Secret Crush

There were three things that I just could not deal with in this world. Being involved in any kind of drama, being unorganized, and being late. When I woke up thirty minutes later than usual, I knew right away that today was going to be a very bad day for me. "Mom!" I yelled as I quickly got out of bed and searched for my glasses. "Why didn't you wake me up?" There was no response. I groaned when I found my glasses and put them on. I looked at the time and noticed that it had reset and was blinking 12:00am. "Stupid digital clocks." I muttered as I pulled out my towel and rushed to the bathroom. After brushing my teeth and taking a quick shower, I threw on my blue tights and my brother's large, black t-shirt. I was running way too late to care about matching. Or combing my hair. Or putting on my contact lenses. When I left my room, I picked up my backpack and screamed in frustration when all of the books inside it fell out. "No way!" I yelled, but quickly bent down and repacked it in an orderly fashion. Organization. I needed that. And after zipping my bag up again, I ran out of my bedroom and down the stairs. I glared at my brother, who was leaning against the counter, sipping some coffee. "Mom left for work." He said. "Why didn't you wake me up?" I asked as I grabbed his coffee from him and started to drink it. He ignored me and looked me up and down with his light brown eyes. "You're a mess." He chuckled as he picked up one of my stray hair ties from the counter and flicked it at me. I caught it with my free hand and quickly tied my hair up after finishing the coffee. "I'll give you a ride." He said with a smile. I softened my glare and sighed in relief. "Thank you." And a short moment later, I was off to school. I think being a teenager is one of the hardest stages in a persons life. Especially in this day and age. You had to worry about school, about a social life, about family, and even about figuring out who you are as a person and where you want to be one day... sometimes that's too much to handle. The worst part was that I was in twelfth grade. That meant University and College applications were on my mind as well. And that means more stress. I often hated school, but that was a normal thing for kids like me. Kids who had divorced parents, kids who lacked popularity, kids who lacked a social life, and kids who just hated seeing certain people that they only ever saw at school. But I have to say, being quiet, friendly and apparently shy was a great way to make my life a little bit easier. Especially in my school, where drama was an everyday thing. After my brother dropped me off, I gave him a kiss on his cheek and rushed to my locker. Classes had already started and I tried my best to ignore the angry looks of the hall monitors as I reached my locker and opened the lock. "Good morning staff and students." I jumped, dropping my lock onto the floor and cursing the morning announcements in my head. "Today is Monday September the thirteenth. Please stand up for the playing of the national anthem." "Stop walking and stand still!" I heard a hall monitor yell at some students, probably including me. I swallowed in frustration. A minute later, when the song had ended, I went back to throwing my sweater into the locker and pulling out some of my textbooks while ignoring the oh so important announcements. Finally, I closed my locker and rushed down the narrow, but squeaky clean halls of Victoria Anne High School and up the staircase to my Anthropology class. But when I reached the door to the classroom, I froze. The boy walking towards me froze too. We then looked at each other for a moment, and for that moment, I forgot that I was late for class. Gale Dallas, my ex-best friend, was standing infront of me, his duffle bag over his shoulder and his hands in his pockets. Wow, what a day to look your worst and feel your worst. I was going to smile at him, but he stepped forward and opened the classroom door and stood there, waiting for me to go in. "Thanks." I said as I walked into the small classroom without looking him in the eye. My teacher, Mr. Dmitri, looked up. Mr. Dmitri was our anthropology teacher. And honestly, he was one of the hottest teachers in our school. He had gorgeous deep, blue eyes, dark brown hair and was tall, had an average build and a lovely deep voice. "Naomi." He said, making me stop at the door. "You're late? That's a surprise." I smiled, giving him a sad, apologetic look. "I'm sorry." He smiled at me, but then his eyes fell on Gale, who had already walked past me and was sitting in his seat. "Gale. I'm not surprised you're late." Gale saluted him. "Sorry sir." Mr. Dmitri shook his head and then looked at me. "Alright, get to your seat." I nodded and walked over to my seat, which was at the opposite end of the classroom from Gale, and noticed that people were not in their regular seats today. Whatever, I didn't talk to many people in this class anyway. So I just went to my regular seat. After getting settled, I leaned back into my seat and secretly looked over at Gale. He grinned at his friends and was joking around with them. I crossed my arms and felt a frown form on my face. I still couldn't understand how two people who were once best friends could pretend they didn't know each other. That was Gale and I. All through elementary school, Gale and I were the bestest of friends. And when I say the best of friends, I mean it. We knew everything about each other, and we did everything together. At that time of my life he was someone that I was so used to being in my life, like a sibling or mom or dad... the thought of us never talking in the future would have blown my mind back them. And I swear I thought we were happy. Then high school had to come around and ruin everything. Gale was hot, there was