Tiana cursed quietly to herself as she checked her watch for the several dozenth time, then craned her neck to look down the street. Her bus had been fifteen minutes late now, and still no sign of it yet. She chewed her lip anxiously as she took out her phone, wondering if either of her friends had texted her to ask where she was. She saw she had gotten one message:
From: Joeellll(:
T, Lemme know when you get here. We have to compare schedules.
Even amidst all her stress, she couldn't help but smile at knowing that Joel had some concern about what classes she had. She could only hope they'd get the same ones, after all, she had only had a crush on him from the day they met a few years ago, and she loved spending time with him, which included all of the great conversations and inside jokes they had. She hit reply and typed in a quick message.
To: Joeellll(:
Sorry, I've been stuck at the bus stop for a really long time, and at this rate I'll probably be late... but maybe I'll catch you during break? Or maybe we'll have the same class, I hope!!
As she hit send, she looked down the road for her bus, and saw it slowly making it's way towards the stop. She eagerly bounced up and down on her toes as she put her phone away and went fishing through her bag for her wallet. She opened it up quickly as she stepped onto the bus. She produced her bus pass and let the driver see it before going to take a seat near the back. The ride went by quicker than expected and she had arrived at school before she knew it. Standing up from her seat and smoothing down her outfit she saw that according to her watch, she still had five minutes to spare before class. She ran the short distance from the bus stop to the school building as fast as she could and after bursting through the front doors, headed straight for her locker. There was next to nobody remaining in the halls and she saw Joel wasn't at his locker, he had probably gotten to class already. She shoved her bag inside and then stopped to take out her schedule, figuring she didn't have a lot of time to meet up with Joel, so she might as well take a quick look for herself then make a mad dash to class. She saw her first class was English with Mrs. Whitmee, so she grabbed her English books and made her way over there as fast as she could. As she did, she wrote a quick text to Joel hoping they could arrange to meet later.
To: Joeellll(:
Sorry that things didn't work out this morning, maybe we can connect during break? That is, unless you have Whitmee for English first block. That's where I'm headed right now! See you there maybe?
As she hit send, she just hoped he had remembered to set his phone to silent.
She got to the classroom with only seconds to spare, and right away noticed how all the chairs were set up in a circle. She looked around to see if she could find Joel, but it didn't seem like he was. She did see her... Sort of friend, Anne sitting among everyone, but the spots on either side of her were taken so she had to sit with some people who she didn't really know. The teacher explained some 'get to know your classmates' game, which Tiana thought sounded extremely dumb, but it was at least a bit more interesting than boring old class. Tiana half listened until it came to her turn, she was one of the last.
"I'm Tiana, I like ..." she had to think pretty hard about her answer, even though it was such a simple question, "I like French fries the most, I guess... and when I grow up I think it'd be cool to be a pilot." she said it rather quiet, not loud enough for even half the class to hear, but thankfully the teacher didn't call her out for it.