Succubus Happens

So, maybe moving to a new town won’t be so bad. The packing up my entire room and riding in a car for days on end? That wasn’t bad at all. Especially when it meant I got to take the scenic drive. It was nice to be able to take pictures of the countryside. And it’s not even the fact that I’m moving to some Podunk town that only has one grocery store and one Movie Theater. Hell, I shouldn’t be complaining, at least they have their own gas station. That’s a major plus considering the other small towns I’ve been through.  No, the worse part about this entire experience is being the new kid in school with people staring at you and trying to figure out what clique you belong to before even trying to get to know you. And in small towns it’s much worse than being the new kid in a major city. Word spreads like wildfire here. It’s hard to keep a secret a secret in places like this. I stare at the front doors of the North Grove High School from my car. It is the biggest building in the town of North Grove. It has two floors with a separate gymnasium for the basketball team. The woman who had sold my parents the house told us that North Grove basketball was the biggest thing since they got the stoplight by the grocery store. Everyone that passes my car on the way to the building has looked in at me. That fact doesn’t surprise me at all. They haven’t seen this car in the parking lot before, so they automatically know that I am new. It wouldn’t take a detective to figure that out. I look at the clock on my dashboard before getting out of my car. I still have a good twenty minutes or so before the first bell is supposed to ring, according to the school calendar I got from my dad, so I figure this would be a good a time as any to go into the Main Office to get my schedule set up. I do my best to ignore the stares as I make my way through the double doors and tighten the straps on my backpack, biting my lower lip self-consciously. At my old school, I wasn’t popular, but I wasn’t under constant surveillance either. So being here, I know that it’s going to be different. It is going to be very different. I see a sign above a door marking that it’s the Main Office and I step inside, glad to be away from the scrutinizing gaze for the time being. I walk up to the counter and sign my name on the clipboard before sitting down in one of the empty chairs. It only takes a few moments for the ladies behind the desk to notice me. “Oh my goodness,” an woman with round glasses says coming around the desk toward me. She can’t be more than forty years old.  “I am so sorry, dear. Have you been waiting long?” I shake my head slowly at her question, considering I had literally just sat down, and stand up. “I’m—” “Daphne Martin; yes, we know. The whole town’s been buzzing,” she says with a laugh. I don’t know what to say to that. “You guys have been talking about me?” “Well North Grove hasn’t really gotten any new students for quite some time. We’re not like those big cities.” I nod. That’s definitely not a surprise. Big cities are loud and busy and this place is just…not. “I’m Aurelia Sinclair, I’m the guidance counselor,” Aurelia smiles at me before moving back around the desk. She starts typing something on the computer and I move closer to the desk. She’s not wearing a wedding ring so I make a conscious decision to call her Ms. instead of Mrs. “Nice to meet you,” I tell her. “My last school wasn’t quite this small.” “I can tell that just by looking at your transcripts,” she laughs, looking at me for a second before turning her attention back to her computer. “It certainly seems like you’ve been everywhere. Everyone knows everyone here. I think that things are better that way, you know? Okay, now. Your first class is going to be Biology with Mr. Bennett. It’s on the second floor.” She sounds so excited that this place at two floors. Maybe when she first started going to this school, it only had the one. Or maybe she’s just excited that there is going to be fresh blood walking the halls. She takes the paper from the printer and hands it to me. “Now you come in if you have any questions or any trouble settlin’ in, okay now?” I nod, taking the paper from her and folding it in half. “That’s got your locker information on it, too. It’s just down the hall,” Ms. Sinclair smiles. “If you have any questions, just ask any of the students. We should be all real nice here.” “Thank you, Ms. Sinclair,” I say forcing a smile and leaving the office. She was so nice and perky and…weird. I close the door behind me and walk down the hallway toward my locker. I keep my head held high, despite all of the people who are staring at me. I look down at the paper Ms. Sinclair had given me and turned the dial, opening my locker. “Hi, there!” I am in the middle of putting my binders in my locker, but because I am so startled by the voice, I end up dropping my things. I bend down to pick them up and look at the person who had surprised me. I brush my hair behind my ear as I stand back up, trying to maintain my composure. “Uhm, hi?” I say, hanging my backpack up. The person who had shown up out of nowhere is a girl. From the looks of things, maybe she’s a senior like I am. It’s really unclear at this point. She is wearing a smile that pairs nicely with her sun dress and blonde hair. She’s a picture of perfection. Guess they have those in small towns too. Great. “Hi, you must be Daphne Martin,” she says. “I’m Natalie Monroe. I’m your neighbor!” I furrow my brow at her. “Neighbor?” Natalie laughs. “Well…locker neighbor,” she says. “They set up the lockers by last name. Isn’t that just the best?” I smile at her. “Sure is,” I nod. “So…is Mr. Bennett a good teacher?” Natalie nods. “Oh for sure. He’s