Honey and Spice | ✔️

Chapter 17

Nathan

“Class, we have a new student,” Ms Laura announces.

My head shoots up from my arms and I look around. Everyone is murmuring. I turn around in my seat to give Ryder a curious look and he shrugs in response.

He looks a little better than before, like the dark aura around him has gotten lighter and the dark circles under his eyes from last week are less visible now.

Then a girl stands up from the back of the class, diverting my attention to her. She’s a little short, probably around five feet, sort of chubby. She has long jet black hair which she wears in a high ponytail with the tips dyed electric blue. Her strong amber eyes peek out from under her bangs as they survey the whole class. She’s clad in all black and I also find that she has multiple piercings on both ears. Frankly, she looks like Ryder if he was a girl (without the dyed hair and amber eyes, of course).

“This is Mae Amanda Nguyen,” Ms Laura continues. “She just transferred from another school. Mae, would you like to introduce yourself?”

The girl - Mae - shakes her head and sits down. “I’m good.”

Ms Laura says without blinking an eye, “Okay. I hope you all will welcome Mae into this class.”

Mae catches my eyes and with some unprecedented courage, I give her a small smile. She smiles back.

Mae

That was hella awkward.

I didn’t want to switch schools, but I did anyway. The reason’s pretty lame though: I got expelled from my old school for repeated pranking. But what the hell, it was fun anyway.

What happened was this: we set off the fire alarm to distract everyone while Connor, my best friend, and a few others released a bunch of chickens into the field before everyone assembled there. (I don’t know why we did that but hey, life is short.)

Everything went according to plan but some idiot snitched on us. The principal called us afterwards in his office. We’ve only been caught thrice and because I didn’t want Connor to get in trouble (they were the mastermind), I stepped forward and said it was all me. And I guess you know what happened afterwards. Turns out that the prank violated many rules and since it was a repeated offence (I already got suspended twice), the only thing was to expel me.

And now I’m here at Fernwood High School and I probably scared everyone off. I mean, I’m not trying to be cold or anything, but I’m just bad at first impressions. Is it my clothes? Or is it just me? I sigh. It’s always like this.

And the thing about me not introducing myself? The reason’s simple: I didn’t rehearse it in my head. I didn’t prepare a mental script about it so I just refused and sat back down. Pretty lame, right?

Now I’m actually very worried I’ll be an outcast here. No one’s looking at me (in a friendly way, at least). But then I catch the eyes of a boy with big gold-rimmed glasses and fluffy dark orange hair (it almost looks bronze).  He looks really small in that oversized lavender hoodie. I’m thinking, Hm, he looks friendly. Then, he smiles shyly at me and I return his smile out of habit. Well, that’s a start.

*

It’s lunch and I’m sitting alone eating my food. At least I didn’t mess up my order like I usually do. I look around. Everyone’s talking so much, it’s kind of nauseating. People generally just wear me out when I’m not in the action.

I find Hoodie Boy a few tables away from me, waiting for someone. I feel like joining him at his table because I feel lonely, but I don’t want to barge into his life just like that. I sigh and continue eating my food.