*Adult language, discretion advised.*

I shrill at the sharp intake of noise, signalling each student to depart to wherever they're going next.

I've been lucky enough to be rewarded with a seat located all the way in the back, for every one of my classes so far.

My backpack on the floor is slightly trampled over by the stampede of student's shoving against each other to leave. Admiring their perseverance, I sluggishly push my head up off the wall to gather my belongings.

I pull out my crumpled up schedule from my pocket to find where I should belong next.

'Lunch,' it's listed on the paper after fifth period. I glance up to see where the woman teacher was at and find her staring at me with confusion as to why I'm still here.

"Cafeteria?" I ask, trying to gather as little in my statement as possible.

"All the way down the hall, through the two large doors." Her response is quicker than my question, subtly revealing her wanting me gone.

Once I'm out of the door I follow the loud rush of voices echoing from down the hall.

Once I stop there, I push the frame of the two large doors separating me from the large mass of students, decorating each table.

There's several signs scripted with names of different types of food to purchase. 'Mexican,' 'Italian,' 'Chinese,' my gaze goes to each sign wanting to try all of these foods if they are at all similar to the mozzarella sticks.

My decision finally lands on the large rectangular machines placed up along the cafeteria wall, next to bare cafeteria tables.

I stare at the singular machine, through the glass and at the silver steel coils. I shift my stance, wondering what I need to do to get my food option out.

A few students walk to line up behind me while I'm still standing there pretending to be stuck between decisions.

"Hey could you maybe hurry it up." I hear from near the side of me.

As I turn my head to see the voice responsible; I hear another higher voice right after.

"Could you maybe shove your head up your ass." A few snickers come from the rest of the student's behind me and I decide to get out of line, uncomfortable with all the attention brought upon me.

I walked over to one of the bare tables at the end of the machines and took a seat as one of the only people there at the table, or so I believed I would be.

"Hey." The same high voice now identified from a girl half my size. Her short brown curls stiffening in all directions, under the pressure of a black head band. She slides into the other side of the table and shifts her chocolate brown eyes into mine.

"Yes?" I reply with worry in being directly acknowledged by her. My attempt at going unnoticed today by anyone, completely failing.

"Hey, name's Dezmond. I have you in my second period, seeing you're new an all," She taps each one of her long pink painted fingernails on the table. "Thought um maybe you'd want to sit with us?"

I stare blankly at her, registering her actions as some sort of a small act of kindness or registered pity at seeing me alone.

"Us?" was the only thing I said after making her wait seconds upon seconds for a response.

She leans backwards away from the table; holding onto the edge and springs up, "Come on," her short legs swiftly carrying her away.

She didn't look back to see if I decided to follow, but the feeling I received from her knew she knew I would.

Once I caught up to her stoping at the other end of the cafeteria, we both stood heavily at the head of a filled table.

"This is Kyle, the douche without any patience," she points at a boy in a navy green t-shirt with hair almost platinum blonde. "That's Jessica over there," A girl with hair on the opposite color spectrum from him, so black it looked blue. "And this one here is my lovely girlfriend, Cindy."

She moves from next to me, leaning over to give her a peck on the lips, now standing next to her.

"Huh, so that's where you went, to pick up chicks," Her gaze flicks to me, it analyzing me from head to toe, shifting back to her. "Good thing she's hot." She finishes with a joking smile.

Her fiery auburn hair falls back into view of her green eyes, both of them now directed at the food tray in front of her.

"Yeah, went scavenging, been getting a little tired of you lately." She sighs dramatically, claiming her saved spot next to her at the table.

Cindy's snort causes the table to smile as I shift my weight and decide whether to escape back to the comfort of my solidarity or join them.

I slip my bag off my shoulders and place it on the floor under the table as I veer into one of the two seats open across from Dezmond and Cindy.

"So this is the girl who took days in line and..." He was cut off by an annoyed voice.

"Kyle, your head is still up your ass, so how are you talking?" Dezmond rolls her eyes. "Anyway, this is...crap I never asked you your name." She finishes with wide surprised eye's.

The rest of the table now has their stare directed at me, waiting for a response.

"Marceline." I respond, not knowing which pair of eye's to look into.

"So Marcy, what brings you to this deck of the woods?" Kyle mumbles under the bite of his two pieces of bread, stuffed with contents in the middle.

My utter confusion must be apparent because Dezmond translates for him, "What school did you transfer from?"

I try to think of a believable lie that doesn't hold much information. "I was homeschooled," Not being a total lie. "Decided to have my senior year at a public school." I was contempt with my answer and they appeared to be so as well.

Their conversations amongst each other continues as if I regularly sat with them. They paused every other statement, providing me an option of whether or not to join in.

"Oh!" Dezmond shouts just loud enough to capture all of our attention. "Marceline is also the girl I told you guy's about this morning." She looks at me as she laughs.

All their gazes are once again directed at me, now with amused disbelief.

"I'll tell the whole thing this time, it was priceless..." Dezmond is cut off by a low voice behind me, trailing to other side of the table.

"I swear I can't put up with Mr. Flanagan's shit anymore. He said this time...who this?" He paused mid sentence to analyse who I was.

The fluorescent light from the cafeteria bounced off the strands of his wavy light brown hair and seeped into his hazel eye's.

Dezmond grabbed him by the hem of his grey shirt and tugged him to sit down next to her, directly across from me.

"Like I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted," She paused to glare at him. "She walked right into Mr. Smith's popping a nut about how Abraham Lincoln saved the world."

"When he said she could sit anywhere, prince charming was all like 'why don't you sit in my lap, sugar.'" She does a remotely bad imitation of the boy this morning.

"Well, it wasn't exactly like that..." I try to interject, "but you finish it." I enjoyed her amusement from the situation, so I let her continue.

"Right when he thought he got her with his panty dropping gaze." She laughs.

"Check this, she turns around and tells him right in his face, 'no thanks,' I was dead, him and his buddies faces were priceless." She laughs harder, moving both her hands to her abdomen.

The rest of the table joins her in hysterics with smiles plastered along their faces.

"The one time I decide to skip Smith's, shit goes down," Jessica says to all of us annoyed. "Un-fucking-believable."

I'm smiled realising that this is the first time in a long time I enjoyed conversing with a group of peers my own age, without being interrupted with a new mission or lesson. I reveled in the fact that I was not going to be interrupted by him ever again.

As they go back to the conversations they were having before, I notice the new member of the table still hasn't removed his stare away from me.

"Close your mouth Sal," Cindy leans over. "I think I saw a fly go in."

I turn to meet our stare fully on as I watch him take an arm from under the table and hold out a hand to me.

"My name is Sal," He says. "But you can call me anytime." Finishing with a smirk.

I look around the table to wonder if he was serious but I catch the embarrassment hidden in Jessica's eye's.

I grab his offered hand to be polite, finally coming to the realisation that his smirk was his ordnance of a come on.

"My name is Marceline, and you can call me Marceline." I smirk back with the release of our conjoined hands.

The group chuckles at my response, all but Jessica.

I observe the rest of the categorized groups of student's in the cafeteria rising simultaneously, just as the bell rings signalling the end of this lunch period.