definitely one of the best. I heard that he oh my god.” I narrow my eyes and turn to look at her. It doesn’t sound like a finished thought, but she isn’t looking at me anymore. She is looking down the hallway, and I notice that most of the girls in the vicinity are doing the same. I follow their gaze and see five boys walking down the hallway together. They are decent looking enough, but something tells me that if I said that to anyone here, they’d throttle me. I am guessing that these boys are in charge…of everything. I turn my attention back to Natalie. “Who are they?” I ask her. I’d rather find out now, than later. It takes her a few moments to answer me. She is too busy watching them turn the corner. She groans and bites her lip before looking at me. I hate to imagine just what she had been thinking about to warrant such a response. “Huh?” I raise my eyebrows at her. “Who are those guys?” I repeat, slightly annoyed. I have never been so “star struck” by a boy, let alone five of them, that I couldn’t answer a question. She smiles. “Those guys are the basketball team. They pretty much rule the school.” “Yes, I figured as much,” I tell her. I noticed the way she said they were the basketball team made me realize that essentially, yes, they were the team. Anyone else really on the team probably doesn’t get to play. They better be that good, or else I’ll have to talk to my dad about spreading the love. The way the five of them walked down the hallway was like they owned the place or something. It was off-putting to me. “Jake and Carter Sinclair…they’re the twins. Their grandmother is Aurelia, the guidance counselor, who you’ve probably already met,” Natalie begins. Grandmother? Seriously? There’s no way. I don’t have time to ask questions, Natalie’s still talking and hasn’t taken a breath. “Then there’s Alex Wyatt, Tyler Henderson and Knox Riley. They’ve been on everyone’s ‘to-do’ list since like ninth grade,” she giggles. I know what she means by ‘to-do’, and I’m not exactly impressed. Guys that like are tools, and I have had my fair share of interacting with tools. They aren’t fun to be around, especially when they act like they’re God’s gift to us. It is also probably why I am still single. I don’t give in to petty flirtation like most girls and the guys at my old school…well they found me off-putting. “So...basically what you’re saying is that everyone at the school wants to bang them?” I ask her, raising an eyebrow. Natalie looks offended. “Okay, now you listen,” she says, her tone definitely harsher than it had been when she first started talking to me. “It’s not just that. They’re the perfect guys. Perfect gentlemen...well, except for Alex. Alex is kind of a player, but still seriously hot.” I nod. I wouldn’t expect anything else from a guy like that. I close my locker and hold my books against my chest, looking at my schedule again just to be sure where I am going. “Well, I’m off to Biology. Where are you headed?” I figure being polite would be the good way to go. I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot with someone who could potentially be a good friend. My mother would have a field day if that got back to her. “Math with Jenkins,” Natalie tells me. “But it’s up in the second floor too, so I’ll walk with you.” I follow Natalie toward the stairs and she tells me about the guys that had just passed by. They have been friends since kindergarten and have pretty much been inseparable. Jake, Carter and Tyler were born and raised in North Grove; their parents having been friends with each other since diapers. Knox moved to North Grove when he was twelve and starting hanging out with the other boys when he joined the basketball team. Alex moved to town when they were in ninth grade. He also joined the basketball team, which is another reason the five of them are so popular around here. Like the realtor said, North Grove basketball was the biggest thing since they got the stoplight. Which, I’m guessing makes sense because the movie theater gets a new release after the movie’s already come out on DVD. Natalie told me, that ever since the five of them banded together back in the ninth grade, things were different in North Grove. Not just in the high school, but in the town as well. People started treating them better and everyone else was given lesser treatment. “Not that we mind,” she adds quickly. “I’m just saying that’s how it is now.” She stops in front of a classroom that had equations on the chalk board inside. The place is so small-town that they haven’t even gotten white boards yet. “This is me,” she says. “Bennett is just two doors down.” I tell her thanks and make my way into the first class on my schedule. The second I walk in, everyone stops what they’re doing, whether it be pulling their pens and binders out or talking to their desk partners, to turn and stare at me. Being stared as is really starting to get on my nerves. I am going to have to say something to someone if the problem persists. The teacher, Mr. Bennett, smiles at me from his chair behind the desk. “You must be Ms. Martin,” he says. “We’ve been expecting you.” I fight the urge to roll my eyes and instead nod. “Yes, so I’ve heard.” I hand him my pass for the day and he signs it before handing it back to me. “Go ahead and take the empty seat next to Alex…Alex raise your hand for me.” Alex. I turn and see him raise his hand. Ah.  