Serendipity 2.0

ANNABETH POV
“Where on earth have you been?” I whispered harshly to her.

I was currently in my modern history elective, making notes about the US entry into WWII when I heard the chair next to me slide away from the desk. It was Roxy, clearly puffed out from running to this class.

“Sorry the bus was really late-” Roxy huffed shrugging, “plus, look who we have-” she pointed to the oblivious substitute teacher, too busy copying notes from the textbook onto the board to notice that Roxy had just snuck in, “he didn’t even notice me walking in late!”

“It’s second period,” I stated the obvious, “and I was just worried, that’s all...” I admitted, looking back to my notes.

“No need to!” She smiled sweetly, nudging my shoulder, “Plus I’m excused, I have a note.” Roxy laughed, waving the piece of paper in front of my face.

“Hey, do you know what the answer is for question twenty-one?” Juliet asked from behind us, tapping her pencil on the small student desk. Juliet was one of our extended friends, crazy smart and annoyingly gorgeous.

“Seriously?” Roxy turned in her seat, raising an eyebrow.

“Some people actually do like this subject Roxanne” I replied to her, looking at my practice test worksheet that I had already finished thirty minutes ago.

“Yeah, you may not care about passing history, but I do.” Juliet fired back.

“Okay, I get it!” Roxy put her arms up in defense, “But come on! It’s one sheet, chill. The bells about to go anyways.” Roxy just smiled.

“Notes.” Juliet simply said as the bell rang loudly in perfect timing.

“See?” Roxy smirked, knowing she was right, picking up her bag that she had placed on the desk only five minutes beforehand.

“We have to keep an eye on her,” I smiled to Juliet, as we packed up our things and started to head for the exit.

“Hey Anna-” Juliet began as soon as we stepped out of the classroom, “come with me, I have something to show you.” She smirked, guiding me towards the girl's lockers.

“Should I be worried?” I laughed, unsure of what was happening, Juliet pulling me along.

“No! It’s not like I’m going to kidnap you-” She laughed, “or am I?” She raised one eyebrow.

I laughed, “Seriously what is it?!” I wanted to know this instance. I’m the type of person who absolutely hates surprises.

“I’m going to go to my locker to grab my things for next period, I’ll see you two later?” Roxy asked.

“Yeah yeah, all good girl!” Juliet reassured.

We eventually got to Juliet’s locker, where she put through her three digit combination, opening it to reveal an insanely neat locker. She filed through some papers until she found one that made her smile. She turned to me and gave me the colourful piece of paper, it was an art application of some sorts. It was made by the local council, calling out for students who wanted to do an art course after school that counted for extra credit.

“I thought you might be interested?” Juliet spoke, breaking the silence, “There are only limited spots but I know how much you love art and I know you are not doing any art subjects for senior year so...”

I looked up from the flyer smiling, “Thank you-” I replied, loving the sweet gesture, “I could really use this to increase my mark.” I smiled.

“Increase your mark?” She asked surprised, “You can’t get higher than an a+ Anna!” She laughed.

“I can increase my overall percentage? ...For college, you know.” I retorted back.

“Yeah, that’s what I initially thought,” Juliet agreed, “You just gotta fill it out before the end of the day.”

“Easy! Thank you again!” I smiled, “I should probably go to the lunch table-” I began to say, “the girls are most likely wondering where I am-” I fixed the strap of my bag, “did you want to join us?”

“Nah it’s all good, I gotta go to the main office anyway.” She smiled back.

“Okay, well the offer is there-” I hugged her, “I’ll see ya later then,” I told her, walking towards the direction of my group.

…

I sat between Mya and Roxy, now at our classic group table. I was snacking on chocolate covered almonds and carrot sticks, completing some extra English work that my teacher gave me this morning after period one. I was close to finishing the task, occasionally joining the girl’s conversation.

“Have you guys finished reading it?” Coraline asked, eating a chunk out of her apple.

I looked up, stopping mid-sentence on my paragraph, “Oh my god yes! The ending was so sad!”

“I’ve only read like half of it,” Roxy shrugged, looking at her phone, probably on Twitter.

“You have to read the whole book!” I enthused. Books were one of my other passions in life.

“What are we talking about?” Millie questioned. She was constantly clueless.

“Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Coraline and I said in unison, looking at each other.

“Ohhh...” Millie finally clicked on, “I haven’t read it.” She shrugged.

“Yeah neither have I,” Mya chimed in, “not my type of genre.”

“How’s Harry going?” Millie asked, changing the subject to something she was more interested in.

I decided to continue my work, finding it more important than discussing boys.

“Well-” I heard Mya begin.

“Hi girls!” I heard an English accent say almost immediately after Mya spoke.

