Winged (Aetharian Narratives)

by Sofia Vargas

  Emily gathered all of her long, bleached blond hair and put it over a shoulder. Her brown eyebrows beneath the blond hair were much less impressive than Viper’s. His eyebrows were slightly darker than the hair on his head but still unmistakably golden.

  “He seems nice,” she said. “Mr. Slater made him stand up and do the whole ‘what’s your name, where are you from’ thing.”

  “Well?” Madison said. “What’s his name? Where’s he from?”

  “His name is Viper Amest,” Emily said, still smiling from her pedestal at the center of their attention. “He and his family moved here from Seattle.”

  “Wow,” said Hannah. “Talk about moving to the other side of the country.”

  “Exactly,” Emily said. “So obviously he doesn’t know anything about Maryland. I’m thinking of hanging out with him during lunch, you know. Offer to show him around—”

  I dropped my calculator on the floor when I heard that he had lunch with us.

  I looked back at Emily just as she threw me a look of disgust. “God, Emma, why don’t you pay attention to what you’re doing?” She looked at Madison and Hannah.

  I hated her. I looked down at the worksheets we were supposed to be working on again. Everything on it might as well have been written in a foreign language. Madison and Hannah both laughed and went right back to their conversation.

  “Please, Emily, we know what you’re thinking,” Hannah said.

  “Right,” said Madison. “We know you want to add him to your list of boyfriends.”

  “Well, come on, can you blame me? You’ve seen him,” she said.

  “We know,” Madison said. “But what makes you think we’re going to let you hook him?”

  “Yeah,” Hannah said. “What if Madison or I want to hook him before you do?”

  Emily looked at her two friends with raised eyebrows. “You guys can try if you want, but he’s going to end up with me. As usual.”

  I seriously did not understand how Emily was able to hold onto what friends she had.

  “Care to make a little bet out of it?” Madison said.

  “Sure,” Emily said. “You guys are on.”

  A nauseating sensation filled my stomach. I should have known they’d just make him into another game.

  “Emily, Hannah, and Madison, would you mind getting started on your worksheets?”

  Mrs. Moyano finally noticed their non-math related conversation. “If you have questions, you need to ask me in class so you can do your homework. I don’t want any excuses if you don’t have the work done next class period.”

  They smiled at her sweetly and looked down at the blank sheets on their desks.

  By that point I couldn’t keep my mind on the triangles in front of me. I knew I didn’t belong there.

  * * *

  “Okay, so complete problems one through twenty for homework,” Mrs. Moyano said. The bell had just rung for first lunch. “Please do your homework, people. You need all the practice you can get before the chapter test in a few weeks.”

  I picked up my backpack from the floor and walked out the door. Sounds were indiscernible while making my way down the staircase. Everything sounded muffled. Once I’d reached my locker on the first floor, I gave the bottom of it a kick. My locker only opened with some form of abuse bestowed upon it. I glanced to my left expecting to see Emily with the sneer she always gave my routine. However, today she wasn’t fixing her hair at her locker for lunch. I figured she and the other two were storming the lunchroom early in search of Viper.

  I spun the combination dial to the correct numbers, gave the locker one more kick for good measure, and it popped right open. The technique had been perfected over the first quarter of my freshman year.

  I was switching out the books in my bag when I saw a flash of red close to the floor to my right. It didn’t quite register until I heard his voice.

  “So how was geometry?”

  I turned my head to look at him just as I was closing my locker. In hindsight that wasn’t the smartest thing to do. My locker door slammed right on the tip of my left middle finger. My eyes watered.

  The right corner of Viper’s lip twitched. It seemed to take all of his effort not to smile. He was content with watching and wondering whether or not that really had happened.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

  Blood gathered around my fingernail. I stuck my finger in my mouth to stop the bleeding.

  “It’s okay,” I said, rummaging in my locker for a bandage. “I was just a little startled.”

  I clenched my teeth. The only bandage I was able to find was bright pink. It had white kitty heads with bows floating around it. With no other choice I sighed and wrapped it around my finger. It pounded slightly under its pink binding.

  I slammed my locker shut after making sure all of my extremities were clear of it and turned to Viper.

  He stared at my bandage. “You’re testing me, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said with a slight smile. “Headed to lunch?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I picked up my bag and started walking in the direction of the cafeteria.

  He turned and walked with me.

  “I don’t have it until tomorrow,” he said.

  “Hm,” I nodded, and then stopped when I realized I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Wait, what?”

  “Sorry, geometry, I mean,” he said.

  “Right,” I said and nodded again. “Yeah, it’s okay. Math really isn’t one of my favorite subjects.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said.

  He flashed me one of those smiles he’d graced me with earlier. I could feel my cheeks getting hot.

  I turned my face so he wouldn’t notice my pink cheeks. “How did you know I was in geometry?”

  “I was trying to find my way to Latin,” he said. “I saw you walk into the classroom.”

  “Oh,” I nodded.