So that’s Mr. Wyatt. He is definitely cute like Natalie had said: green eyes, blonde hair, tall, and definitely ripped underneath that t-shirt of his. And he wears that persona of player that was given to him by my locker buddy, oh, so well. A half-smirk, half smile that lets everyone know where they stand in order of importance to him. Disgusting. Now I just have four more boys to put a face to their names. I sit down next to Alex, setting my stuff on the desk. I feel him looking at me from the corner of my eye, and I feel an uncomfortable sensation in the pit of my stomach, so I keep my eyes forward. He clears his throat and leans in. “I’m Alex,” he says in a low voice. Oh my god. Is he trying to put the moves on me right now? “It’s Daphne, right?” I figure since he had initiated conversation I couldn’t very well ignore him now, could I? I place a smile on my lips and look at him. “That’s right,” I tell him. “Or Daph. I’ll answer to both.” “Good to know,” Alex says with a grin. There is something about his grin that tells me that he has used it many times on the girls in this school. He’s used to getting what he wants. And from what Natalie told me, what he wants is something I’m definitely not going to give away. Especially not to him. I may not have a lot of experience with guys, but I’m not going to give it away to the first guy who smiles at me. I turn back to face the front of the classroom, starting to write down the notes Mr. Bennett has written on the board.  This is so not the time for this. “What brings your family to North Grove?” Alex asks me. I suck on my teeth. “My dad’s the new basketball coach. And my mom was all too eager to move from the city. So here we are.” Easy, straightforward. Maybe he’ll stop bothering me now. “Oh yeah?” he asks, leaning in a bit more. I stiffen. “I’m on the basketball team. Does that mean we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other?” I roll my eyes. “I know you’re on the basketball team. Word travels fast around here,” I say. “And that also means that I know about your reputation. Meaning, no: we will not be seeing a lot more of each other.” I look away from him again and smile a little when his jaw drops. My guess is that he doesn’t get turned down by girls all that much. Good. It can be a life-lesson for him. Well, he’s got to start somewhere; he’s probably running out of other girls to hit on in this school. He isn’t going to have many options if he keeps this up. It isn’t that I am annoyed that he’s hitting on me. I am annoyed that it is my first day and he’s hitting on me. I get it. I’m fresh meat; a new face and he is trying to use that to his advantage. Does he have no one else to turn to? No one else who would give him the time of day? Or did he just run out of people? I don’t need to be treated like I am a piece of property, because that isn’t who I am. That’s not how I want people to remember me. I’m not even sure I want them to remember me at all. I am used to coasting my way through the school year and then moving because my parents wants to pack up and leave. But that was then, this is now. Mom loves our new house and dad is happy with the team even after only a handful of practices. After class is over, Alex follows me out of the classroom. I’m on my way to Jenkins, so he doesn’t have that far to walk. “Daph,” he says. I stop just outside the classroom, a little more than exasperated at this point. It is only nine in the morning; I don’t exactly have the patience to deal with this right now. “Yes, Alex. What can I do for you?” He stares at me, obviously confused. “You know what…never mind,” he says, shaking his head. “Never mind.” “Okay…” I say slowly as I turn on my heel and walked into the classroom. “What was that about?” I hear someone say from behind me. “I don’t know,” I hear Alex reply. “But I’m going to find out.” I ignore the comment and try to not think about what a guy like Alex will do to ‘find out’ why I turned him down in the first place. It is amazing to me that girls in this town would do anything to be talked to by a nice looking guy. Not that I’m judging them. I have seen firsthand what a pretty face could do to a girl. First the guy will give all his attention and then he would stop calling. Eventually he would stop even talking to whatever girl in the halls and you start to obsess over what you did wrong and how you could make things better. One of my friends drove herself crazy back at my old school just because the guy she liked was nice to her for a little while. And then after he got bored, he moved on to the next girl who gave him the exact same attention she did. There are too many guys in the world like that and it’s disgusting to me that girls fall for them so easily. Needless to say, I’m not really keen on being nice to Alex if all he has to offer me is a charming smile and good looks. Yes, I can definitely admit that he is attractive. I would be crazy not to, and blind obviously. Even so, I’m not like these other girls in town.   ☽   Surprisingly, math is fun. Oddly enough, Mr. Jenkins, or Just Jenkins as he likes to be called, makes it like a game. It is a bonus that I already like math. I like math because, unlike English, it is objective. There is one answer and one answer only. There is no talking your way out of something here. The twins, Jake and Carter Sinclair come into the classroom soon after I do, and they sit on opposite sides of the classroom. Maybe that’s because they don’t work well together or something. Or maybe, like boys are, they are just too disruptive if they sit together. They’re bigger than Alex, only in their shoulders, with dark hair and light eyes. I am glad that I’m not sitting anywhere near them. With what I know about boys, which isn’t much to be quite honest, I know that boys have each other’s backs.  