Chapter Two; Registration

My sneakers squeaked obnoxiously against the marble floors as we entered the giant room and I was starting to get snooty looks from some of the preps. Self-consciously, I pulled my long hair out of its ponytail and let my face hide behind my charcoal locks. I let my eyes sweep around and I tried to get accustomed to the unfamiliar walls surrounding me. So far it wasn’t working.

As my mother and I made our way over to the corner of the crowded room and dropped my trunk onto the cold stone with a dull ‘thud’, I wondered how I would survive living here for five minutes, let alone the whole school year.

“Looks like we’re supposed to get info over there.” My mother pointed to a long table in the middle of the room which four people wearing matching plaid uniforms were seated behind. Four medium sized lines were starting to form behind each person, and before I could respond, my mother took off and joined the crowd of freshmen and newbies that were positioned in the lines.

As I stood there, feeling more alone than I ever had before in my life, I watched all of the freshmen entering the same position that I was in and wondered if any of them were wishing that they were anywhere else but there, just like I was.

“Need help?” A deep voice suddenly questioned behind me. Bringing me back to the world, I jumped and spun around to greet the owner of the voice. My breath hitched in my chest as my icy eyes took in the sight before me.

A boy who looked a little older than me was standing there, staring at me, waiting for a reaction. He had a casual look about him. His chocolate locks fell into his deep green eyes and his defined jaw bone stuck out in a challenging kind of way. He was at least four inches taller than me and as he towered over me, continuing to stare, it then occurred to me that more than a minute had passed since I had turned around.

Trying to cover up the fact that I probably came off as a complete idiot, I swallowed hard and tried to sound as casual as he looked.

“No, that’s okay. I’m just waiting for my mother to get more information.” I almost groaned out loud. Why did I tell him I was here with my mother? By the looks of that place any other girl there would have left her mother at home, but no. Not me. I not only brought my mother with me, but was talking about that huge mistake with a guy. A cute guy. I wanted to sink into the floor.

Expecting him to give me some weird look and walk away, I was surprised when he smiled and chuckled a little.

“You must be new here then. I didn’t think I’d seen you before.” Of course I looked new. I was the only girl there without a Prada bag hanging off of her arm.

I just nodded and looked down at the floor, willing my mind to come up with something brilliant to say. Unfortunately, the only thing that would come out was,

“Umm, yeah.” I paused, wanting to smack myself. Looking up, I stared straight into his eyes and tried to find something to talk about. My brain then chose that moment to remind me that he didn’t know who I was, so I smiled a little and stuck out my hand. “I’m Alex by the way.” He grinned more and grabbed my hand in one of his big ones, shaking it gently up and down.

“Logan.” He stated. My smile got a little wider and as he bore into my eyes, I felt my face grow hot. A few minutes passed with neither of us noticing that our hands were still in each other’s grip and still moving up and down. That is, until my mother showed up.

“Alex? Alex, honey, who’s this?” My eyes tore away from his and our hands automatically returned to their owners. I felt my blush deepen and as I turned to my mother and gave her a look, I silently willed Logan not to walk away.

“Mom, this is Logan. Logan,” I turned towards him again. “This is my mother.” They both smiled and shook hands, only this time his hand automatically went into his pocket after three seconds. I cursed myself for not breaking the previous handshake and wondered just how much damage I could do to my social life on just the first day.

Before an awkward pause could begin to settle over us, Logan broke the silence. “I guess I’ll see you in class.” He turned back to me and gave me one last grin before turning and walking in the opposite direction.

“Yeah, I’ll see ya…” I practically whispered after him. I then groaned lightly as I turned back to my mother and put a hand to my forehead. She was grinning and giving me a proud mother look which, unfortunately, only made my growing headache worse.

“He’s cute!” She exclaimed and I just squeezed my eyes shut and sat on one end of my trunk.

“Yeah, whatever, so what’s going on?” Thankfully, she let the subject drop as she sat on the other side of the trunk and had me start signing and skimming a couple packets of info.

*~*~*~*~*~*