Anthem Within

Groans of disappointment mingled with happy, relieved sighs as the students looked
over their essay grades. Bright, crisp white pages lay flat on each desk in the
rowdy classroom; the sunlight pouring into the room reflected off the papers
and blinded many. Mr. Magee stood behind the podium in front of the class as he
scanned over his English students, taking note of the various reactions and
comments.

“Ugh, this sucks, I got another sixty! Akane, what did you get?” Natalie addressed the girl to her right.

Akane flashed the red number at her friend. “An eighty.”

Natalie groaned, burying her face into her hands. “My mom is going to kill me.” She jumped slightly when she felt a hand on her shoulder before turning confused light brown eyes in my direction.

“Don’t worry,” I smiled. “I’m sure your mom won’t be that mad.”

Natalie and I had met in our freshman year in Biology, but we didn’t start to talk to one another until the last few months of ninth grade, and it wasn’t long until we were good friends. Both of
her parents worked at our school, her dad was a coach and her mom a math teacher, so many people had high expectations for her to get great grades and pass the tests; sometimes the stress just got to her.

Natalie was six months younger than I was; she had a few months until she would be eighteen, but had a few inches of height on me to make up for it. She had medium length light brown hair to match her eyes, a medium skin tone and was at average weight. Purple framed glasses
sat on the bridge of her nose, rarely slipping down or having to be adjusted; she never took them off.

“Hopefully,” Natalie sighed. “What about you Astraia, what did you get?”

Sheepishly I showed her my essay. The red inked one hundred seemed to scream at my friend.

Behind me in her desk Akane leaned forward. “Why do you even ask anymore Nat, she always gets good grades in this class.”

With a glance over my shoulder I frowned at Akane.

Akane was of Japanese heritance, her fair skin, dark brown hair and eyes only proved the point of her ethnicity. We had met in elementary school; at first the both of us had been shy but gradually we opened up to each other and grew to be great friends, even after the one year that I’d gone to a different middle school. Before middle school I had been taller than her by a mere two inches, but after the sixth grade year where we were separated she had grown to be a full five inches taller. The kind, quiet girl from elementary school had been replaced with a loud, blunt and quirky
teenage girl who laughed at the smallest of things and had an untraceable thought process.

While I’d been lost in my thoughts Akane and Natalie had shifted the topic of discussion onto something that was mindboggling, but classified as normal for Akane.

“-can’t jump! They can stand on two legs, but they can’t jump!” She exclaimed enthusiastically, waving her arms around dangerously, her knuckles swinging too close to my jaw for comfort.

“Who can’t jump?” I interjected.

“Elephants!” Akane replied with gusto.

A wavering smile twitched over my mouth.

“Uh, right,” I mumbled.

Just then the bell rang, signaling the end of class, and for Akane, Natalie and myself, that meant lunch time.

Gathering our things we said goodbye to Mr. Magee and shoved through the door in our rush
to get down stairs and in the lunchroom before the sea of loud, hormonal, and rowdy teenagers filled up the place. Feet on the freshly polished gold painted staircase echoed off of the white and black walls, cries of laughter and loud chatter roared over the pounding feet; it sounded like a stampede. Behind me, Akane repeatedly kicked the bottom of my foot or stepped on the back of my flats while Natalie’s elbow would knock into my ribcage. Once we reached the nearly empty cafeteria I breathed a sigh of relief, walking quickly to the table we always sat at, dumped my binder and book bag on the gaudy yellow surface and followed Akane to the fast food line.

“So, how was your trip to Atlanta?” My voice was slightly mumbled as I reached for a chicken sandwich. Warmth seeped through the plain white and red packaging.

“Fine I guess. We went to that Coke factory.” Natalie shrugged.

Akane grabbed a handful of mayonnaise and ketchup packets, dropped them on her tray, and picked up the small carton of red gold french-fries. “You guess? You get to try all sorts of soda’s from all over the world, how does that classify as simply fine?”

“I’ve been there several times; it’s lost the effect for me.” Natalie supplied.

As the conversation went on I continued to gather my lunch.

On a red plastic tray I had my wrapped sandwich, french-fries, a chocolate chip cookie, and an apple. At the end of the line I paid for my food with a kind smile to the lunch lady at the cash register. Like always I waited for Akane and Natalie before we walked to our table where Alexandra was already seated and Lillian was dropping her beaten blue bag down to go run through the line.

“Hey,” Alex greeted as she did every day.

Akane simply nodded in greeting while Natalie and I mumbled our hellos.

Lillian smiled and rushed towards the steadily growing lunch line.

“What did you get on your English essay?” Alex asked casually.

Natalie groaned around the bite of greasy cheese pizza. “A horrible score.”

Across from me, seated comfortably on the backless black stools attached to the tables, Alex pulled out her usual strawberry pop-tart and small bottle of water. In the sixth grade Alex had been switched into my class after the first two weeks, in the beginning I had thought that she was a quiet, sweet, innocent young girl; I quickly learned the truth. Short-tempered, loud, impatient, and strange, Alex and I were friends instantly. Born in Puerto Rico she had the looks to go with the ‘Latino Attitude’ as she preferred to call it. She had dark brown hair down to her lower back, chocolate brown eyes and skin the color of mocha; she was only an inch taller than I was and stick skinny. Most of the time she didn’t have an accent, but every once in a while it would shine through her speech, especially with her Y’s.

“Hey Natalie,”

As one all of us turned to see Chase Crawly.

