Mine // Carl Gallagher

Chapter 12

Sophia woke up early in the morning to the sight of a pale yellow sunrise and the sound of birds chirping. It was a perfect image. She was slightly confused though when she realized she was on the roof, but she quickly remembered that she had just fallen asleep there. She squinted her eyes as she looked over, but Carl wasn't there. Sophia yawned and slowly stood up, then carefully climbed down the latter and went into his bedroom through the window. He had just slipped on his shirt when she entered. Carl quietly gasped from being startled when he turned around and suddenly saw her standing there, "Oh hey. Sorry for leaving you up there, I just woke up a few minutes ago and I was just about to go wake you in time to get ready."
"Um, get ready for what?"
"School, duh. Unless you wanna ditch again. I'd be down for that."
"Oh yeah, right. I still have to
go to school... And no, there's no way we're ditching again. That was the first and last time I ever do that."
He chuckled as he washed his face in the bathroom, "You're such a goody two shoes. I have no idea how we even became friends."
Sophia laughed as she grabbed a random shirt she had brought out of her duffle bag and put it on when he wasn't looking, "No, it's called being responsible. You should try it sometime."
"Nah, I think I'm good." The two of them lightly laughed as they quickly got ready for another day of school.
Once they were both finished, they went downstairs for breakfast. Ian and Lip were already headed out the door while Debbie was sitting at the table eating cereal. Carl and Sophia also sat down at the table, eating their cereal as fast they could so they wouldn't be late. Carl looked around then spoke up, "Where's Fiona? She usually doesn't leave for work this early." Debbie swallowed her food then said, "Her manager called, she needed to be there earlier because he wanted to have a personal meeting with her. We have no idea what they need to talk about, he never meets with anyone."
Sophia used all of the courage in her body and decided to jump into the conversation so she didn't seem rude, "Well, I hope to God that it isn't anything bad. She seems like an amazing woman, it would suck if the meeting doesn't go well." They all nodded in agreement, slight tension was in the air. Carl broke the ice, "Don't stress it guys, I'm sure it'll all be fine." Debbie stood up from the table and put her bowl in the sink, "I guess we'll find out when she gets home tonight." She grabbed her backpack and headed out the front door, "I'll see y'all later."
Sophia and Carl finished their cereal, grabbed their backpacks, then headed out the door a few minutes after Debbie left. As they were walking down the quiet street in peace, Sophia couldn't stop herself from blurting out of nowhere, "Carl, why are you my friend? I mean, why'd you make the effort to talk to me at school on the first day? Nobody ever pays attention to me." He sighed, "Why you gotta ask so many damn questions?"
"Please, Carl. I just wanna know."
He finally gave in as they continued walking, "Because you seemed cool. You seemed interesting... different. I was just curious and wanted to get to know you. And the reason I'm your friend is because I was right. You're different, interesting, and cool. I like that about you." Sophia couldn't help but smile when he said that, feeling a bit more confident in herself knowing that someone actually liked her the way she was. She responded, "Well, you're different, interesting, and cool, too." He looked over to her and chuckled, "You forgot a sexy beast."
They finally made it to school just on time as the first bell rang. The two of them walked to Geometry and suffered together the whole class. The classroom was completely quiet as the teacher was having all of the students take a pre-test. Sophia breezed through the test because she knew it wasn't even going to be for a grade. Carl leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Yo, move your test more to the right, I need to see your answers." She smirked and whispered very quietly, "It doesn't even matter what the answers are, it's a pre-test. It doesn't count so just fill in random stuff." He nodded, leaned back in his seat, wrote something on his test in big letters, then flipped it over to signal that he was done.
Once everyone had finished their pre-tests, the teacher went around and picked them up off their desks. Carl sat back in his desk with his arms crossed as the teacher walked by and picked up his test. The teacher, Mrs. Mayer, looked at his sheet and said, "Mr. Gallagher, this is absolutely unacceptable." He had written "FUCK THIS" in huge letters on his test. Carl responded with a smirk on his face, "What? It's a pre-test, it doesn't even count." Sophia face palmed as Mrs. Mayer glared at him and said, "Detention." He groaned as the rest of the students tried their absolute hardest not to laugh, they knew it was best to not get on his nerves.
Sophia turned around to face him and whispered, "You are so stupid. I mean, you seriously had to write that? Now you have detention." He leaned forward, "Hey, to be a badass, there's gonna be consequences. It's fine, I get detention all the time." Sophia sighed and turned around to face the front of the room.
It was lunch time and Sophia found herself standing all alone. She had looked to see if she could sit with Lip, Ian, or Debbie, but she couldn't find them in the large crowded cafeteria. She would've been sitting with Carl, but he was too busy selling guns to students in the bathroom. Sophia decided that her only option was to just sit at a table with a bunch of random girls since there was only one open seat left, even though she really didn't want to because of her shyness. She hesitantly approached the table and sat down in the empty chair. There was a pretty blonde who was seated beside her, who she stopped talking to the other girls when Sophia sat down and smiled, "Hey, I'm Claire." Claire seemed like a very nice and happy girl. Sophia gave her an awkward smile, "Hi, um I'm Sophia. I'm so sorry for intruding, it was the only open spot in the whole cafeteria." Claire responded, "Oh don't worry, you're not intruding at all. We love meeting new people, you're totally welcome here. We were just talking about the boys we find cute. Who do you like?" Well, that was a weird topic for a first conversation. But the first name that came to her mind was immediately Carl, though she would never say it out loud. Sophia shrugged, "I'm not sure, I don't really know any guys."
"Hmm, how about that Carl Gallagher? I've seen you around with him. You're lucky. He's super hot, don't you think?"
"Uh, I don't know. I guess..?"
"Oh don't lie, of course you think he's hot. Every girl in this school is completely head over heels for him... even a few guys. What can I say, we all have a thing for bad boys deep down."
All of the girls at the table giggled while Sophia just awkwardly smiled. Of course she thought he was hot, who wouldn't? She would just never admit that she found him attractive because she was sure he didn't feel the same about her and she didn't want to sound stupid. He probably thought of her like a sister.
The bell rang, signaling that lunch was over. Everyone stood up from the table and Claire said, "Well it was super nice to meet you, Sophia! See you around." The girls all went their separate ways to go to their classes. Sophia's next class was Chemistry and that was the only other class she had with Carl. Once everyone was seated in their desks, Mr. Johnson said from the front of the room, "Okay, settle down everyone. Today we're going to talk about the periodic elements and important natural resources they make up." Every single student in the room groaned and yawned, making it very clear that they didn't want to learn about that. Mr. Johnson said, "Hush up! You'll learn about what I say you learn about. This is important so you better pay attention!" There was no point in him saying that because literally nobody was listening. Everyone was off in their own little world and all they heard was, "Blah, blah, blah..."
Sophia was zoning off as she daydreamed about Carl. She was thinking about what Claire had said earlier at lunch. She was right, literally every girl in school was in love with him so Sophia clearly stood no chance. She may have lived with him and they were good friends, which was an advantage, but their relationship wasn't like that. Sophia discretely looked over at Carl, who was about to fall asleep, on the opposite side of the classroom. She observed everything about him, from his cornrows, to his eyes, to his jawline, to his hands... Sophia whispered just below her breath, "Goddamit." In that moment, she knew that she had caught feelings for him.

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