Video Game Girlfriend

Chapter 4

After giving Vanessa the full tour of the school and showing her where all her classes were, we rounded back to the front of the school and again started walking back to Mrs. Hamilton's classroom. She isn’t much of a talker, so most of the tour was either spent in awkward silence, or by me blabbing away about random stuff. As we got back to the classroom the bell was ringing, I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. Walking into the classroom I went to my desk, but not before letting her know I’d be happy to walk her to her next class if she needed help finding it again. She nodded her head gently before moving towards the back corner of the classroom.

“Good Morning class!” Mrs. Hamilton's chipper voice cut through the various conversations of the other students in the classroom. “As some of you may have noticed we have a new student today, Miss Vanessa Cross, sweetheart if you don’t mind standing up,” All heads turn to the back of the class. Vanessa’s face goes bright red, obviously not ready for the amount of attention she was suddenly getting. She slowly rose from her seat, smiling softly at the class. “Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself dear?” Mrs. Hamilton asks, smiling broadly at Vanessa.

“Um, okay.” She started, clasping her hands in front of herself and fiddling with her fingers nervously. “My name is Vanessa Cross, obviously, I’m 18 years old, I’m an only child unless you count my family's dog, then technically I’d be the youngest child.” She laughed softly to herself at the halfhearted joke.

“Great, well nice to meet you Miss Cross.” Mrs. Hamilton said, before looking down at her podium. “Alright class enough with introductions, if you want to get to know Miss Cross more, you’ll have to do so after class. Now onto today's lesson, I trust you all were able to complete last night’s assignment?” She says, looking at the class over her classes. Everyone shuffles in their seats to pull out their papers from last night. We pass them toward the front of our rows, while Mrs. H goes around gathering them all up.

The rest of the class went by in a blur, just the normal classwork. When the bell rang I was hoping to walk Vanessa to her next class, however it seems some of the girls in our class beat me to it as they swarmed her as soon as it went off. I walked out of the classroom and down the hall towards my next class. I want to talk to the guys about her, and thankfully we are all in this one together. 

Walking in I take my usual seat behind Holden, Kyle sits beside me in the row to my right. Holden instantly turns around after I sit down.

“Hey man, I heard there’s a new girl in our class, have you seen her yet?” Holden says, a questioning look on his face.

“Yeah dude, I heard she’s super hot, but really shy, not much of a talker.” Kyle chimes in, scooting his desk a few inches towards mine. 

“Actually I have, her and her family came into my work last night. And then I saw her again this morning after she got checked in, I gave her a tour of the school so she wouldn’t get lost.” I replied, wanting to show off that I had gotten to her first.

“Dang man, I was hoping to get the inside dish first.” Holden says, knocking his fist on the table.

“Well? What does she look like, is she as pretty as everyone is saying?” Kyle asks, raising his eyebrows and wearing a stupid grin on his face.

“I mean yeah she’s pretty, I mean she's really pretty actually.” I reply, my mind goes back to the first time I saw her and how her bright green eyes seemed to captivate me, and then again this morning. I didn’t really pay much attention to the rest of her, I could look into her eyes forever and be perfectly content. 

Just then our History teacher walks in, shushing everyone before starting the lesson. Holden whispers that he wants to hear all the details later before turning back around to face the front of the class. Kyle scoots his desk back where it belongs, and class goes by as usual. 

I’m able to fill the guys in some more during our next class as well as at lunch. Sadly I don’t see much of Vanessa for the rest of the day. We had some classes together, but she’s still swarmed by all the girls, who are more than happy to have another joining their ranks. And, thanks to her being there and all the fuss going on about her, I was able to pretty much completely forget about My sister and Hailey for the entire day. That is, until I got to P.E. that afternoon, it seems that even with the hype of having a new student for the first time in ages, the rumor mill is still as active as ever. 

As I walk in Holden instantly runs over to me, “Dude, why didn’t you tell me you told Hailey how you felt man?” He says clapping me on the back. My face instantly went pale, I had completely forgotten about that.

“I didn’t tell her man, my sister did, she thought it would be better to just get it all out in the open.” I said, burying my face in my hands from embarrassment. Just about that time the girls came bounding out onto the field, I could hear them all start laughing and knew that if I looked up it would be me that they were directing it towards. I peeked through my fingers and sure enough I saw a group of Hailey's friends crowded together, giggling and pointing in my direction. As if that wasn’t enough though, as I’m scanning the group of girls, I see none other than Vanessa herself, right in the center. I could’ve sworn I felt my soul leave my body. She caught my stare and smiled shyly at me, slowly raising her hand and giving me a slight wave. I have never wanted to disappear more than right now.

“Hey man it’s okay, by tomorrow they’ll have forgotten all about this and will have moved on to the next round of gossip.” Holden said to me, a look of sympathy covering his face as he tried to cheer me up. I appreciated the effort, but something in me told me it would take more than a day or two to get past this one. I groaned internally, just wishing to be home locked in my room right now. 

P.E. went by agonizingly slow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone had their eyes on me the entire class. When the final bell rang, I made a mad dash for the locker room, quickly changing and grabbing my bags. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible, and forget all about the events of today.