  Latin had the least amount of rooms of all the foreign language classes and they indeed were just down the hall from the math rooms.

  “And why are you spending your time on a dead language?” I said with a smile to make sure he knew I was joking.

  “It’s the only language I have previous experience with,” he said shrugging.

  I looked at him. “Do people speak Latin often in Seattle?”

  “Oh. You heard about that, huh?”

  We walked into the cafeteria. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the attention of every girl in the cafeteria was grabbed by our arrival, but the head of every girl sitting at the tables near the door turned to look our way. I could have gone without the murmured question of what in the world he was doing with me. Attention was certainly something I wasn’t used to. I could read exactly what everyone was thinking from the shocked looks on all of their faces. We had not been inside the cafeteria long when Emily, Madison, and Hannah started making their way to Viper’s side.

  I looked at the many faces across the wide, high ceilinged room. It was all too clear that my presence next to him was not welcome in the slightest. The line to buy lunch was on the other side of the room. It looked further away with every passing second.

  “Hey, Viper, what’s up?” Emily said when she was the first one to reach him.

  “Hi, Amelia. Not a lot, I guess,” he said with a glance at me.

  Madison and Hannah tried to stifle their laughter unsuccessfully.

  “Um, it’s Emily, actually,” she said.

  I was impressed with how politely she had corrected him. I shook my head and started my journey to the lunch line. A journey I was surprised took only a few seconds. Ignoring them the best I could, I took my spot. I couldn’t believe that they were actually going on with their evil plan. They were using the new guy to prove a point. Though, I had no idea as to what that point was exactly.

  “So, what’s good to eat here?” Viper said.

  They all got in line right
behind me.

  “Try the veggie wrap,” Emily said. “They’re pretty good.”

  “No,” said Madison. “Go for the burgers, they are so much better.”

  “I don’t think so, the spaghetti is the best thing to get,” Hannah said.

  Being sure to avoid the veggie wrap, burgers, and spaghetti, I picked up a foil wrapped baked potato and loaded it with toppings.

  Viper looked at my lunch. “Are the potatoes any good?”

  “I enjoy them,” I said keeping my eyes straight forward. I feared what the other three might do to me if I made direct eye contact with him.

  “Works for me,” he said. He picked up a potato and put it on his plate, too.

  I delighted in the shocked expressions on the girls’ faces. Their pride in the food selections they stood behind wavered.

  I couldn’t help but smile when I paid for my lunch and I walked toward an empty table. I glanced at him and noticed he was following me. Emily and her gang hurried to the table that they usually sat at and put their trays down. Luckily it was far enough away from my table that I felt safe to take a seat.

  I watched Viper try and figure out what to do. He opened his mouth to say something just when Emily shouted across the cafeteria.

  “Hey, Viper,” she said. “Come sit over here; there’s an open spot.”

  He looked from them to me. I raised my eyebrows. I was shocked that the situation was proving to be such a dilemma for him.

  “No, that’s okay,” he said. “I’ll sit here with Emma.”

  And he sat down. Right next to me. Just like it was nothing. As if it were something everyone did all the time. The thing was, it wasn’t. No one had sat with me during lunch since… Well, let’s just say it had been a very long time.

  I sat there staring at him. My eyes were so wide they were probably in danger of popping out of my head.

  “What are you doing?” I said through my teeth.

  He looked up at me from the baked potato he was smashing with his fork. He gave me a questioning look.

  “What do you mean?”

  I couldn’t believe I was about to ask it, but I did: “Why are you sitting with me?”

  Viper put his fork down and looked straight in my eyes. “Because I want to,” he said slowly and with emphasis on each word. “Why? Is it against the rules or something?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “If you haven’t noticed, people don’t sit with me during lunch. Ever.”

  “So it’s a custom of yours to sit alone?”

  I continued to look at him over my untouched baked potato. “You know, when the most popular girl in school asks a guy to sit with her, he usually does.”

  “Well, now’s a good time to break tradition, don’t you think?” he said. “Are you going to eat all that cheese? I didn’t get enough while I was over there.”

  “No, really, Viper.” I ignored his cheese comment and continued. “Why are you doing this?”

  I was starting to become extremely concerned for his reputation. Though, looking the way he did, there really wasn’t a need to bother.

  “What are you doing sitting with me?”

  “Okay,” he said, putting his fork down again. “You really want to know why?”

  I was taken aback by the serious expression on his face, but I nodded.

  “It’s because you seem like a really cool person.”

  The statement didn’t do my shock any good. I opened my mouth to say something, but he continued before I could say anything.

  “You were the first person at this school that talked to me before you knew what I even looked like. You talked to me without knowing anything about me. You didn’t ask me to answer a million stupid questions; actually, I think I was the one that asked you all of the questions. I didn’t have to be someone for you to give me the time of day.”

  I started turning red again, but he kept going.

  “When I talked to you, I didn’t feel like you were talking to me because of the way I looked. That never happens to me and I was glad when I felt that way around you. That, Emmeline, is why I’m sitting with you.”

