A Girl From the Fair

4. 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝘿𝙖𝙮

        I swear I hear birds chirping outside my window while a rub my eyes, turns out it's just my blaring alarm. It is too sunny, too loud, and way too early for this.
        I pull myself out of bed, reluctantly, still tying to adjust to the light shining in my eyes. I turn off my alarm clock, taking a second to enjoy the quiet. The first day of school consistently sucks and worse, now i'm waking up with some mix of anxiety and butterflies already. How fun!
        I run through the normal routine, brushing my teeth, making my bed, getting dressed, and brushing my hair. While I pull out my makeup bag I decide to do something... extra, for today. I do my normal base, making a simple flower pattern on my eyelids with my white eyeliner. I step back, looking in the mirror at my admittedly flawless makeup. Maybe Hazel would notice, if she even cared about this kind of thing.

        I arrived at school, saying goodbye to my parents and blending with the crowd of kids in the hallway. As I walk I look from class to class, person to person, trying to find Isabel, Brittany... or maybe even Hazel. Having failed to find them in the halls, I b-line to my first class, Mr. G's. What I hadn't remembered about the first class was that all of the people I was looking for were in it with me. As I entered the class— having seen Mr. G sitting quietly reading some wildly inappropriate magazine or another— I smiled at Hazel. It's kind of sweet that we made eye contact first, out of anyone in the class. I felt my cheeks warm, just a bit.
"Hazel, hey!" I said, sitting next to her.
"Y/n! I'm so happy we have this class together, I'm glad to see you!" She said.
I avoided eye contact. My face was hot enough, no need for her to see it.
"You act like we haven't texted like... every day since the fair, oh, and called." I laugh. Somehow, I feel like I don't have to worry about school so much anymore.
"It's different in person- wait! Did you do different eye makeup? I've never seen you do something like that on call before!" She smiled brightly at me.
"Oh, uh, yeah! Do you... like it?" I try to smile, making eye contact again. I don't think anything would be more embarrassing than a bad makeup look on the first day back, or Hazel not liking my makeup.
"Yes! Of course! It looks so cute, it suits you!" She says, leaning in closer, somewhat examining my makeup.
It seems like she either knows exactly what she's doing or is completely oblivious to what she's saying. Or maybe, i'm misunderstanding what she's saying. Could be a mix of both!
"Thanks, that means a lot Hazel." I say to her. Smiling widely. Like, widely- a lot wider than normal probably.
Hazel starts saying something before being quickly cut off by a loudspeaker announcement.
        "Hello, this is Principal Meyers with an important Huntington update, so listen to this girl."
        Not Huntington again.
        "Last night, outside the fair, a Huntington player followed me home, pinned me against my car and punched me in the face. Now, my face is totally fucked"
        "We haven't faced the violence of Huntington in twenty years. They think they can get in our heads by picking on our weak and defenseless. Well, we can't let them break our spirit folks. Keep your heads in the game." Meyers signed off.
I tuned almost immediately to Hazel, who was still looking at me.
"That was... weird, right? I mean, it sucks that we have to be afraid of some football players. They're so stupid!" I mustered up. I turned around to see Tim staring daggers at me. I nodded in apology, no need to start any more shit there.
"Yep," Hazel replied, also turning back to see Tim, who was now whispering to Jeff, as if they were gossiping at a middle school sleepover. "I wish there was a way that we could like... help people feel more safe, especially the girls, they seem more... freaked out." As she said 'freaked out' she turned to Sylvie, who was speaking something along the lines of "they're gonna pork us!" I held back laughter.
Hazel started packing up her stuff, which was what made me realize that class had ended. I stood up and started walking towards Isabel and Brittany, "What do you have next?" I asked.
        "Mrs. Stevenson. God, I hate her class though, she shouldn't be a math teacher. You have Ms. Lorenzo right?" She asked.
        "Yeah," I replied, I wanted to say 'you remembered?' but if she had said yes — even though the answer was clearly yes— I wouldn't have been able to function. "So... see you later?" I smiled, clutching some english book in my arms.
        "In Mrs. Maxwells class, yeah!" She smiled, starting to leave the room. "See you later! Bye!" she said as she left the room.
        I smiled and waved back to her, joining Isabel's side. Her and Brittany were talking to Josie and Pj... which was weird. They were saying something about the fair when another announcement came on.
"Will the ugly, untalented lesbians please come to the principals office?" The speaker blared.
"I guess that's you guys!" Brittany said, smiling at them both as they packed up.
"Y/n!" Isabel said, turning back to me, "Who was that you were talking to?" She smiled.
"That was Hazel, we met at the fair and we've uh, been texting a bit." I smiled, hoping she would get the memo.
"Oh! Got it." She turned back to Brittany with a wide smile. Brittany looked very confused. "Tell you later- actually, should we just... ditch? We all have the same class, might as well take the time to... debrief!" Isabel said, looking back at me.
"Yes please. I can't see her face right now." I said starting to leave the class. As I was walking to the door, Isabel and Brittany behind me, someone slammed into my shoulder, almost knocking me over. "What the hell?" I said, looking ahead of me to see Tim and Jeff giggling.
"why aren't you with the ugly overall gays?" Tim whispered as he passed. I stood still, blinking, and confused. What the fuck? Is this all because I rejected him? Jesus, why are people in football so immature, I mean Jeff is practically a man-baby, but I honestly thought Tim was better than that. I balled my fist, looking back at Isabel and Brittany, "Let's just go." They gave me a sympathetic look and walked next to me, leading us to a secluded area in the stairs, where we went whenever Isabel had issues with Jeff.
I sighed and slouched against the wall, sitting down with my hands covering my eyes. I groaned. "So, what first, the homophobia or Hazel."
They both sat near me. "Let's just... forget about Tim and Jeff. Jeff can be so stupid and Tim is just an asshole," Isabel started, "So, who is Hazel?" Isabel said, almost teasing me. Brittany smiled, having caught on.
"Well, she was at the fair, with Pj and Josie, and y'know when I went to ride the ferris wheel?" They nodded. "She ended up being on the same bench as me. And we talked a lot, she told me about the whole rumor... but otherwise she was just... sweet. It was so easy to talk to her, and she's... kind of my type." They both giggled and I filled them in on the past weeks, finally getting it all out.

i'm actually kicking my legs rn this was so fun to write... expect more updates soon! :)