Butterflies and Ashes

Chapter 3 - Feeling Stalked

I wished I could rewind time by thirty minutes and undo what I had written in my test, because there was no way I would ever be the freaking vice president of this freaking class, and definitely not teaming up with June either.

“Won’t you guys cheer them?” Mrs. Martinez finally broke the awkward silence.

At that moment, I wished for only one thing that they would all stop gawking at me.

Funnily enough, of all the gazes pinned on me, my eyes met June’s, and I looked away quickly. That made it the second time already.

“Are you sure you marked her script well?” Tina’s voice was thick with indignation. “Or is this a prank you are trying to pull on us? What did I score then?”

Red Light forced a polite smile. I guessed smiling wasn’t really her thing. “You had fourteen points, dearie,” she said sweetly.

Tina shot to her feet sharply, slamming her fist on the table. “This is totally unacceptable! There is no way in the entire world that a nobody from nowhere would suddenly appear out of the blues and tell me what to do!” she flared before stalking out of the class.

“Hey, Tina, hold on, wait!” the girl sitting in front of me called desperately, running after her.

“Heather!” Mrs. Martinez called, but she had already disappeared out the door.

Heather? The name echoed in my head. So she was the one sitting right in front of me.

“I don’t care what you guys may think, because we agreed on this right before I proceeded, didn’t we?” Mrs. Martinez asked calmly as she went through the attendance sheet.

“But having a newbie tell us what to do? That’s so odd,” the kid beside me, the one who had earlier called Mrs. Martinez, Red Light, remarked, chewing on his pencil.

“Exactly what makes it more fun,” the boy in front of him said, rubbing his palms together in pleasure, his eyes dancing. The rest of the class giggled, breaking into murmurs, some casting angry or curious glances my way.

“Whatever you guys call it, I don’t care,” Mrs. Martinez said coldly. “The point is, we made a deal, and this is simply the result. A newbie can’t be a newbie forever. With time, she will learn the rules, adapt, blend, and fit in. That being said, I need you two to come with me, June and Carrie.” She ordered briskly, walking out of the class with the scripts in her hand.

June whispered something to the boy with cute spiky hair in front of him before rising. I had a gut feeling it had something to do with me.

“Carrie?” Mrs. Martinez shot me a warning look as I sat glued to my seat like a porcelain doll.

I rose slowly, feeling drugged, like I was walking on borrowed feet. Mrs. Martinez led the way, and for some reason, I felt June deliberately lagging behind. The awareness of his presence made my feet wobbly, my steps awkward and uneven. I began to imagine he was recording me on video. Maybe my backside was wet or stained and I didn’t know it. The thought made me steal a quick glance back and for the third time in an hour, our gazes met. But unlike before, instead of his usual smile, his face was set in a scowl.

I concluded it must have been a look of disapproval.

Did he hate me that much? Over nothing?

“Why did you look back?” he asked icily, quickening his pace to match mine as we took a right turn in the endless looking maze of corridors. I caught a whiff of his cologne and resisted the urge to inhale and exhale. Damn it. He smelled annoyingly good.

I swallowed hard and said nothing, suddenly determined to walk faster and catch up with Mrs. Martinez instead of keeping pace with this arrogant boy.

“Why did you look back, Carrie?” he pressed again.

My throat went dry. “I don’t know. Maybe I felt stalked.”

He scoffed. “Stalked? What do you mean by that? Do I look scary, or do you think I would harm you?”

I wanted to say yes. Not only would he harm me, but so would his dragon of a girlfriend, Tina, who breathed fire. But the words got stuck in my throat, and guess what slipped out instead? “Get lost.” I blurted angrily.

“What? Excuse me?”

He looked visibly shocked, like he had never been told off in his entire life.

“Just let me be, please. I’m only here to learn, not to get my blood sucked out.”

June chuckled dryly. “Same here. I’m only here to learn, not partner with a charity case who smells like dish soap.” He retorted, quickening his pace to walk beside Mrs. Martinez.

My eyes stung instantly, but I forced the tears back, because my number one rule was never to cry in public. Did I really smell bad? Or was it about the soap or body spray I used? I have been using the same product for as long as I could remember, and even my best friend Coco always said it smelled great, better than hers, in fact.

“Miss Carrie Thomas.” Mrs. Martinez’s cold voice called ahead. “We don’t have the whole day.” She disappeared into the next room as she spoke, and I had to hurry on, shoving my depression aside.

The staff lounge smelled strongly of tea and coffee when we stepped in. I bet everyone in this school wore expensive perfumes and sprays except me, because that was the next pleasant scent after the coffee.

“I prepared your class schedule for the semester. Go over it and let me know if there is anything that doesn’t sit right with you.”

Is that so? I thought. We never did that in my former school. The schedules were always taped on the notice board, and we just followed them. Who cared if we liked it or not?

She handed the scripts to June. “Here, distribute these to the class when you return. I would have done it myself, but you guys didn’t seem in the mood.”

She rearranged some files and forms on her table. “Did you fill out all your forms already, Carrie?”

I nodded meekly. “Yeah.”

I held my breath as I watched her red-tipped nails flip through the forms. Did I fill them wrongly? I wasn’t ready to get embarrassed in front of June. He didn’t have to know my backstory. Not yet.

“Aren’t you a scholarship student? Why didn’t you indicate that in your form as instructed?” she asked, raising her brows at me.