“Thought you hated freshman?” Dave said. Gary redirected his attention. “You’ve been watching them.” Gary shrugged. “I do hate freshman.” He listened to his friends talk about girls over the summer, every once in a while adding in his share of stories, but his attention kept wandering back to the first girl. She had a nice smile.

“Felicia! You’re so mean! You can’t make fun of my brother because you’re sister goes to the same kind of school, or actually…the same school…!” She was pointing her finger at the third girl apparently her name was Felicia.

“ Lauren, you’re so God damned loud!” The first girls name was Lauren.

“Seriously! God Lauren!” The second girl said.

“You’re just as loud as loud as me Mina!” Lauren shouted. The second girl was Mina.

“She’s pretty cute.” Dave said. Dave was the shortest of the three friends, but the skinniest. Gary looked over to see whom he was talking about. His eyes were on the first girl as well.

“Yeah.” Joey looked over, “I’m in the same third period as the girl with short hair. We have cooking.”

“Yeah?” Joey nodded. He titled his head a bit, looked like he was trying to think. “I think her names Mina. She’s my partner.” Dave raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He nodded. Gary’s eyes met with the girl Lauren. He saw hers were a pale blue, maybe gray. She smiled; he gave a slight one, but looked away. The bell rang.

Gary got up, “Later guys.” They nodded and headed off in a different direction. Two classes left of the first day. He noticed as he walked to the K building that the girl Lauren was walking behind him. She had headphones in her ears and her pale eyes were staring up at the sky. She seemed to be off in a different place. In her own world and he couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking about. She tripped over a rock and it brought her back to their world. He wanted to laugh, but he held it back. Her face turned a light shade of pink and she looked around, hoping no one noticed. No one else seemed to have noticed but him. He shook his head and kept walking, freshman, he thought. He grew more curious when she stayed on the same route as him. His next class was an elective, Art. It could be that she was in his class. She was. Ms. Yang was the teacher; she was a short fragile lady with long black hair. She wasn't to old, and from what he'd heard she was a pretty cool teacher and an awesome artist. She had told them to stand in the back of the class. It was pretty crowded even with only twenty students. The class was set up with one row of four tables and the second row had five tables, each table could fit two people and three if you didn’t mind your work being crowded. She came around to students with one sheet of paper and had them rip off a small piece and right their name on it. Then when she came back around you put it in a hat.

"Ok class." she called out in the front. "Lets get started. When I call your name you sit where I direct you and one other person will sit with you. You'd better like that person because we wont be changing seats at all this year, it’s too much of a hassle for myself." she smiled. "Unless you have a serious problem with the person you're next to, get friendly." she shook up the papers in the hat.

"First up, we have Lisa and...Josh." she said pulling two names from the hat. "You're right here." she directed them to a seat. She went through a few more names until she came to his.

"Ok, Gary, and lets see." she pulled out another paper and all he was thinking was: Not a freshman, not a freshman, not a freshman.

"Gary and Lauren. You two are in the back over there." He looked around to see if there was any other Lauren, but the freshman girl had begun moving to the table. She pulled out her chair careful not to make any sound and sat down. She took off her backpack and set it onto the floor. Then tapped her fingers on the table. Gary made his way over, not caring that he was being rude and had stepped on someone’s foot, he ignored them, he was mad, he had to sit with a freshman. And he couldn't move because he didn’t know her, so how could he have any serious problem with her? He pulled out his chair, it scraped on the floor loudly, and he plopped down and practically threw his bag to the floor. He looked at the girl, she was looking over to the teacher but she was watching him from the corners of her eyes, she looked intimidated. He grinned, this could be fun.

She was trying to pay attention to what her art teacher was saying, but the really cute, handsome junior sitting across from her was being a very big distraction, just by sitting there with his arms crossed. She glanced over at him every once it a while and most of the time he was looking right back at her. He was the boy she'd seen at lunch watching her and her two friends, while he had been sitting by a vending machine at a table with his two friends. She tried not to meet his eyes, because she would blush, he was so good-looking. He was a skater, he wore faded ripped skinny jeans and he had on a faded black t-shirt that read: Your much better looking when you’re not talking. His hair was short shoulder length light brown and curly. And his eyes were brown, but they were the type of eyes that even thought the color didn't stand out much, you could just stare into them forever. She'd smiled at him at lunch but he hadn't reacted. But that hadn't surprised her. With how handsome he was he'd probably seen much better.

"So class. Introduce yourself to your partners and then get out a sheet of paper and draw something to your best abilities, because were going to take that piece of art and compare it to a piece at the end of the year. Because I promise, with me as a teacher, you will improved." The class laughed. But the junior, Gary was his name, didn’t.

"So." she said, "Umm... I'm Lauren. Nice to meet you...?" she stuck her hand out over the table to him.

"Gary." he said and shook her hand reluctantly. She smiled, he gave something that wasn't quite a smile and raised his eyebrows up, and he didn't seem to excited to be sitting with a freshman. She pulled her back park up onto the table, unzipped it and took out a binder and pulled a pencil from the smaller pocket of the bag. She opened the binder up to the back and there was a folder filled with black white printer paper.

