The two of us made our way down the path until we reached an intersection. There, we met a familiar face.
"Yo Evan. I see you're as close with Eri as ever." This suave guy is another childhood friend of mine, Ryan Fletcher. I met him a little after Erica, sometime in first grade. The three of us go way back, and we usually head to school together. While we may not live as close to me as Erica does, it's even closer than I am to our high school, so we meet up along the way.
"R-Ryan, it isn't like that!" I respond in my typical dense fashion. I like to consider myself mellowed out; I've lost a lot of that sharp edge I used to have when I was younger. In the place of it, I've become a dense airhead kind of character.
We proceed to banter a bit, as I try and deny my so-called relationship with Erica, but I'm sure Ryan doesn't buy it. Not like he's supposed to in the first place.
"Yeah yeah. Whatever you say dude. C'mon, we have to go or we'll be late." He finally wraps up the conversation with that. As we're leaving I sneak a covert glance in Erica's direction. Nice, she's looking downwards while blushing. Looks like I managed to score some points there.
We all walk to our high school, chatting along the way. It was mostly about how ridiculous our schedule was.
We reach school and have to part ways, with me heading to my homeroom, and Ryan and Erica heading to theirs.
I walk alone for a bit, before I hear someone call out me.
"Ah! Evan! There you are!"
"Oh! Maddie! Good morning." I turn to face this new speaker and am met with a beauty. Now, I'm not really one for details, so I'll leave it mostly up to your imagination. For now, let's just note that she had an air of maturity around her.
This girl is the one Erica mentioned earlier, Maddison Blair, our "senior." Though in reality, she's in the same grade as us. Due to some weird circumstances—I believe it had something to do with her doing kindergarten twice—she's a year older than us. Thus the "senior" title. But I think anyone would be called senior if they were someone like her.
See, Maddison is definition of reliable. She's always helping others out and frequently stays after school to help the faculty. Yet somehow she isn't on the student council? That aside, she's popular with both boys and girls, pretty much being the center of the class. She's like a textbook definition of a main heroine.
...I realize I'm rambling a bit here. Let's get back to the main story.
"Just in time. I need you to help me carry these papers. Looks like I grabbed a bit too many and now they're slipping." She attempted to give me some, but all it did was make the balance unsteadier. I reached out to grab some when she suddenly tripped and fell towards me. Since I was already holding my hands... well I'm sure you can imagine what happened next.
""Ah.""
We end up doing some sort of awkward embrace. The top-most papers slip out of Maddison's hands and flopped unto the floor. But I don't think that really registered in our minds. There I was, with our grade's most popular girl in my hands. I'm pretty sure anyone's mind would shut down for a second.
"...Oh um... sorry." I snapped out my daze by her words and we were already separated. No way... did that seriously last only a second? I'm pretty sure I just lived my entire life out staring into those eyes...
...My stupid thoughts aside, I helped her pick up the pages and we headed to the faculty room and delivered them. Along the way I got to chat with Maddison about our ridiculous midterms.
"So how do you think you did on the exams?"
"I don't think they were that hard. The review days the teacher gave us prior really helped." Of course Maddison aced the tests, I've come to expect nothing less.
"Oh... well I... I'm not sure I did so well haha..." That's a lie. I already know what my scores are going to be. After all, I deliberately chose to get some questions wrong.
"Don't get too hung up on it. I'm sure you did just fine." She gave me dazzling smile. Damn, that thing is deadly...
We returned to the classroom, where I was then met with:
"Evan! You're late! The bell rung ages ago! I know it's the day after midterms but even so you need to show up to school on time!" So even the faculty know how unreasonable they're being...
Yep. I'm late by technicality. Our school works on a system of "report to homeroom first for attendance, then you're allowed to fool around." To sum it up, you don't actually have to stay for homeroom, you just have to show up to let your teacher know you're in the school. The time you actually need to be in class is before first period. You're totally allowed to go roam the school prior to then, so long as your homeroom teacher knows first. Benefits of a lower class school I guess.
Even if I'm late, I have the perfect excuse right by my side here.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Raymond! Evan was out helping me and we got a bit caught up..." Luckily Maddison has my back.
"Oh. I see. Well if he was helping you then I guess there's no other way around it. I'll pardon you. This time." The last part she added with a bit of force. And a glare. A scary glare.
"Y-Yes! Thank you very much!" I squeak out a reply and head to my seat.
And so, the school day begins.