I had turned down Alex, and he’s probably already told everyone. Which means that I now have that to look forward to. This is why I don’t like small towns; everyone gets into everyone’s business and I just…I don’t want that. But we aren’t going to move anytime soon, or ever. I’m going to have to deal with it and cope. But luckily for me, I know how to handle myself. After math I’m scheduled to have a free period, which means I am going to find an empty table to get some assignments done. I rarely actually do homework at home. I prefer to get everything done at school so I don’t have to take anything home with me. When the bell rings, I wait for most of the students to file out before grabbing my stuff and following suit. I do my best to avoid eye contact with the twins who are standing just outside the door talking to Alex. I hear my name as I start walking past them, so I stop, turning around to look at them. “Can I help you with something?” I ask, my gaze focusing on Alex. He has a cocky grin on his face and all I want to do is throw my math book at him. I’m having one of those mornings. “No,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. I grit my teeth and look between the twins, who are on either side of Alex. I take a step forward and let out a breath. “Listen, I don’t know what your game is, but I don’t want any part of it,” I tell them. “Let me finish at least the rest of the day in peace. Don’t bother me…please.” The grin is still on Alex’s face as I turn from him, shaking my head as I walk away. I am sure my face is flushed as I make my way down the stairs toward the common area. I don’t really do confrontation. I am more of the sit in the corner kind of girl, not being noticed by anyone, really, and I prefer my life that way. I don’t need to be targeted by the boys who run this school. I find an empty table and set my things down, open up my math book and get started on the set of problems that Jenkins had assigned us before the bell rang. I pull my headphones and phone out and hook up my music, putting the volume up enough so that I can’t hear any of the conversation that is going on around me, especially since I’m sure that they are talking about me. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. I don’t know how long I’m sitting there when I finally realize that someone is sitting across from me. I look up and feel my heart jump up to my throat. I pull the earphones out and clear my throat. One of the twins is giving me a friendly smile and I look around the room to see what’s going on. But all I see is people staring at us like we’re on a reality show. Is this a joke or something? “Uhm…” I say, licking my lips. “Did you need something?” “No,” he says. “I just wanted to formally introduce myself. I’m Carter Sinclair.” I stare at him. “Daphne,” I respond slowly. What is happening right now? He grins at me before he starts laughing. Is this funny? Should I be laughing? I look around the room again, desperate for an out, but I don’t know anyone who can come and save me. “Sorry, you probably think I’m super weird, coming up to you like this.” I nod. “I don’t know what to expect from you guys, actually,” I admit. “Weird might be the norm for you.” Carter shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “We’re not weird, I promise. We’ve just got each other’s back…most of the time. But Alex is being an ass…and I think it’s about time that someone teaches him what the word ‘no’ means.” I can’t help but smile. “Thank you?” He grins again. I can’t help but notice that it’s a really nice smile, too. No wonder these girls are all crazy. “You’re welcome,” he tells me as he stands up. “Enjoy the rest of your free period.” I stare after him as he walks away and shake my head, rolling my eyes. That really just happened. I smirk and look back down at my paper when a book slams onto the table. I jump in my seat and look up, surprised to see Natalie. “Tell me it’s not true.” “Well, hi to you, too.” I furrow my brow at her, confused. “Tell you what’s not true?” She raises her eyebrows at me. “Did you turn down Alex Wyatt?” she demands. I look at her blankly. “Really?” I ask her. “That’s what you want to talk about?” “Daphne please, this is serious,” she tells me. Serious? This conversation is serious? Is she kidding? “Did you or did you not turn down Alex Wyatt?” I square my jaw. “I don’t see why this is any of your business,” I say. “Or anyone else’s. How did you even find out about that?” “When it’s a small town and it’s one of the most popular boys in school, people notice,” she says. “And people don’t like it.” “I don’t care what people don’t like.” She scoffs and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Okay,” she says holding her hands. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I’m surprised to hear what she has to say. “What exactly are you warning me about, Natalie?” I put my paper in my textbook and close it, looking her face over to see if there is any trace of deception. Is she messing with me? Is this what people do in this school? Do they just find joy in messing with people on a daily basis? “If things get difficult for you, don’t say I didn’t come to you first,” she says simply. I can’t speak for a few seconds. I don’t know what to say to that. I hadn’t realized that my turning someone down would become worldwide news. “You’re telling me that because I turned down Alex Wyatt, people are going to make my life a living hell?” “I didn’t say that,” she tells me. “I just said not to blame me.” She gives me a quick smile before getting up and walking away from my table. I can’t do anything other than stare at her retreating figure. My mind is still trying to process what had just gone on. Was that conversation even real? Was this day even real? Maybe I am still at home sleeping…that could be the only possible explanation for why everyone I had met so far was completely insane. My only question is this: What the hell is wrong with this school?