Falling for a Superhero

Chapter Two- "Man in the Water"

Just as I suspected, school wasn't the same here. In my hometown, everyone knew each other and talked to each other whether it was a simple greeting or a full conversation. However, here, people hated each other and made their own little cliques. It was like various schools and neighborhoods pulled into one.

I walked into second period—thankfully a class I had with Cheyenne—and looked around for the teacher. I awkwardly stood at the front of the classroom, not knowing where to go, until the teacher walked in after the bell.

"If you don't have a hard copy of your second draft for your 'Man in the Water' practice article, you're wrong," she immediately said. Some students groaned and slouched in their seats, including Cheyenne, and then the teacher looked to me. "Angela Warden?"

"Yes ma'am," I answered.

"I'm Mrs. Hayes, welcome to Journalism," she smiled. I smiled back and she gave me two sheets of papers stapled together. The title read "Man in the Water" and the sheet behind it had lines to write on with a source at the bottom.

I took the seat by Cheyenne as the class started to mutter their separate conversations to each other while the good kids actually got up to turn in their practice article.

"Mr. Vega," Mrs. Hayes called. I looked around to guess who that was and a guy stood up from the far corner of the room, surrounded by girls.

"Ma'am?" he asked, his half-smirk hanging off of his undeniably attractive face surrounded by locks of messy-yet-styled dark hair with brown highlights that seemed to be fading.

"Time for your interview," Mrs. Hayes answered. Interview? Surely she meant an oral presentation. By his dark clothes, I assumed he would defy the teacher's authority to call him to the front of the class, but he happily obliged and stood right in front. When I saw his dark eyes connect to mine, I immediately felt heat in my cheeks and looked down to read the article. "What is 'Man in the Water' about?"

Well that'll save me some reading time.

"It's about men on a crashed plane that keep handing life savers to other passengers instead of taking them for themselves. However the Man in the Water was one of the heroic men that didn't survive the freezing cold water, but still lives in memories of survivors," he answered, his perfectly pitched voice nonchalant as I continued to act as if I was reading.

I bet he was one of those guys you saw on TV and movies; the stud, athletic, smart, ladies man that pries on innocent girls' lives just to get in their pants—like he knows he will because he's built himself to be perfect and charm girls in every way...

"That's Dastan Vega," Cheyenne whispered to me, slightly leaning in my seat. She'd been introducing me to new people before schools started—like a beautiful social butterfly—and of course Dastan Vega wouldn't go unnoticed. "He's kind of the 'it' boy around here."

I looked over to him, the questions and answers of his consequential interview being a murmur in the background, yet his eyes shifted to mine and I looked back to Cheyenne.

"So what?" I asked. So what if he was popular or something? Did that give him special privileges? No. Clearly not, because he wouldn't be standing in front of the class having an interrogation in place of his tardy practice article, if that was the case.

"You didn't have someone popular at your old school?" she asked, confused.

"Other than my brother? Yeah, I guess so," I answered.

"Well..." she prompted.

"Well what?" I asked.

"Did anything happen with him, or did he get away with stuff, or get a lot of girls or—"