Bite Me

Chapter 1

     Out of nowhere, I felt irritated.

     It was like a bug was crawling up my neck, or there was something stuck in my tooth. Something was just...off.

   "He's hot," Marcella observed rather loudly, causing me too look up at whoever she was referring to.

     Standing at the doorway of the classroom was a student I'd never seen before. He was tall and had a muscular build, sun kissed skin, wavy light brown hair, and bright blue eyes that stood out against his complexion. He gave off a definite fuckboy vibe, with his adidas joggers, white t-shirt, and sneakers, which were probably some "cool" brand that I didn't know nor care enough about sports to recognize.

     "Alright class," my art teacher, who's name I still couldn't remember despite having been in her class for a month now, addressed the new kid with a wave of her hand. "This is your new classmate. His name is...er, remind me what your name is, sweetheart?"

     "Mason," said the new guy, and as if on cue a collection of murmurs—mostly female—went up in the class of forty, now forty-one.

     "Right, Mason," the art teacher said. "I'm Mrs Garroway—" that's it "—I'll be your art teacher this year. Go ahead and take a seat wherever you'd like. Anyways," she turned back to the rest of the class and started blabbering about whatever we'd be doing that day, at which point I tuned out.

     I grabbed my charcoal pencil and resumed whatever it was I'd been doing in my sketchbook. The good thing about this class was, I didn't have to try to hard to pass. I was naturally artistic, and had been all my life. Even if the work I turned in had absolutely nothing to do with Mrs Garrison or Garret or whatever's instructions—which it usually didn't because I never listened to her instructions—she still gave me a hundred, sometimes more, and praised my work as if it were a masterpiece.

      I sketched line after line, not really paying attention to what I was drawing. I just let my hand take over, swapping my pencil for one of a different thickness or intensity whenever I saw fit. It wasn't until halfway through the class that I looked up again at Marcella calling my name.

      "What?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. Marcella gave me a scolding look, as if I'd done something indecent.

     "It's been half the period and you still haven't said hello to our new table-mate," she scolded. That was when I realized that, sitting on the other side of the table next to a kid who's name I couldn't remember, was the new student, who's name I also had forgotten. I wasn't the best with names; I honestly just didn't care enough to remember them.

     "Hello," I said boredly, hardly sparing him a glance. I turned my attention back to my sketchbook and rolled my eyes when Cella snatched my pencil from my hand. Just to annoy her, I grabbed a different one, and started shading. I chuckled under my breath at Cella's frustrated groan. The laugh quickly turned into a yelp, though, when she grabbed my pencil again and used it to poke me hard in the back of my hand.

     I looked back up to appease her and get her to leave me alone. "What?"

     "Introduce yourself!" Marcella demanded, indicating across the table toward...Marcus? Max?

       "You were calling my name for, like, a minute," I said dryly. "If he hasn't caught it by now, it's a lost cause."

      At the sound of a muffled snicker, I looked Manuel full on for the first time since he'd first entered to see him smirking. "It's Kieran, right? I'm Mason."