I looked up from my paper to see three boys dominating my view. These must be some of the boys who were apart of the exchange program.

“Argh, what do you want?” I heard Mya groan, not even looking at them.

“The amount of times I’ve seen you guys in the space of a week is too much for anyone to handle,” Coraline added.

“Come on, can’t we say hi to our favourite girls in the school?” A boy smiled towards me, “And who might you be babe?”

“I’m Annabeth, but people just call me Anna.” I smiled back, playing with a pen.

“Louis.” He replied with a simple wink.

I could tell he was the cheeky one of the group just by that introduction. He continued to look at me with a sweet smile and in response, I could feel my face getting warm. His bright blue eyes caught me off guard immediately, causing me smile shyly and look back down at my paper.

“Can’t you see we’re having a conversation?” Coraline asked them.

“Oh were you?” One of them said jokingly, “Well I guess that means we should sit and join in,” He replied as he deliberately sat next to Coraline.

“Liam, personal space dude.” She gave him a look as she scooted away slightly.

Ah, so that must be Liam. The blonde one of the three walked over to my side of the table, taking a seat next to Roxy, to her delight apparently.

Louis took a seat directly in front of me, placing a couple of books on the picnic table. The boys began talking amongst themselves with the girls interjecting every so often. I wasn’t really paying any attention, determined to carry on with this work.

I notice Louis’ body shift towards me, not saying anything for a couple of seconds until, “So what are you working on love?” He made me look up at him, his head tilted, gesturing towards my English work.

I smiled, “Just some English homework,” I replied, rotating my page so he could read the question.

“Shakespeare ay?” He asked as he observed the paper, “He’s probably one of my favourite writers to study.”

“Really?” I asked shocked, “Normally people find him boring.”

“Not me-” He began to say, but was cut off from a boy standing behind.

“Ah, finally there you guys are!” Harry smiled, placing a hand on Louis’ shoulder. Another boy was also with him. He had a darker complexion compared to the rest of them.

This caused Mya to turn around shocked, “What are you doing here?”

“Well-” Harry began, taking a seat next to her, “I want to get an education-” Harry started, giving her smart ass answer.

The other boy took a seat in space next to Millie, smiling gently at her as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket.

“No, you are supposed to be late...” Mya looked at Coraline.

“I was until Zayn called me and asked if I wanted a ride to school. David drove us here this morning, he’s a good lad,” Harry smirked, “better luck next time babe.”

Mya glared at Harry.

“So I don’t think we have met these two ladies.” The blonde guy smiled, looking towards Millie and me.

“That’s Millie,” Louis pointed towards her, “And that’s Anna,” He rested his eyes back to me.

“How do you know my name?” Millie questioned.

The rest of girls and I also got confused. How did he know Millie’s name?

“I'm sure Mya has mentioned to us before-” Louis replied unsurely, “Plus I’ve just met Anna so it was a process of elimination.”

“Right…” Mya squinted at him, probably not buying what he was saying.

“Well, it’s lovely to finally meet you all.” Zayn smiled.

“I’m Niall, by the way.” The blonde guy waved slightly to Millie and me, flashing a dazzling grin.

We continued to chat amongst ourselves, topics of favourite movies and celebrity crushes came up. Heated discussions about Marvel versus DC dominated the boys, though I had no clue about what they were actually saying. Every so often, Harry and Mya would disagree in some sense, usually Liam and Coraline backing up their respective friend. I had a nice chat with Zayn actually, I learned that he also enjoys art, so I invited him to come along with me to the art classes after school. To my delight, he agreed, making me happy that I finally had an art buddy. Louis and I talked a fair bit too and I must admit, he was awfully charming, cracking jokes whenever he could.

“You have a cute smile by the way,” Louis admitted after I laughed at one of his jokes.

Luckily the bell rang, signaling the end of the break and giving me an opportunity to pretend that Louis didn’t totally make me blush.

“What a shame-” Mya announced sarcastically, “I have to go to class!” She began to get up from the seat.

“See you in two hours babe.” Harry winked and got up with the rest of the boys.

“Can’t freaking wait.” Mya faked smiled.

The boys said their goodbyes and we all started to head to maths.

As we were walking near building five, three girls (probably seniors) started walking directly towards us, giving us obvious fake smiles.

“Morning girls.” One girl smirked, looking at us up and down.

The three girls were obviously good looking. Tan, tall, blonde. They could be models.

“Hi,” I politely replied, “is there something we can-” I nervously spoke.

“We see you’re hanging out with those hot British boys” Another admitted at us, particularly giving a sly dirty look at Coraline.

“They came to us, we didn’t-” Roxy replied, looking back at Mya and Millie.

