CHAPTER TWO:
WONDER

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WHEN THE BELL RANG, Mae was the first one out of her English classroom. Breezing past a whispering Embry and Jared, who both paused their conversation to stare at her, she was eager to find her sister to see how her first lesson went. Turning the corner to her locker, she scoffed at the sight of Lina waiting there. She had her Math textbook and her pencil case tucked under her left arm and she was staring down at her watch anxiously, then searching the crowd of students for Mae's face.

With Lina's back to her, Mae took the chance to sneak up behind her, flinging open her locker in an effort to scare her. "Relax, Lee! The world won't end if you're not in class before the bell."

Grinning at Lina's narrowed eyes, Mae chucked her English book into the bottom of her locker before searching the pile of other books for her Math one. Lina, watching her, gave an impatient sigh. "I'd like to make a good first impression."

"Oh, yeah?" Mae hummed, placing the book aside as she popped open her packet of mint chewing gum. "How was your English impression then?"

"Lovely! Mrs Keaton was very impressed with my colour-coded notes," Lina said happily. Mae smirked, biting back a snide comment which didn't go unnoticed by her sister. Rolling her eyes, Lina leaned up against the locker next to Mae, seemingly giving up on trying to rush her. "What about you?"

"It was okay," Mae shrugged, spying Embry and Jared a couple lockers away from them. They both were caught in an intense conversation with another boy, voices low as they stood away from everyone else.

"Just okay?" Lina prompted, frowning when Mae continued to stare at something over her shoulder. Following her gaze, Lina rolled her eyes at the sight of the boys, though she didn't seem shocked by Mae's distracted stare. "Friends of yours?"

"No," Mae scoffed, quickly averting her gaze away from them. Lina simply hummed at her, offering a rare smirk as she caught Mae's eyes moving back a moment later, filling with surprise at the sight of someone else standing with them, her arms around Jared's waist. "I didn't know Kim had a boyfriend."

"I did. I saw them together this morning," Lina shrugged, a little confused by Mae's interest. "Why do you care?"

"I don't. I just had a weird interaction with them this morning," she muttered, turning back to her locker and grabbing her things in an effort to distract herself.

"Weird how?"

"They kept staring at me. I asked this one guy, Embry, for a pen and he looked at me like I put the sun in the sky." Mae scowled at Lina's teasing 'aww,' shoving her sister's shoulder as she slammed her locker shut. "Don't do that. There was nothing cute about it."

"I'm sure he didn't mean to be weird. Maybe he just thought you were attractive or something," Lina offered up, smiling eagerly when she realised that Mae was ready to go. "Finally! Let's go!"

"Sure," Mae sighed, then laughed when Lina linked their arms together and began striding down the hallway. "You are way too eager for Math, my friend. It's not normal."

"Uh, just because I care about my education—"

Before Lina could continue a rant that Mae had heard several times in the past, Kim caught sight of the girls and eagerly waved them over. "Mae! Lina! Over here!"

"Hi, Kim!" Mae grinned, dropping Lina's arm to reach out and hug her. Lina stopped by her side with a disappointed but unsurprised sigh, tapping her foot as the warning bell rang.

"How was your first class?" Kim asked, nudging Mae's side with an expression that Mae didn't really understand. "I heard you met Jared and Embry."

"It was good," she shrugged, acutely aware of the eyes on her. Jared and the boy Mae didn't recognise were smirking at each other, sights set on Mae and an uncomfortable Embry, who was rocking back and forth on his heels while glaring at his friends. Kim spared the three boys a glance, rolling her eyes at their behaviour before offering a confused Mae a soft smile.

"Right, well, we're just heading to Math with Mrs Sullivan," Lina announced, linking arms with her sister as Mae edged closer to her side.

"Oh, me too!" Kim exclaimed, quickly pecking Jared on the cheek and gathering her books from his arms. Waving goodbye to the other boys, she followed after an eager Lina and a not-so-excited Mae, looping her arm through Mae's spare one with a grin. "You guys are gonna love Mrs Sullivan. I'm friends with her youngest niece, Maggie, so I've met her outside of school before and she's such a sweetheart."

At this revelation, Lina immediately launched into conversation, quizzing Kim on everything from the syllabus to Mrs Sullivan's teaching style. While the two girls were distracted, Mae chanced a glance over her shoulder at the emptying corridor. The boys were still by the lockers. Jared and the other boy were talking to each other while Embry stood in silence. Sensing her eyes on them, he looked up and grinned shyly, offering up a quick wave before stuffing his hands into his pockets. Mae released Kim's arm to wave back at him, ignoring the girl in question's smirk as she returned his smile, then disappeared around the corner.

"Embry's nice, isn't he?" Kim said suddenly, nudging Mae's hip with her own to stop her from following Lina through the classroom door.

"I haven't really spoken to him," Mae shrugged, hurrying away from Kim before she could say anything more.

