the new girl.. again (open) [CLOSED]

Sorin walked lazily along the sidewalk, in no rush to be anywhere. He knew he shouldn’t cut class this soon, considering all that the school board had done to keep him on track to graduation at the correct age. Today, however, he didn’t really care about a bunch of middle-aged, politicking men and women in designer suits acting as though they cared about this rebellious Romanian kid who had hardly known a lick of English when he’d stepped off the plane in the United States. What Sorin really needed was to just have some time to himself, maybe smoke a couple of cigarettes, climb onto some rooftops – hell, he just might even bake his mother a cake if he felt like it.

He had nearly reached the freedom of the sidewalk running alongside the front of the school when a peculiar sight stopped him. Not that what he saw, in and of itself, was particularly peculiar – it was just odd to see at a school. It was a young girl, at least a couple of years younger than he was, sitting by the fountain, with two young children that were obviously a part of her party. From where he was, he couldn’t get an accurate guess at any of the three’s ages, but he couldn’t help but indulge his natural wonder as to whether the children were her own or if they were her siblings. He made himself look away before he appeared to be staring. If there was one feeling that Sorin knew well, it was the feeling of people, usually strangers, watching you, following your every move. It had happened quite often after he’d been released from the hospital, to the point where he had pretty much stopped going out until most of the marks had faded and the rest were concealable.

He looked around for signs of teachers or other authority figures before slipping his phone from his pocket, pretending to check it as he glanced through his hair at the group sitting by the fountain, close enough now to make out actual features. The youngest, a little girl, couldn’t be more than a couple of years old; the boy couldn’t have been older by any more than a couple of years. The oldest, and probably the reason for their being here – Sorin would give her sixteen at most. She was pretty, with curly, dark hair. The question was still nagging his thoughts, but he knew it’d be rude to ask. As a recently new student, he knew how the third-degree interrogation could feel. At least she probably didn’t have to tell people constantly one of the first phrases he’d ever learned in English – “I don’t speak English.”

He let the phone drop back into his deep shorts pocket, followed by his balled up fists. He didn’t know what was going on with him today – he didn’t strike up conversations with strangers. Yet here he was, about to talk to some random girl when he was really supposed to be hightailing it off campus before he got nailed for cutting class. He strolled over to her at a slightly quicker pace than before, trying not to look too formidable. “New here?” he asked casually once he was close enough for it to be obvious that he was talking to her. His accent was still rather thick, distorting his words only slightly, but it was getting better the longer he was here. He attempted to look relaxed, despite the fact that he was always on guard, always checking over his shoulder.

WEARING CLICK
NOTES It kinda sucks, but…meh.

Sorin couldn’t help but smirk at her response. The girl already knew that the majority of the administration didn’t really care – they just liked the lulling security of their stagnant jobs. An observant person, he was quite good at reading people. Most of the adults he’d met during his past couple of months in Newport all gave him that same false sense of pity. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that people didn’t really care about a person unless he or she was dying. He knew how that felt, as well. When you’re stuck in a hospital for two weeks, word gets around. Schoolmates that he hadn’t spoken to in years sent their well wishes, but he’d ignored most of it. Sorin had never been one for being socially correct or putting up façades – he preferred to be blunt, calling it how he saw it.

He was, however, proud that her accent had tripped up his comprehension of her speech only slightly. Wherever she was from, he hadn’t heard an accent like hers before. That wasn’t exactly saying much – aside from airports, he hadn’t been very far outside of Newport Beach. It was still an accomplishment in his eyes, as childish as it might sound. He took a moment to compose his answer in his head before speaking, something he was also getting better at. “You know how it works, then? Well, you are not, uh…,” he paused as the word he had been intending to say fled his mind. He knew the word he was trying to say in Romanian, but could not, for the life in him, think of its English translation. “La naiba…” he muttered, passing a hand through his hair and letting it fall naturally back into place. He sighed, going with an alternative word that he figured was pretty close. “Naïve.” He shrugged, not letting it show how much it bothered him. It would come to him later – he knew it. The word he had wanted to use was a rather simple translation; his mind had simply gone blank the moment he needed the word.

He looked around again, the front of the school still mostly deserted. It appeared to be a rather nice place when it was empty, maybe even friendly. Then you were oh-so-graciously reminded that it was a building meant to keep hundreds of teenagers trapped for numerous hours of the day. Sorin looked back to the girl who was tugging on one of the extremely curly ringlets. “So, these children,” he began, swallowing the lump in his throat. He didn’t normally ask personal questions, especially to strangers. “They are yours, no?” He shoved his hands further into his pockets, rocking back and forth between his heels and the balls of his feet. He looked around again, knowing it was probably an awkward thing for him to ask about. The probability of them being hers was highly unlikely, but his curiosity had gotten the better of his judgment. Sorin wasn’t really one to beat around the bush – his original question was really only a means of lessening the likelihood that she would take a shot at hitting him. It was obvious to him that she was new – why else would she be so casually sitting by the fountain during a class period? He just knew how women could be, particularly when it came to sensitive questions. His cheek was no stranger to the palm of his mother’s hand – he had a habit of asking questions in a way that might come across as rude.


WEARING CLICK
NOTES Bloop.

