Sam P.O.V

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

You have got to be kidding me! You really can't tell me that I'm late on my second god damn day at my new school. Good job at making a good first impression to your History teacher, you god damn dingus!

I hardly even had a chance to get dressed and eat my breakfast, before having to rush out the door. I was just waiting for the rant I was going to hear from my teacher at the end of class, about how I should always be punctual. Being new isn't an excuse.

By the time I made it to school, my breathing was just going through the roof. If I hadn't made it inside and had some lockers to lean on, I probably would have passed out right there on the floor. Fuck... I really shouldn't run like that ever again.

When the world had finally stopped spinning around me, and I finally felt like I wasn't going to vomit right there and then, I finally started walking to my History class, being a good 20 minutes late.

Luckily, my teacher didn't seem to ask any questions and instead just motioned for me to go and sit down, as he was handing out some work sheets. In this class, you had to share a table with another person, so I ended up having to awkwardly sit next to a girl, who wore a dark purple shirt, with casual jeans. She had brown hair, and seemed to be wearing glasses.

I couldn't tell if this girl was just as awkward as I was sometimes when I came to meeting new people, or if she was just staring me down as some sort of staring contest. Every time I kept turning my head towards her, I noticed her staring at me, which just made me shift in my chair uncomfortably.

"Okay, class!" The teacher called at the front of the class, as he was explaining what we were supposed to do on the worksheet. "I'm gonna need you to do this in pairs!" He added.

Well, this gave me a good opportunity to finally talk to this purple girl beside me.

"Hey." I casually said, turning towards her. She sort of replied with a small shy grin, showing that she was obviously feeling anxious about meeting me. "Hey, it's fine. I don't bite." I joked, getting a small laugh from her. "What's your name? I'm Sam."

She paused for a moment, before answering me.

"I'm Beth. Sitting behind us, is my friend Laura. Beside her, is Jack." She explained.

"I heard my name." Jack commented, causing both me and Beth to turn around and face him.

"Yeah, I was just telling Sam who you were."

"Oh, right." He simply answered, before looking down at the sheet again. Laura grinned at me.

"It's awesome to meet you, Sam! How do you like it at this school so far?" She asked. I shrugged.

"It's alright..... Hey, I was wondering, do you guys know a girl called Taylor? Is she in this class?"

"Taylor?" Laura repeated, causing me to nod. "Yeah, everyone knows Taylor. I feel really bad for her to be honest. She's one of the most unpopular people in the year. I want nothing more than to talk to her, but when I tried to, she sort of got annoyed at me. Like, she wanted nothing to do with me..."

"That's weird. She pretty much accepted me right on the dot when I tried to become friends with her..." I pointed out.

"Yeah well, rumor has it that she has quite a lot of issues. But it's more he says, she says, rather than fact." Jack admitted.

"What kind of issues?" I frowned.

"Well--" Beth started.

"Oi, you four! Please get on with the lesson. We're trying to study World War One! Not your social lives!"

"Sorry!" I apologized. As I turned back around to look at the sheet on our table, I felt a light poke in the side, causing me to turn my attention back to Beth.

"Listen, I'll talk to you more about it after class, 'kay?" She whispered. I nodded.

"Okay."

****

Luckily, I didn't end up getting pulled back at the end of class to hear anything from my teacher. He just made the simple comment, "make it on time next time, Sam." Before I left the room. Phew.

I ended up walking alongside Beth, as we had to separate from Jack and Laura, seeing as they had a different class to us. Beth made sure to keep her voice low, as she spoke.

"Listen, like Jack says, it's more he says she says... And if it's true, well, it's not really my place to talk about it." Beth admitted.

"What do you mean?"

"Well... Since she's so alone, there's a rumor going around that she might have depression or something." Beth frowned, as we came to a stop in the hall. My eyes widened in disbelief. Taylor, with depression? Really?

"But... She seems so happy."

"Looks can be deceiving." Beth countered. I sighed and nodded in response.

"Yeah but, like you said, it isn't fact. I'm sure Taylor's fine."

"Well, whatever you do, just make sure you talk to her, okay? I mean, don't go right up to her and be all like, 'hey! I heard you have depression! Is it true?' Cause you might just make her angry and upset."

"Uh.... Okay...?"

Beth slowly nodded, probably hoping I understood what she meant, as we both continued down the hall together to our class.

It was pretty unbelievable, to think that such a girl may have had such a complex problem. Then again, I've only known her for like a day. It's not like I could learn a whole lot about who she is in the matter of just 6 hours of school time.

Well, I guess I was just going to have to get to know her, and let her open up to me whenever she's ready to. After all, if I wanna be her friend, I wanna be a good one.