"Aha! New students!" the woman Mae assumed was Mrs Sullivan clapped her ring-cladded hands together at the sight of Mae and Lina, offering them a wide smile that had both girls grinning back at her, even Mae who despised the entire existence of Math. Mrs Sullivan just radiated positivity, and while Mae usually disliked that type of person, she couldn't help gravitating towards her. Mae just had this feeling that, no matter who you were, Mrs Sullivan was the type of teacher who everyone adored. "I'm Mrs Sullivan! You must be Lina Song and Maeve Cooper."

"That's us," Lina beamed, taking Mae's slip from her hands and offering both to her.

Once she'd signed them, Mrs Sullivan turned to survey the classroom with her hands on her hips, the flared skirt of her floral dress twirling around her thighs. "Lina, why don't you take a seat beside Kim? And Maeve, you can join a late Paul Lahote!"

Her voice rising, she glowered disapprovingly at the boy Jared and Embry were with earlier. Paul Lahote shot her a sheepish grin in return as he jogged through the door, dumping his things on his desk at the very back of the room then sitting down like he'd always been there.

"I don't know what you're on about, Miss. I've been here the whole time."

Lina winced at his smirk, patting Mae on the arm before moving to the empty seat beside Kim, who sat at the very front next to Mrs Sullivan's desk. Mae sighed, hesitating only for a second before weaving her way around the other desks to where Paul was watching her. Sitting down beside him, she offered up a smile that he was quick to return.

"You're Maeve, right?" he asked, though from the knowing expression on his face, it seemed like he already knew the answer.

"Yeah, and you're Paul?"

"The one and only," he chuckled, leaning back in his seat as Mrs Sullivan began to hand out the lesson's worksheets. Once they had gotten theirs, Paul shuffled through his pencil case and pulled out a black pen, chucking it on Mae's desk and offering up another smirk when she frowned at him. "Something just told me you needed one."

Choosing not to question it, Mae shot him a grateful smile. "Thanks."

Mae and Paul spent the rest of the lesson in relative silence, occasionally sparking up conversation whenever one of them needed help on a question. At the end of class, he was the first one out of his seat, chucking his worksheet onto Mrs Sullivan's desk and sending her a cheeky grin as he moved to where a brunette girl was waiting in the doorway. Her eyes lit up at the sight of him, a wide smile tugging at her mouth as he pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. With blushing cheeks, she waved at Mrs Sullivan then intertwined her fingers with Paul's as he led her out of the room.

"That was my friend, Maggie," Kim explained once she'd made her way over to Mae's desk. At the front of the room, Lina was proudly showing Mrs Sullivan her colour-coded notes, beaming when the woman looked through them with delight. Realising that she'd been staring, Mae quickly gathered her things and followed Kim back to where Lina was sitting. It took a minute to tear her away from Mrs Sullivan but with one last goodbye the trio exited the room, having only a few minutes to grab their things for their next class.

"You and your damn notes, Lina," Mae grumbled under her breath as Kim left to join Jared, Paul and Maggie.

"Well, look who's rushing now," Lina crowed, causing Mae to roll her eyes.

Rounding the corner, she gave a gasp of surprise when she slammed into someone's chest. The person instinctively grabbed her shoulders before she could fall backwards, steadying the both of them as students shoved past with impatience.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going," Mae winced, offering Embry Call a tight smile as he stepped away from her.

"It's fine," he muttered, cheeks dusted with a soft shade of pink. "I should've been paying more attention."

"Right," she nodded, and that was that.

A moment of silence followed. Mae wasn't sure if she was meant to say anything else or just leave, but judging by Lina's raised eyebrows as she stood behind Embry, she figured her sister agreed with the latter.

But before she could walk away, the boy before her suddenly declared, "I'm Embry, by the way." Another blush. "But I think you already knew that."

"I'm Mae," she grinned, which seemed to put him at ease as his shoulders slackened.

"It's nice to meet you, Mae."

"I hate to interrupt whatever this is but you were just saying we need to hurry up," Lina announced, appearing by Mae's side.

"Oh, yeah," Mae stumbled, flashing Embry another smile despite Lina grabbing her hand and attempting to drag her away. "I'll catch you later, Embry."

"See you 'round."

Before he could say anything more, Mae's sister had yanked her out of sight. Embry watched her go before turning around with a sigh, immediately rolling his eyes when he found his friends standing behind him. Each of the boys wore matching smirks while Kim and Maggie had started to gush about them.

"Shut up," he grumbled, shaking his head when they just laughed.

Ignoring the continued teasing, he went off to his next class, wondering when he'd get to see Maeve Cooper again.

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A/N: To be honest, I don't know how I feel about this chapter. Don't get me wrong, I like it, it has everything I wanted to include in chapter two... maybe I'm just being too critical of my writing. I've had most of it written for a few weeks but I was struggling to finish the ending.