With a bright smile Natalie waved, while they struck up a conversation about baseball we watched on with identical smirks and mischievous glints in our eyes, when Chase finally walked away I
leaned forward into the table.

Natalie noticed and looked curiously back at me.

“So, how are you and Chase?”

Rolling her eyes she sighed, “Nothing is going on between us Astraia; I don’t know why you always think there is.”

“Maybe because you two flirt whenever you’re together?” Akane pointed out.

“Not you too Aka!”

Akane laughed at Natalie’s expression.

Shrugging her shoulders Alex added, “He really seems to like you.”

Our oblivious friend tried to make an excuse for that detail with, “We’re just really good friends. Does that automatically mean he likes me?”

“In this case it does.” I stated bluntly.

“Hey,” Lillian placed her lunch on the table as she took her seat between Alex and Natalie. “I just saw Chase with a dorky grin. Did you two finally get together Nat?”

“No, we didn’t.”

“Really,” I quirked a brow up in curiosity. “There is nothing between you and Chase; the foot ball and baseball star with that golden hair and swoon worthy brown eyes and that skin tone? You’re kidding right?”

“Plus he’s really smart and has a sense of humor.” Alex commented.

“He even has a cute dorky side.” Lillian pointed out.

“And as athletic as he is, you know he has muscles in all of the right places.” Akane winked, causing Natalie’s cheeks to flare up in a bright red blush.

Laughing we apologized to Nat and moved onto a new topic of how many cultural hours we needed to pass high school in the advanced program.

While my friends were distracted with the topic I got up to throw my trash away, ignoring their pleas to take the trash they had, and tossed it into the garbage can.

Turning around I bumped into someone.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The apology slipped out automatically.

Whoever I had bumped into ignored me, golden brown eyes narrowed angrily , then the kid continued on his way.

Then I realized who I’d collided with.

Ryuu. The schools resident and eccentric delinquent.

Everyone knew Ryuu by name thanks to all of the rumors floating around about him. They ranged from vandalizing the school’s auditorium to fighting anyone who got in his way and sending people to the hospital; personally I just figured he didn’t like to be around people so he came off as mysterious and dangerous. Ryuu was actually an attractive guy, his jerk attitude set aside. He had light auburn hair that constantly looked tousled and just began to fall into his golden brown eyes and he had sun kissed skin, and hard lean muscles.

Eyes followed my movements as I went back to my table; my friends were talking about Hunger Games so I was sure they didn’t see my interaction with Ryuu.

That was good news.

Alex wanted me to date him ever since she first saw him in the seventh grade; she thought
that it would be one of those love stories where the girl changes the bad boy’s attitude and heart.

Frequently I’ve told Alex that she’s full of it.

Sliding into my seat I let out a sigh but attempted to focus on Akane’s conversation topic switch to something about Sloths and how slow they are. Akane had a strange obsession with Sloths, any
time she thought about them, heard someone talk about it or see one she would tear up. According to her it was because they made her so happy. She made my obsession with Penguins look like a simple fondness.

“What’s going on?”

Jerked from my thoughts I followed Alex’s curious gaze.

Cheers, whoops and jeering laughter spilled into the cafeteria from outside where a giant mass of students crowded around in the middle of the walkway.

“Do you think it’s another fight?” Natalie inquired.

Fighting was a very rare occurrence at Crestfield High, but there were still the few occasions where it did happen; Ryuu was the one who participated in most of them.

Last week there had been a fight between two football players over a girl that they both had been sleeping with.

The maturity of a lot of the student population remained in question.

“Looks like it.” I commented absently.

Between the jumping, rowdy student body outside I caught the features of one of the people smack-dab in the middle of the attention, though they seemed unconcerned and focused on whomever they were punching.

Ryuu Custodio stood in the spotlight yet again.

Despite his harsh, rude attitude he tended not to hit girls, only snarling, cussing and shouting at them like a dog.

Lucky for me, or else I probably would’ve been the one fighting him.

Teachers were shoving through the gathered crowd attempting to reach the two main acts and almost immediately the crowd dispersed like the schools staff had the black plague.

My Forensic Science teacher and the baseball coach, Coach K, gripped tightly onto Ryuu’s biceps and hauled him several feet away from a boy I recognized as Jonathan Davis; Jonathan was a relatively nice kid, he was kind to almost everyone and worked hard to get good grades and
helped his ill mother. Each time we’d talked it was light and playful. We even had a few small study sessions together. He was being led away by the schools Drama teacher, Mrs. Peterson.

Just as I was about to turn back around with Akane, to resume whatever we were talking about before, gold brown eyes locked with my own eye and I froze.

A cold feeling prickled at my skin.

Our gazes remained locked while he was led away, until he disappeared around the corner. Once he was gone I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My arms were covered in goosebumps, chills danced along my spine and my heart raced within my chest. There had been
a cold, harsh gleam in his eyes when he looked at me.

“Astraia,”

Jerking backwards I looked at Lillian. “Huh, what did I miss?”

She shook her head, sandy blond locks swishing over her shoulders. “Nothing. But are you okay? You look kind of sad.”

Absently I frowned, my brows pinched together between my eyes. “Oh, sorry.”

Akane shrugged at my left. “She looked deep in thought to me.”

“Why were you staring outside?” Natalie questioned around a mouth full of greasy cheese pizza.

Unknowingly my frown deepened. “I was?”

Wordlessly they all nodded.

“Huh, that’s weird.” I mumbled softly.

Moments later we returned to laughing and making silly comments as Akane nearly spit out her water on Lillian, Natalie and Alex; in no time at all the look I’d received from Ryuu left my mind.