Shelter

I nervously twirl a strand of my curled hair as he slides into the desk next to mine. The boy turns his body away from me and begins flirting with the group of girls in front of us. I instantly relax and settle back in my seat as I watch the teacher shuffles around his desk for another packet of paper.

"You must be my new student, Scarlet," the teacher smiles down at me and hands me a sheet of paper. "I can already tell that you aren't going to be a bright girl." I blush involuntarily and thank him for his compliment.

As he moves on to the next row of desks, the boy beside me faces me with a confused expression covering his handsome face.

"You're Scarlet? Scarlet Chamberlain?" He asks, and I nod. How does everyone know who I am?

"I'm Harry," he smiles, deep dimples indenting his tan cheeks. God, he is attractive.

"Can I ask you a question?" I say after a few seconds. Before he can answer, I ask, "How do you know who I am?"

"Trust me, everyone knows who you are. You're the talk of the town," he says, and the bell rings. He doesn't acknowledge me as he stands and makes his way out of the classroom.

I hastily collect my things and dart out of the classroom, desperate to talk to Logan. Has he been having the same problems I have? Or does everyone just know me?

Thankfully I find him next to his locker talking to a pretty girl with blonde hair. She smiles at him before waving at me as she leaves.

"Who's that?" I ask as I watch her walk down the hallway.

Logan shrugs. "Her name's Sarah, we have first period together." He spins his dial and opens his locker to grab a spare notebook he put in there this morning.

"Has anything weird happened to you today?" I ask him and lean against the lockers beside his.

"No, why do you ask?"

"Well, it seems like everyone knew me before I even came to school." I say.

"I guess I'm just the forgotten brother then," he jokes and shuts his locker. "But no, that hasn't happened to me."

I tell him that I'll meet him at lunch and begin walking to my next class, French. There's a few desks open in the room, so I choose one next to a pretty girl with long dark hair.

"I'm Emily," she introduces herself when the class begins.

"Scarlet," I smile when she doesn't realize who I am. Maybe not everyone knows me.

"This class is so fun. You're going to love it," she smiles just as the young woman clears her throat to gather everyone's attention.

I look around the room at my classmates. Most of them are unfamiliar to me, though I do catch a few who I shared first period with. Much to my surprise, Harry occupies one of the desks in the back.

"Everyone find a partner for our first assignment!" The teacher announces, and Emily turns to me. I'm so glad that I made a friend so I wouldn't have to be working alone.

"I will give each group a famous time period in French history and you will have to explain the significance of it to today's culture." Ms. Matthews tells us as she writes the directions on the board. She then comes around with a basket filled with folded slips of paper. Emily reaches her hand into the yellow basket and pulls out one, reading the numbers, "1750 to 1800."

"I think we can do the French Revolution," I say and bend down to grab the French textbook from under my desk.

Emily writes something on the back of the slip of paper and hands it to me.

"That's my phone number," she explains when I raise a brow. "The project isn't due until three weeks, but I figured you'd want to get a jump start on it."

I smile and push the paper into my bag. For the rest of the class we write down things that might be beneficial to our project. Once the bell rings we have almost a full page of notes written down. Emily says that she'll do some more research tonight and takes the paper.

The two of us head to our next class that we share, American History. The period class ends as quickly as it began, and soon we are walking into the lunch room.

"You can sit with me," Emily offers, and I accept. We go through the line and take our trays to a booth near the windows. I wave over Logan when he enters the cafeteria, and one of Emily's friend sits down beside her.

"Logan, this is my friend Emily," I say, and they exchange hellos. Emily does the same with her friend, Eleanor, who happens to have the same first period as me.

The lunch bell rings, signaling that lunch is over, and everyone moves to throw away their trays. As we're piling out of the cafeteria, I'm pushed to the side by an unseen shoulder.
When I look through the crowd, Harry standing just a few inches away from me.

"My bad, Scar," he winks, and disappears before I can think of a reply.

Notes

I just want to say that I am sorry for not updating in a week! This week has flown by and before I knew it it had been eleven days since I last updated. I just wanted to let you guys know that I will probably be updating every weekend (if I can). If I update on the weekends, I'll have more time to make them longer and better! Thanks for all of your love, and please continue to share it with more people!