First Looks

The first in a series of short stories. The first meeting of future best friends who would fall in love.

First Looks

                Bored. That was the only word that could possibly apply to Chance right now. Here he was just a month or two into freshman year in his P.E. class and he couldn’t even play football, his favorite sport, with his fellow classmates because of some stupid leg injury that he got in an impromptu wrestling match with his childhood best friends who all happened to be triplets. So he sat on the dull metal bleachers watching his class run across the fake grass mixed with plastic gravel that really wasn’t considered an advantage of the physical education program due to the tendency to find the little black pebbles in your shoes months after running across the plastic surface that began to smell like burning tires when it got too hot out. “Well this sucks,” he thought letting a sigh escape his sunburnt lips just praying for something to pull his attention away from the torture that was watching one of the few things he had a genuine interest in doing in the class this year being done without him.

                Then like the feeling of rain splashing down on your face after months of traveling through the driest desert he woke from his comatose state with a start. His blue-green eyes locking on to her from several feet away, distracting him easily from the game going on just a small ways away. He ran his fingers through his dirty blond, almost brown, hair that stood securely spiked up in the front, trying to fix his appearance as best he could with no real logic behind the action. He’d seen her once or twice before, he found that he enjoyed those moments for some strange reason. He remembered the first time he saw her.

               

  “Beck?” “Here!” “Carter?” “Yep.” “Collins? “Present!” The list of names on the class roster went on and on in alphabetical order as each bright eyed new student responded to the calling of his or her name with varying degrees of enthusiasm. They all stood in a long line that stretched across the gymnasium like a long multicolored snake with the coach, Mr. Reen, standing up front as the head of the student-made serpent calling out the names of eager freshmen. Chance fidgeted in his spot in line, the entire time trying to keep his face passive and calm so as not to show the nervous excitement he had boiling inside him like a tea pot getting ready to overflow. He had the most common questions and worries looking back on it, “Will I make any new friends?” “Will I even like this school? It’s so different!” “What are these people going to be like?” These doubts and many more crowded his mind almost like he was the teacher and each question he had was like another students name being called out, bringing new worries to the forefront of his mind.

                “Bell? Bell? “Bell?!” The raised voice of Mr. Reen shocked him out of the downward spiral his thoughts had begun to take.

                “Here sir!” Chance responded a little too quickly with bit of fluster in his voice.

                Reen responded with a sarcastic looking smile and a wave of his hand giving Chance the signal to move on and to go sit to the side with the other who had their names called. With a bright red face and a polite apologetic nod Chance took his seat on the wooden gym floor. A few more names passed while Chance mentally berated himself for the embarrassing event that had transpired mere moments ago. However, he was snapped out of his little daydream session by the crisp, clear voice with a tone as lively as bells ringing out a resonating “Here!” He glanced up only to feel an almost unnoticeable electric shock surge through his heart that he wouldn’t even realize he got until quite a long time later. There she was for the very first time, his best friend he didn’t even know, and the love he didn’t even know he could have, The Girl, Scarlet Cara.

                She sat down on the bleachers next to Chance, rocking the creaky structure as she sat close enough for him to touch if he wanted to. He had no idea why she was there, “Shouldn’t she be playing football like the rest of the class?” he thought until he caught a glimpse of her hand wrapped in gauze with a brace to keep the fingers straight. “Wow looks like I’m not the only one who managed to injure themselves.” Not one word was shared as she pulled a novel out of her book bag, something Chance had forgotten to bring himself this morning, and they were soon joined by two other students who were injured, whose names Chance didn’t really care to remember, and whose presence he hardly noticed. He sat staring at his lap, he didn’t know why he had this feeling of slight nervousness above what he usually felt around people he didn’t know, why he felt like she was this magnet drawing him in just begging for him to start a conversation.

                He turned slightly just so he could see her out of the corner of his eye and caught her completely immersed in the novel she seemed to be soaking up like a sponge. He took this as an opportunity to observe her, to try and gleam some information or reason that despite not knowing a thing about her he felt some kind of connection to this girl. He saw how she tucked loose dark brown, basically black, hair behind her ear and the way her gorgeous eyes that seemed to change colors at such a rapid pace that he couldn’t decide exactly what color they were scanned the pages of the book and lit up when she got to a part she liked. The slight curve of her pale rose pink lips when she read something she liked and the way her thumbs caressed the paper pages of the text with reverence. She had Chance utterly mesmerized and he didn’t even know why.

                Now Chance wasn’t exactly the most outgoing kid you could’ve met, he wasn’t antisocial or anything like that but he had this quite aura of shyness that could almost make you forget his presence entirely. So coming from a school where he had a lot of friends and knew everyone there was too know he was let almost entirely friendless in this new environment. He ate lunch alone, he didn’t speak unless spoken to in class, and he never ever went out of his way to converse with anyone around him. Maybe that’s why he found himself at a loss for words when one day out of nowhere Scarlet turned to him and said hello.

                “Hi there!” she smiled with this sunny confidence that left Chance blinded by her bright personality, “I’m Scarlet it’s nice to meet you!”

He sat still as a statue for a few moments, looking around trying to discover who she was talking too before realizing with a flush of heat to his cheeks that she was in fact greeting him.

                “Uh,” he stuttered out foolishly, “My names Chance,” he returned her enthusiastic wave halfheartedly still not completely recovered from the blinding kindness filled smile that he had just been given.

                If she had been put off his shy, possibly taken as rude, nature then she didn’t show it as her eyes lit up (how is it possible that everything about this girl seems to light up or become brighter, it’s overwhelming.) at the new information she had just received, “Nice to meet you Chance, looks like we’re both going to be out of class for a little while huh?” she sighed looking on at their shared class running and laughing across faux field forlornly.

                “Yeah looks that way,” Chance drawled dumbly in an attempt not to stutter.

                “Well at least we don’t have to be alone, right!” she smiled again, those perfect pink lips curling up to meet the kindness filled eyes whose color was still undecided.

                He smiled at that, and not a weak struggling smile he’d give his teachers, no a genuine smile just as bright as the ones he used to wear in middle school broke out across his face and he nodded a bit to forcefully making him fall off balance slightly which made them both grin. However besides the occasional shared jokes and greetings nothing much more developed, she soon got better and rejoined the class in their activities and that was the end of their bleacher conversations. You could hardly say a friendship was made but that was hardly the end. However one thing was for sure, Chance wanted to see this girl again, he felt a connection to her unlike any other before and unknown to him that chance meeting on the bleachers would be the beginning of something amazing.