Calen met her as she trudged off of the bus.
It took her a moment before she could register what he was saying, but Calen was nothing if not stubborn.
"Ow!" Lily exclaimed, rubbing the area on her arm where he pinched her. She glared at him balefully. "What was that for?"
Calen rolled his eyes at her. She felt that he has been doing that more than usual. "Well if you'd answered my question then I wouldn't have done that."
She glared at him for another minute before grouchily asking: "What is your stupid question?"
Calen grinned before swinging his arm around her shoulder, propelling her toward the school. She stumbled before righting herself. Again, she glared at him.
"So let me tell you how team Green finally defeated team Gold," his tone was a mixture between maniacal and gleeful. Lily would rather go back to moping, but she figured she owed it to her friend for ignoring him all night.
As he began his spiel about how his crew snagged to pull a fast one on the rivalry group at the last minute. They may have had a head start in the beginning, but he and his group pulled through. Lily nodded at the appropriate pauses in the conversation. Calen would frown at her from time to time, aware she wasn't paying attention, but he continued. From time to time he would butt his head against her hers, causing her to rear back and glared at him. He would just give her a cheeky smile and continued to corral her towards their lockers.
Soon they made it to her classroom. When it registered to her that it was time to separate, she turned to her friend to bid him goodbye. Before she could get out the words, Calen swooped in and kissed her on the cheek. She let out a loud squawk, leaning as far back as possible.
"What the fu--"
"See you later sweetie," he sang as he skipped--yes, skipped!--away.
Lily watched him hope scotch away before realizing that the whole scene had drawn attention to herself. She hurried into her English classroom, practically slamming into her seat. This just drew a few more stares--half of them weirded out or concerned--to herself. She decided she would keep her head down until roll call. She cursed Calen for his selfishness. He was the one who gave her the wake up call about her stalker tendencies. Why was he trying to make her the center of attention anyway.
Now she had to deal with her schoolmates staring at her and--
Then it hit her.
As they were walking in the hallways, she had not noticed her school mates stared or even their scorn. She had Calen gabbing in her ear the whole time from point A to point B. They didn't greeted any one of their close friends, they didn't take a detour to a water fountain, and he made sure to keep her by his side until he escorted her to her classroom. Yeah, they was still the problem of her having snide remark and glance being thrown her way by her classmates, but her first period class dealt with Mrs. Daney, the most strictest teacher in the school. No one ever wanted to get on her bad side.
Lily felt a smile steal away across her face, lighting it up and making her seem youthful. She didn't notice the effect it had on some of the students, making them reflexively smile back at her.
"Alright class," Mrs. Daney made her way to her desk, placing her bag underneath so that it would be out of sight. "I hope you finished that short story that is due today. And I hope you're prepared for your quiz on sentence structures."
That smile that grew on Lily's face? Yeah, it shriveled up and died.
She dug through her bag, frantic and desperately hopeful that she was not so distracted that she forgot her work. She had her notes on the sentence structure. She forgot her homework. She thumped her head in defeat.
"Excuse me, Miss Slater," Mrs. Daney reprimanded the distraught girl. "This is not the time to be napping in my class. Now, short of you praying for mercy, I will need you to sit up straight and pay attention."
Her remark caused a few of the kids to laugh at her expense.
"As I was saying," Mrs. Daney started up again. "I will be collecting your homework from last night. Miss Slater..."
Lily slowly lifted up her head.
"I would like you to go around and collect the work." She instructed the girl. She have to add Slater to the sound by saying, "and make sure that your work is on top of the pile."
Lily and Mrs. Daney had a staring match for a few minutes before the girl gave up and stiffly made her way to her feet. She went to the first aisle by the door and began to go the row. When she collected all of the papers, she made her way to her teacher's desk and plopped the pile on her desk.
Mrs. Daney peered down at the pile, not seeing Lily's copy. Instead of making a show of rifling through the papers and then calling her out, she nodded to the girl's desk telling her to sit down. Appreciating this small mercy, Lily nodded back and fled to her desk in a quick gait.
"I hope some of you do better on your quiz than you did on your homework," Mrs. Daney announced to the class.
Well, so much for small mercies.
She didn't have time to complain, however, as Mrs. Daney dropped the quiz on her desk first before making her way around the classroom.
"Good luck."