“We just thought we would remind you that we are the seniors, so we wanted to save you the hurt now and tell you to stop trying,” The first girl devilishly smiled.

"They are all yours," Mya crossed her arms, smiling.

“What?” The third girl asked surprised at Mya’s reply.

“Yeah, what?” Roxy pulled Mya’s shirt slightly.

“You heard me, we’re just friends with them. Nothing more, nothing less.” Mya looked at them.

“Perfect!” The first girl happily looked at her friends.

“Look is this conversation finished, I can’t stand looking at Melissa’s fake tan streakiness anymore.” Coraline blurted out, rolling her eyes.

A half laugh came out of Roxy’s, her hand covering her mouth to cut herself off.

“Excuse me?” The first girl - Melissa apparently, replied clearly upset by her comment.

“Nothing!” I replied in a hurry, starting to signal the girls to start walking, “We gotta go, we’re going to be late to class” I quickly added, the girls and I starting to walk away.

I turned back to see Melissa giving us a big glare, while her friends smiled widely at each other, probably too focused on the possibility of chatting up the boys.

...

I said goodbye to my girls, as it was finally the end of the school day. I stood off to the side of the main school gate, waiting for Zayn to show up. We had agreed at the break that we would walk together to the community centre for the art classes.

As less and fewer students occupied the area, I checked my phone for the time.

Three-twenty-five. He said to meet at ten past three.

Sighing, I decided to start walking, as the class starting in ten minutes and I hated being late.

As I just walked off the curb of our school block, I heard inaudible shouting from far behind me. I ignored it.

“Anderson!” I heard more clearly, causing me to look around. I frowned, noticing no one was nearby.

I shrugged it off and continued to walk again, until I heard hurried footsteps, “Anna! Wait!” I heard even louder this time, turning around to see Zayn running up to me, “Gees babe slow down!” He laughed.

“Sorry, but I didn’t think you were coming,” I replied simply, turning back around to the direction of the centre.

“Come on,” Zayn objected, starting to walk backwards, facing me.

“You said we would meet at the front gate at ten past three, it’s now...” I said, checking my phone lock screen, “three-thirty. You are twenty minutes late and now if we don’t hurry, we are going to be late to the class.” I pointed out annoyed, pushing past him.

“I’m sorry Anderson! Don’t be mad,” Zayn quickened his pace.

“Please don’t call me that,” I added, hating him calling me by my last name.

“Annaaa, don’t be like this.” Zayn pouted from beside me.

“I’m sorry okay? I just hate late people-” I told him, “anyways, what was so important it had to take up twenty minutes?” I questioned.

“I was talking to this girl Melissa.” He replied very vaguely.

“Oh god,” I said quietly. Didn’t take her long.

“I have an idea!” Zayn excitedly smiled.

“That being?” I asked.

“I will piggyback you.” He smiled.

“You know, I have perfectly good legs-” I laughed confused.

“You muppet, if I piggyback you, we can get to art class quicker” Zayn laughed, trying to convince me that it was a good plan.

I had stopped walking, thinking about what he had said, “Fine.” I gave in and hoped on his back.

“Hold on,” Zayn smiled.

...

“Well that was... fun,” Zayn said, the sarcasm dripping in his voice.

“Yeah totally-” I said back, agreeing with him with a laugh.

Don’t get me wrong. I love art. But never in my life have I had the feeling to throw my paintbrush at the teacher as much as I did in those past sixty minutes.

“The teacher could have smiled a little more, don’t you think babe?” He asked me as we both leaned against the entrance gate, waiting for our rides home.

“Yeah I mean, I wouldn’t be too enthused either if I had to teach kids how to draw a fruit bowl,” I smiled, looking down at my charcoal drawing.

He laughed “Yeah you do have a point there.”

As if on cue, I saw my mum’s car coming around the corner. I turned to him asking,
“How are you getting home? Do you need a lift?”

“A lift?” He laughed confused, not completely getting what I was saying.

“A ride-” I pushed him playfully, “Do you need a ride home?”

“Ohhh!” He understood, “No it’s okay, David my ‘buddy’ is picking me up. He should be here anytime now.” He said back, frowning slightly.

The honk of a horn interrupted our conversation, causing me to turn my head to see my mum waving me down, “I gotta go-” I told him, walking backwards to the car, “this was fun though!”

“Yea it was!” He shouted back slightly, “I see you Monday Anna!”

I smiled in reply, opening the car door and hopping in the front seat.

“Who was that?” My mum asked curiously, pulling away from the curb.

“Just some new guy at school.” I smiled.

…

Notes

New chapter! I know it's been a while since the last, but my reason was that I had to hand in three assignments for uni in the past week. I'm back now so expect more chapters in the coming days! :)

xxx 'carrie' (aka maddie)