"Can I get one?" he asked. She looked up at him and nodded. She pulled out two papers and handed him one. "Pencil?" He asked as if he had expected it to come with the paper. "Oh, sure." Pulled out another pencil and gave him that one. He looked down at his blank paper. Not to sure why he had taken art as an elective, but he had, and write now the best of his abilities were probably stick figures.

"Class, if you don’t know what to draw, you can just draw any random person or thing, but you have to try." Ms. Yang was coming around looking at the papers.

"Gary, was it?" She said when she got to their table. He looked up and nodded. "Try something." then she left. He looked at Lauren, he could see an outline on the paper, but now she was looking up at a light tapped her pencil on her lip. She stopped raised her eyebrows as if she'd just gotten an idea, then went back to her paper and drew lightly. But the shading began to get darker and so did the outlining. He looked down at his own paper, ok, here goes. And he put his pencil to work. He finished, and it didn't look to bad if he did say so himself. It was a picture of some random person, it was a girl, and she was wearing a super short skirt with a tank top and he'd drawn cleavage, because yes he was a teenage guy. The head wasn't proportional to the body and the body was lopsided. One of the eyes was farther up that the other and the lines weren’t to straight. Lauren had put her earphones back in and was sitting with her hands in her lap looking up at the ceiling again, she was probably off in her own world once more, probably like she'd been when she tripped over the rock. Her paper had been turned over but he was curious, but when he reached over the table to grab it her eyes darted towards him. He was surprised; he didn't think she would have noticed. But she'd noticed so quickly he wondered if maybe she'd tripped over the rock on purpose.

"Can I see it?" He asked. She picked up the picture held it in front of her looking it over, then shrugged and handed it to him. "Its not that great." she said shyly. But it was really good. She'd drawn a girl as well. She was just standing there with her hands behind her back, no background but it was really good. The eyes were even it was proportional. He gave her back the paper. “Cool.” He said. She smiled embarrassed but then went back to her own world. And for some reason that annoyed him. He was so used to getting all the attention from all the girls in his life whether is it was good or bad, but she was ignoring him, or just not caring he was there. But Gary was wrong. In fact she was very aware of him being right across the table from her. Her heart was beating fast just with him being there barely three feet apart. In fact she was thinking about him, what was he thinking about? Why was he staring? Or was he glaring? Did he hate freshman that badly that her just being there was annoying him? She decided to ask.

“Um… Gary? Mind if I ask why you’re looking at me…?” He shrugged. “I’m bored.” She nodded slowly. “I see. Then you want to talk about something, cause I’m a little uncomfortable with you just staring at me for no reason.” He smirked. “Am I making you nervous?” Freshman were so easy to embarrass, she was blushing again. Her face would turn a light rosy shade of pink. That’s cute. He thought.

“Are you a junior?” she asked. He nodded. “Do you know my brother?”

“That would be?”

“His name is Sam, or Samuel, and some people even know him as Smoky….” He thought for a minute. He wasn’t sure. He shrugged. “Maybe, it sounds familiar but no sure if I actually know him myself.” Her eyes glanced to the clock, then to her I pod she pressed the next button a few times. Then she put it back into her pocket. It was bit awkward, they didn’t know what to do or say. Gary would much rather be sitting with the cute senior girl over in the corner. He glanced over to her and their eyes met. She flashed him a smile and he grinned. Lauren was just watching. Wow, she thought. Gary just had to look at someone and they’d get excited about that. He was such a flirt. Yes, Gary was probably the hottest guy she’d seen in a while, and yes it would be awesome to date someone like him, but there were down falls too. He would be a flirt, he would only be after one thing, and rumors would go around about you too. So in that moment she decided: Gary is nice to look at, but he’s not for me. And plus he’s a junior, what chance do I have with him anyways? Gary turned his attention back to Lauren after the senior. Her eyes were closed and her head was tilted back a little bit. Had she fallen asleep? Her eyes opened slowly and she sat up right.

“Lauren, right?” Ms. Yang came by. “Can I see your work?” Lauren nodded and handed her the paper. “Well Lauren you have potential to be a great artist. Keep up the good work.” Lauren smiled and said thank you. When she was gone Lauren rolled her eyes.

“Well, well.” Gary said. Lauren looked up. “You are a fake teachers pet.” He said. She looked confused, and then she got it. “Oh…yeah…I guess you could say that. I do that to all the elders I’m supposed to ‘respect’.” She shrugged. “Do you do that to upperclassmen as well?” She shook her head no.

“Why not?”

“Only if they are mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“Today, I asked an upperclassmen how to find a class room, and he smiled at me and pointed out all of my classes for me. But then another almost yelled at me because I didn’t know what there was I could get to eat at the cafeteria.” Gary stared at her she was weird.

“Thus,” she said. “I’m never going to the cafeteria again.” Gary shook his head in an almost laughing kind of way. “Freshmen.” He said shaking his head again.

“Don’t be a butt.” She said. A butt? Couldn’t she have said ass? “I mean, you were a freshmen once, tell me something bad that happened to you as a freshmen.” He thought for a moment.

“Nothing Bad really happened.” He said still thinking. “Really? C’mon, something bad must have happened!” He shook his head. “Not that I can think of.”

“Lucky betch.” She said putting her stuff in her backpack. Betch? She was different. But she was interesting. He wouldn’t hate all freshmen this year; maybe he would, all except one.