The school's lunch today was its best attempt at chicken nuggets, but based on the smell, I wasn't impressed. Somehow, I could smell the undercooked meat inside the breaded coating. It made me gag. Luckily, Zoey and I always packed our own lunches; a ham or turkey sandwich for Zoey and a hot meal prepared earlier for me, neatly packaged in a canister to keep it warm.
We sat in silence and ate until it was almost time to go, then I got up to throw my trash away. Zoey followed behind me but once we reached the trash can, an awful smell filled my nostrils, causing me to step back and cover my nose. Based on Zoey's reaction, she smelt it too.
"Oh God," Zoey covered her nose with her flower blouse.
"I think it's the garbage. School lunch reeks." I leaned over the trash and the smell hit me again, "Yep it's the trash." Then covered up my own nose.
"It must be." She made a face at the garbage then walked away back to our table.
I followed, but our path was quickly blocked. Carly, the nastiest girl in Lacy High School looked down on us and popped her gum. Her blonde hair was curled and coated with hairspray. Personally, I've always been surprised that her parents didn't name her Barbie. She wore a dark blue lace tank top with a sweater around her shoulders, not even bothering to cover up her overly large, implanted breasts. She thought we were poor because we didn't carry a Coach bag everywhere we went, but she didn't know anything about our home life and I intended to keep it that way.
Our house was deep in the woods on a private drive, the beginning of the road blocked by a gate and equipped with security cameras. No one from the school even knew a house existed out there.
"Well, well, well, look who we have here. The Arrow twins. Where are your matching outfits? Could you not afford them?" Carly smirked down at us.
Zoey marched up to her in front of me and used the same overly fake, whiney, sympathetic tone. "Where are your set of minion twins? Could they not put up with your bullshit today? Last time I checked; senior skip day was after prom."
Carly's eyes widened in embarrassment and she remained silent.
"That's what I thought," Zoey mumbled as we walked around her.
"Hey, no! I'm not finished with you yet!"
"Which one?" We said in unison.
"Addison," yet she looked at Zoey.
I glared with irritation, "Wrong one."
She rolled her eyes, "It's not like I actually care."
My brow raised in confusion, "Then why are you still talking to us?"
She scoffed, turned around, and gave up, walking in the opposite direction.
I turned on my heel, rolling my eyes with Zoey right behind me. Geez, what was her problem? She took every chance she could to pick on us since Zoey and I were freshmen. Every time Carly would pick on us, one of us would come back with a sarcastic comment or we ignored her completely.
"She's really asking for it." Zoey said through gritted teeth.
"Mhm." I nodded my head in agreement as we walked to our locker.
Zoey opened our locker and grabbed her books for her next class, "See you after school. Are we still going to the café?"
"Yeah, just meet me out front and we'll go from there."
I took out my psychology textbook and stood in thought for a moment before shutting the locker. As I walked off, I noticed an unfamiliar boy at his locker down the hall with his back towards me. At the same time, Carly approached him from the opposite direction, giving me a dirty look. I turned the corner ignoring her glare but once I was around the corner, I stopped in my tracks when I heard her talking.
How could I hear her talking? I was all the way down the next hallway.
What's been going on?
To my surprise, as I leaned into listen, I could hear them perfectly, as if the conversation was taking place right beside me, although the halls were filled with loud students. As awesome as this was, I found it creepy, but my curiosity got the best of me.
"Hey!" I heard Carly's voice first.
"Hello," The boy replied as he moved textbooks, replacing some and pulling others out of his locker.
"My name is Carly. You're Brett, right?"
"Blake." He corrected her with annoyance.
"Yeah, whatever. I'm having a party at my house tonight and I was hoping you could come?" She raised her voice with hope.
Blake stayed quiet for a moment, "Thank you, but no. I don't really do parties."
"Aww, why not? There'll be girls and drinks there," She said as she tried to tempt him.
"I'm not interested in either of those." I heard his locker close and his footsteps coming closer as he moved away from a disappointed Carly. I quickly took off down the hall and into my psychology class, thankful that it wasn't too far. I took my seat just as the bell rang and to my utter surprise, Blake walked into the class a beat later, deciding to sit right behind me.