Sorin simply shrugged, supposing that what she said was true enough. He and his parents had toured several local private schools before “settling” for the public school. By settling, he meant that he refused to go to a school with a bunch of extremely snobby rich kids, which was ninety percent of what he’d seen at the private schools. Of course, Newport High School had its fair share of them, but the concentration was much more diluted. The administration of each school had been exactly the same, only with different faces. Principals and faculty with forced smiles and counselors who spoke to him in a sugar-coated, slightly condescending tone. He had run into a few teachers that he ended up liking during the time since his enrollment, but that was a very select few.

The sarcasm in her tone hit him like a wall. He returned her smirk, but his right foot took a minute, almost unnoticeable bracing step back. So the girl did have some spunk. Her tone suggested that he wasn’t the first person to ask her such a question. “I am sorry,” he said, his habit of not using contractions coming out. They seemed as awkward to him as not using them seemed to be to native English speakers. “They are older than they look, or you are younger than you look.” He shrugged nonchalantly. Sorin had never been the type to let things bother him; instead, he usually found a way to make it humor him. This girl’s ferocity was especially entertaining, coming from someone as small as her. He couldn’t help but laugh at her younger brother’s (as he now knew) comments about her joke being gross. However, the kid’s next statement, directed at Sorin, confused him. He honestly had no idea what these “cooties” were – it wasn’t something he had come across. His brow knitted as he tried to determine its meaning – something to do with girls and kindergarten. The youngest of the trio was giggling, so he figured it was something intended to be funny. He shot a questioning glance at the oldest girl before just going along with the boy and laughing. He figured it couldn’t be anything bad if even a two or three year old understood it.

He laughed again with a flash of white (but not peroxide white) teeth this time at her comment about being kicked out while her mother spoke. “You no take it personally. They did same to me when I come.” With a second thought, he realized that his grammar was more than likely horribly incorrect but decided to let it go. Negative statements were one of his weak points. He couldn’t help but notice how well she did in taking care of her siblings. In most of the families with multiple children that he had met during his lifetime, the siblings normally didn’t get along so well, even with an age gap like this trio’s. Then again, most of his friends weren’t what one would call “mushy,” at least not around their friends. Even Sorin was guilty of it – he had been unintentionally rude to his mother more than once because his friends were around. Her response, of course, had been a slap to the face – the main form of punishment in his home. He was used to it, and she never hit him too hard. Only hard enough to make him think twice before doing it again.

“I am Sorin,” he replied, his hand twitching as though to offer it to her before he realized that she might find such a gesture awkward. From what he had observed, most teenage girls weren’t really the hand-shake type.

WEARING CLICK
NOTES I've been waiting for him to get to make a negative statement. :D

Sorin simply nodded. That would make the boy five and the little girl two. If she had only had the little girl with her, it could have been entirely plausible. After all, he had a careless cousin in Romania who had gotten pregnant when she was barely fourteen. When the kid was hardly a year old, his cousin disappeared, leaving her parents to raise him. His aunt and uncle had decided simply to raise him as if he were their own – no point in telling him that his mother had abandoned him. The child was now nearly six years old and still had no idea. He’d taken after his mother who had taken after her own mother, his grandmother, who was still reasonably young. Not many people questioned it.

He gave a short, humored exhale followed by a slight upward twitch of his shoulders at her comment about her being the only one knowing her thoughts. “That is true, but it is not your thoughts that they care about. It is what they think your thoughts are that is important to them.” As stupid as the concept was, it was all too true. Apparently his parents had told the counselor something along the lines of ’He’s really a sweet kid who had bad friends.’ Which was utter crap. He had been what you could call the “ringleader” of his group of friends before his family uprooted and moved to Newport. Half of the stuff that they got into was his idea. As cliché as it sounded, he had become quite infamous among his classmates for being “fearless.” Which was also a lie. The fear was what made most of the things he had done fun and memorable. It was the rush of adrenaline that made him want to do it (and more) again.

Okay, so he had to admit, she had a pretty good handshake. Maybe there was a reason for that; maybe she was just plucky and stronger than she looked. His hand slid back into his pocket once she released it. “I am from Romania,” he said, a bit shortly. It was no big secret to people who knew him that he wasn’t happy with the move right before his final year of high school. He also had a tendency to forget that not everyone knew that. Trying to make up for it, he returned the question. “And where are you from? You speak English well, but you do not sound like the rest of them.” 'Them' obviously meaning the majority of the other people in the Newport area.

With that, he reached a bit deeper into his pocket, retrieving a loose cigarette and a lighter. He wasn’t stupid enough to carry around the entire pack at school. He turned away from Parker and her siblings, placing one end between his lips and cupping his hand around the other before lighting it. Ironically enough, he had turned toward one of the numerous signs plastered around campus declaring that it was a tobacco-free zone. If he were to get caught, he’d be in for a whole lot of hell. But that was the thing – he knew how to not get caught. He took a quick drag and exhaled it before turning back to the girl. He at least wasn’t one of the douchebags that breathed the smoke into the faces of their fellow human beings. He always turned his head away, or directed it out the side of his mouth, especially with such young children around. Sorin took a small step back, knowing that the smell was extremely offensive to some people’s nostrils.

WEARING CLICK
NOTES Ditto.