no doubt about that. He was an extremely talented artist. He was rich. And he was so good at being social. It didn't take him longer than a day to get his new, popular, materialistic, rich friends. It was our first day of highschool and he had already joined the 'elite' group of our school. They didn't have a group name or anything. But there was a common trait that all their members had. They were rich, gorgeous, popular, materialistic, snobby, dramatic and absolutely, horribly judgemental. Clearly, I was different and could never fit in with that type of crowd. With my black, wavy hair and my dark brown eyes, I could never really be that pretty. I had a somewhat long face and an average sized body.. and I was fairly short. I never wore any makeup simply because I didn't know how. When it came to money, my dad was a paramedic and my mother was an accountant, and of course, I didn't work. We were a middle classed family who lived in a regular sized house. Plus, I had a horrible sense of style and I was the most unsocial person out there. There was no way I could fit into Gale's kind of life. I think the worst part of all of this was that I always had a tiny crush on him. From the time that we met. He was, after all, my first 'love'. I guess you can never really get over that. Honestly though, as the years passed, I've grown. I personally think I'm better looking than I was in elementary school. Or maybe it's because my brother likes to tell me that I'm pretty. I guess that doesn't count. But either way, I've grown. I've grown to accept that I'm not Miss Popular Beautiful and I'm happy with that. I've also grown to accept that Gale is a jerk who left me for popularity. I sighed. It's not like I should blame myself. I mean, I never did anything wrong right? I secretly looked at Gale again and my heart started to ache a little. I sighed again and looked down at my hands. I then shook my head. No. No, I won't be upset. I've grown. There's no reason for why I should ever be upset. I've got one year of highschool left and then he'll just be a part of my past. "Oh, Gale and Naomi. I need you two to sit together." Both of our heads shot up. "What?" We both asked together. "Everyone else had picked partners to start the assignment. You two have no partners, so you two need to be partners." Mr. Dmitri said. We both looked at each other. "Gale. Man." Mr. Dmitri said. "Get up. Don't keep the young lady waiting." People started to chuckle and Gale smiled casually as he stood up and walked over to me a little lazily. He then pulled out the chair from the empty desk beside me and sat down. I felt my heart start to beat a little too quickly. This was the closest he has sat to me since elementary school. "Alright," Mr. Dmitri started, "the assignment isn't going to be a simple assignment, so pay attention." He took out a huge pile of papers and started handing it out as he continued to speak. "On this sheet, there are a bunch of questions on it. I will assign each pair a number and that is the question you will work on." When we got our sheets, I immediately pulled out my Anthropology binder and put it in. "Since the semester has just started, these questions are simply introductory questions to help all of you get an understanding of various aspects of anthropology. If you flip to page two, you will see the list of the questions. Examples include what is ecological anthropology? What is applied anthropology? And, what is legal anthropology?" I nodded my head. Seemed simple enough. "All you need to do is create a ten minute presentation explaining the topic that you need to discuss. The only reason for why this may not be simple is because all of you have probably not taken this course before. So this is all new to you." He said. "If you have any questions or you need any help at all, please feel free to come and ask me. But other than that, I will give you today in class to get started. But after that, you all need to work on it yourselves and it is due next Wednesday." After that, Mr. Dmitri went around, giving us our numbers, and when he came to us, he said ten. I looked down at the paper when he left and smiled. "Cool, we got Anthropology of religion!" I looked up at Gale, who was looking away. I took a deep breath, working up the courage to speak to him again. "Hey." He looked at me. "Yeah, sorry?" I looked at him carefully. He hadn't changed much at all. His eyes were a gorgeous hazel and he had brown short hair that he always gelled up at the front. Today, he was wearing a white V-necked, tight t-shirt with a plaid button up shirt over it, unbuttoned. He also wore jeans that were a little big for him. But it wasn't big enough to make it look weird. He smiled awkwardly. "Um... what did you say?" Oh yeah, and he had the cutest smile a guy could have. I looked back at the paper as I adjusted my glasses and swallowed hard, feeling my cheeks start to heat up. "I said, cool. We're doing the Anthropology of Religion." He nodded his head and moved his chair closer to me. "Yeah, I guess that's cool." "So what type of presentation do you want to do?" I asked as I tried my best to avoid his eyes as much as possible. He shrugged. "You always loved making huge posters." I felt my heart skip a beat. I was more than a little surprised to hear that he remembered that. "Do you wanna do a poster?" He smiled at me, but shrugged again. "I guess so. I can do all the art related stuff and you can do the research related stuff. Of course... I'll help a bit." I couldn't help myself from chuckling. That's exactly what we always did when we worked together. "Alright deal." I said. And then we spent the rest of the class working on the assignment. It wasn't like old times but honestly... it was good enough for me. I guess I was wrong about today being a very bad day.