  I listened and wondered why he was being so straightforward with me. But it was easy to recall that I more or less had asked for it.

  The look on his face softened and he smiled. “So, about that cheese…”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” I said.

  Now he looked amused. “Because you asked.”

  Looking at him was like looking at the sun. I felt like if I didn’t keep averting my eyes he was going to damage my sight in some way.

  He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Do you want me to leave?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not that—”

  “Then we’re okay here?”

  The prospect of a friend seemed so foreign to me. It also became more appealing as the seconds passed.

  I slowly nodded my head and smiled at him. “Yeah, we’re okay.”

  He smiled, too. His smile made his eyes seem deeper blue. If I weren’t careful I was sure I’d fall into them.

  “Good.” He took a bite of his potato. “So is your hair naturally that red? It’s not often you come across a person with such red hair and green eyes.”

  I blinked and turned a shade of pink. “Oh. Yes, it’s natural,” I twirled a finger around a strand that had fallen over my shoulder.

  I sprinkled some of the cheese on my potato. I handed the rest of it to Viper.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  He took the cup and dumped the rest of it onto his mangled potato remains.

  “It’s really pretty, you know.” He looked up at me again. “Your hair,” he clarified without me having to ask. “Most gingers have reddish-orange hair. Yours is … really red. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s always been that way,” I said. “You’d think it would have been lighter when I was younger, but my mom has so much documented evidence that it was just as dark red.”

  Viper nodded while he continued to stare at my hair.

  I cleared my throat. “So what class do you have next?”

  “Biology,” he said, looking at his schedule. “Happen to know what lab I need to go to for it?”

  I looked at him. “I have biology next, too.”

  He smiled. “I guess I can just follow you then.”

  * * *

  “Good afternoon, class.”

  Mr. Night began every class with that assumption, but for once it was true for me; the cutest guy in our class was sitting right next to me. The down part was that the three most egoistical girls had swallowed up the desks around him.

  The front of the classroom was made up of desks, and the back was where the lab stations and equipment were. We always sat in the desks unless there were lab experiments to be done. I was sitting in the second desk from the back and Viper was in the desk to my left. One second after we sat down, Emily came in and sat on his left, Hannah grabbed the seat in front of him, and Madison was stuck with the seat behind him. All three of them were glaring at me, though I really couldn’t have cared less.

  “Today,” Mr. Night said, “we are dissecting frogs. Just like I promised.”

  There were scattered bursts of clapping and groans. I was still unsure of my feelings toward the experiment. I was terrified and fascinated at the same time.

  Everyone started getting up and moving toward the lab tables in the back of the room.

  “So grab a lab partner and your usual lab gear,” he said.

  At the mention of a lab partner Emily grabbed one of Viper’s arms and put her arm around it. Madison did the same thing with his other arm.

  “Hey, Viper, why don’t you be my lab partner?” Emily said. “We can get to know each other a little better while we dissect the worms.”

  “Duh, Emily,” Hannah said. “We’re dissecting frogs. I think Viper should be my lab partner. I obviously already listen better than you do.”

  “No,” Madison said,
“Viper wants to be with me, don’t you, Viper?”

  At that the three of them started arguing with each other. Each tried to convince Viper to be her partner so loudly and with such enthusiasm that I was amazed Mr. Night let it go on for so long before he called Viper to the front. He told him he wanted to catch him up on what had been going on in class. When Viper left, Emily, Hannah, and Madison continued their dispute and everyone around them, of course, stopped whatever they were doing to watch.

  When Mr. Night was done talking to Viper, they were still going at it so I was sure he felt that he had no choice but to do something about it.

  “Okay, since partnering up is turning out to be such a problem, I’ll do it for you,” he said to the class. He started naming everyone in pairs.

  I was all right with this until he actually got to my partner.

  “…Jacob and Madison, Emily and Emma, Hannah and Viper. Now gather your things and take your places at the lab stations.”

  Hannah squealed and jumped to Viper’s side. I, however, was in total shock. Mr. Night had put me with the one person in the room that I could not stand in the slightest.

  “Damn, this is going to put her way ahead,” Emily hadn’t taken her eyes off Hannah and Viper since the lab partners had been announced. I was trying to figure out what bad karma I had put out into the world to be the one stuck next to her.

  “Oh God, please just get over it, Emily,” I said. I was not in the mood to deal with her “problems.” “I really don’t want to have to hear about it all class period.”

  Emily glared at me for a second but then put a smile on her face. The change happened so fast I thought I would get whiplash just from watching it.

  “So you sat with Viper at lunch, I’m sure you two were able to talk quite a bit.”

  “I … I guess we did,” I said.

  “Out of me, Hannah, and Madison, who do you think Viper would want to go out with?”

  I looked at her, trying to figure out if she had really just asked me that.

  “Now be truthful; I’m sure Madison and Hannah can handle the reality of the situation,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But can you?”