Ball of Fire- A Dexella AU

VI

THE FIRST THING DEX DIZZNEE NOTICED that morning was that Marella Redek's normally frigid icy blue eyes were surrounded by dark circles, and rimmed with red, like she had been crying all night. He wanted to ask what happened but knew from experience that a crying girl was an extraordinarily dangerous animal, and not to be messed with, so he stayed silent. 

They were sitting in silence together at a table in the cafeteria, waiting for the buses so they could accompany Sophie Foster on her first full day of Foxfire High. Dex tapped his toes on the ground and stared up at the fluorescent lighting. 

"Marella! Why are you sitting with that loser! Sit over here!" 

Dex watched as Marella set her phone down, (which revealed that she was scrolling through an app called Wattpad) and headed over to the table of girls that were universally known as the popular girls. 

He caught words of their conversation, and of Stina rolling her eyes. Marella crossed her arms and talked to Stina in a dangerously calm tone, and Stina finally gestured back to the table, giving what Dex assumed was the 'okay to leave' hand. 

Marella sat back down and resumed looking at her phone. Dex stared at her curiously. Finally, he couldn't resist the temptation, and the question popped out of his mouth. 

"Why do you even hang out with them? They seem really rude, and they just boss you around all the time." 

He thought she wasn't going to acknowledge him, but in the end, she looked up from her phone and did. 

"I stay with them because they're my only friends and being alone in high school is kinda pitiful and just plain sad." She looked up at Dex. "No offense." 

"None taken." 

They sat in silence for a while, only interrupted by the occasional beep of Marella's phone, signaling a text. Dex fiddled with his fingers, trying to fight the urge to take out the old car engine from his backpack, but he assumed that Marella probably wouldn't like it. 

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Sophie Foster walked into the room. When she walked in, people turned their heads to face her. New kids were always very interesting, because of Foxfire's High very exclusive acceptance program. 

Dex noticed the two most popular guys in the school, Fitz Vacker, and Keefe Sencen, staring at her. Keefe had dropped his sandwich, the meat falling out and landing on Biana's shoe, and Fitz missed his toast, accidentally stabbed the table with his fork instead. 

He watched Biana Vacker rolling her eyes, and she grabbed the two boys by their shirt sleeves and dragged them to the other side of the room. Dex saw her face turn red with anger towards Sophie when she noticed Keefe continuing to look at her. 

Sophie sat down at their table, next to Dex, and (he noticed) as far away from Marella as possible. She nearly tripped over the chair leg and would have fallen over if it weren't for Marella kicking the chair leg away at the last possible second with the heel of her black boots. 

"You're here!" Dex said, turning to face her. She smiled up at him, tucking a piece of her blond hair behind her ear, and he felt his heartbeat quicken. 

"Finally," Marella remarked, and he felt his attention being drawn towards her again. She swung her legs back on the ground and stood up, dragging her backpack over her shoulders. "You really took your sweet time." 

"S-Sorry," she stuttered. She obviously shared the same view towards Marella as he did. 

Intimidating. 

"Come on, let's just get to class." 

They set off at a quick pace towards their first class of the day, one that the three of them shared, English Literature. Dex hated this class, one because he didn't understand classical literature, and two because the tables were so huge.