one headlight , serenity

[colton]

pencil tapped paper in rapid succession, hoping that somehow doing this would free him from the classroom faster. instead, it just seemed to make the minutes drag on. colton knew he should be paying attention. this class was important really, science was something he'd need later in life. if not, he would at least need it to maintain the gpa he had to keep up to keep his scholarship. and if that didn't motivate him, nothing would. there was nothing worse for him than the thought of being forced to return home. subconsciously, his hand reached up to his forehead and brushed beneath his hair and felt the raised skin, denoting the scar that he had just recently been awarded. a pang struck his stomach when he remembered that day, his father's anger, the bookcase. it was all he could do to push the memory further back in his mind and instead turn his attention to the class.

ten minutes later, he was finally released. now there was a fifteen minutes break period in between classes, and as all the students poured out into the hall, some of the girls from his class instantly tugged his arm in their direction. having no real reason to say no, colton followed along behind them as they chattered about the class, about how they liked what their teacher was wearing, all sorts of things. they stopped in the hall, along some lockers and soon they were all surrounded by even more friends. colton knew just about everyone's names and was fairly aware of the fact that most of these kids were considered amongst the more popular kids at eisley. somehow, colton had slipped in with them. he wasn't sure how or when it happened, but it had. it wasn't all that much of a surprise to him really, he had been in that same kind of spot back at his old school. people only saw of him what they wanted, what he wanted them to see. to them, he was a sweet, nice guy. he was bright and an excellent athlete, as well as good looking. and all of that was true, to some extent. he was fairly bright, but had to push himself to do well in school. he was a nice guy by nature, that wasn't a lie. and as far as athletics went, he was kind of obsessed with baseball and swimming, but people seemed to accept that. still, if anyone ever asked about his home life, he gave as smooth of an answer as possible before subtly changing the subject. it was an art he had long ago perfected.

and now, even though one of his newly acquired friends, lacey, was talking to him about helping him in science if he needed it, his attention was elsewhere. his green eyes had flickered over to the little window above the lockers. it was currently snowing out and god only knows how cold outside. it made him cold just thinking about it. it was such a change from home, such a different environment. back home he could get away with wearing flip flops in december. here he figured he'd be lucky to be able to wear them in april. even still, it was all for the better. and the snow was kind of fun, although it did complicate things a bit. still, he wasn't exactly in a situation to complain. lacey seemed to be ending her talk and colton instantly felt guilty for not listening. but he responded with a nod, a grin and a thank you, which seemed to be enough for her. hearing his name, he turned, only to collide with another, smaller frame. instinctively he reached out and grabbed her arms in an attempt to prevent her from falling. a sheepish look on his face, colton quickly apologized,

i'm so sorry! you alright?


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status! finished
tagged! serenity
words! six five five
notes! will make pretty later!

[serenity alison reed]

BLAH BALH

[/img]
it's been a hard day's night ,
i should be sleeping like a log[/center]

The day had only just begun, and Serenity wasn't sure how she was going to make it through. It was bad enough returning to the routine of school after a nice four-day weekend in Georgia for her cousin's wedding, but it was even worse when you were tired as hell. While the wedding itself wasn't exhausting by any means (it was sweet, but incredibly boring), her plane, having been delayed numerous times due to "hazardous weather conditions" (whatever that meant), hadn't landed at JFK until four in the morning. By the time she got back to her dorm room, it wasn't even worth going to sleep because she'd just have to wake up in about an hour to start getting ready for school anyways. So instead, she did what any normal teenager would do: upload all the pictures from the wedding she had onto Facebook.

When that was done, she simply went straight to the bathroom--one of the perks of being up and out of bed so early was that she at least got dibs on the bathroom before Ara, Logan, or Kaitlin--and took a shower. Unfortunately, she seemed to run out of energy immediately after that task had been completed. She realized that she didn't have the energy or motivation to make herself look like she gave a shit about showing up to school. So instead of carefully applying and re-applying her makeup until it was perfect, Serenity simply used cover-up on the bags under her eyes and decided it was good enough. Rather than straightening her hair, she just pulled it back into a sloppy ponytail. And while she usually spent a good deal of time choosing an outfit that was casual but modest and somewhat professional, today she reached into the back of her closet and pulled out a t-shirt and some jeans.

By the time she walked into her English class, she was struck with the sudden urge to find some nice corner to curl up in with a warm hoodie and simply close her eyes and drift away into the utopia that was Sleepland. In fact, that sounded like such a wonderful idea that she found it difficult to focus on anything else. She also found it difficult to hide her sleepiness from her teacher and classmates. Serenity certainly didn't want to get a reputation of being the sort of girl to fall asleep during class, but surely it wouldn't matter if she just laid her head down on her arms for a couple of minutes...

"Serenity! The bell rang! Are you going to stay here or will you at least go to your next class for the rest of your nap?" She woke with a start as Tiffany, the girl who sat next to her and sometimes worked on projects with her, poked her into out of her precious sleep. "Honestly, Ren, you're lucky Mr. Greere didn't see you. What were you thinking?" Tiffany shook her head and left the room, leaving Serenity alone to blink her way into awareness. Falling asleep in class was definitely out of character for her. Well, it was here, anyways. This sort of thing happened all the time back in Charleston; she spent many late hours on the phone with Tyson, or talking to Tyson on AIM, or letting Tyson into her room after her parents were asleep...maybe that's why Serenity felt so ashamed right now. She didn't want to revert into her old lifestyle. The consequences of such a reversion were alarming, to say the least.

Well, she wouldn't allow something like that to happen. She would make up for her slight lapse of judgment by paying extra attention in all of her other classes, and she would start by getting to the next one earlier than usual. That meant skipping her daily trip to the vending machine, her locker, and her friends' lockers, but oh well. Yawning, she stood up and stretched before venturing out into the hallway.

Unfortunately, her roughly thirty minutes of sleep didn't do too much to increase her ability to focus, and Serenity found herself unable--or at least, unwilling--to keep up with the pace of the crowd. After a few moments of being out in the hallway, however, she was suddenly wide awake; it was probably her body's instinctive response to being run into and nearly pushed over. She gasped, but just before she fell, someone grabbed her arms and kept her upright. Ordinarily, she would have been at least annoyed with the situation, but today, she honestly didn't care. At least it had set a little adrenaline pumping through her veins; maybe it would help her stay awake for her next class.

"I'm so sorry! You alright?" Serenity looked up at her "attacker" and didn't immediately recognize his face, although he did strike her as somehow familiar. She couldn't say why, though. Oh well; she'd probably just seen him in the hallways before or something. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine," she assured him with a tired smile. "And I'm sure it was probably my fault anyways, so I'm sorry too."

tagged: colton!
words: 849
lyrics: 'hard day's night' - the beatles
outfit: clickit
notes: haha, it's cool. i'm too picky/lazy to find a good picture, so our posts can lack prettiness together. xP