Chapter 3
Kara made her way down the upstairs hallway. Gripping each strap of her backpack tightly in her hands. She aimed her vision low and straight ahead, looking at other people’s shoes as they walked and moving herself constantly out of the way. It didn’t take long until someone deliberately moved closer to her as she tried to step away and shoved past her. She lifted her head and looked over her shoulder to see some kid she didn’t even know laughing with his friend.
He was a tall jock with brown hair wearing a red letterman jacket and blue jeans from what she could see. His friend had black hair and from the back it looked like he was wearing the same outfit. Kara could feel that familiar anger she knew so well begin to build up inside. That anger that she tried to bottle up inside, so she didn’t accidently burn the school down with her heat vision. The only thing that was able to help was the wince of pain the boy showed on his face when he rubbed his arm, which seemed to make the other boy laugh harder.
She made the rest of the way to her classroom managing to ignore the glares given by other kids every now and then, and the occasional freak comment.
When walking into the advanced math classroom, she stopped to find her seat, trying to ignore her anger. The room’s walls were a baby blue color. On the front wall of the classroom was a White board connected to a bulletin board that was currently empty but would eventually be where the grades for certain assignments or for the quarter would go. On the other walls where just some random inspirational posters and a few more bulletin boards that she guessed would have some featured work pinned on them at some point.
The room was filled with rows of desks in the formation you would see on TV with the teacher's desk at the front corner of the room. Kara’s desk was in the second row near the center of the room. She made her way to her seat quickly, setting her bag next to herself on the ground.
She rested her elbows on her desk in front of her and cupped her face in her hands. Closing her eyes tightly and covering them as red filled her vision.
Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. Kids treated her like this all the time, every day for years. Why was it getting to her so much today? She knew why, but it didn’t matter to anyone else. When her breathing had calmed, and the red had left her vision she inhaled deeply before dropping her hands onto her desk and turned to grab her materials out of her backpack.
She sat up just in time to see a girl walk into the room, wavy black har, bluish greenish eyes. Kara knew exactly who that was.
Lena Luthor was just as beautiful as always. Her green eyes shining with the glint of determination they always held, and her smile warm and friendly. Kara watched as she smiled to greet the teacher and made her way up the isle to her seat which happened to be sat right next to Kara’s across the aisle.
When Lena had sat down and gotten her textbook and pencil out, she turned her head to Kara. She was still smiling this time more genuine. Kara could feel her skin grow warm at the sudden attention and had to stop herself from snapping her attention elsewhere. Lena had probably already seen Kara staring and it would just seem even more strange if she tried to cover it up. She let herself smile back, one of the first genuine ones she has let slip in a while. Then she looked back down at her hands as she flexed them nervously on her open notebook page clear of any writing.
After a few moments of silence between the two girls, the bell rang, and the teacher put some warmups on the board. Kara got to work quickly, solving the problems on the board with ease as she had learned them all years prior when she was still on Krypton.
“How are you?” Kara looked up from her work over towards Lena who had asked the question. She was still smiling and though her attention was on her work, Kara knew she was waiting for an answer.
“I’m fine,” that was a complete lie, today had sucked like most days had since arriving on this planet. But Lena had gotten into the routine of asking Kara how she was daily and Kara, not wanting to bring the other girl into her problems, always gave her similar answers.
As far as she could tell, letting the other girl into her problems would just make them worse. Lena was a Luthor, not to mention best friends with Hope Mikaelson, and if she was to find out the truth about who and what Kara was then everything would probably go down in hell. No matter how kind and pretty the Luthor was.
“How about you?”
“I'm okay... I'm better now that I'm here.” She glanced up from her work to briefly look at Kara, whose face was probably as red as the Flashes suit. If her heart wasn’t racing so fast right now, she probably would have responded, but in the moment, it was all she could hear.
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Somehow, she managed to get through the rest of second period without embarrassing herself anymore then she felt she already had. Now, Kara was leaving her fourth period class, strangely relieved that it was just as uneventful as her third period had been. She was now on her way too lunch, moving quickly as she did so. She didn't want to be stuck in line longer then she had to because let's face it, she wanted some tater tots and a slice of pizza. As she was turning the corner that lead to the locker bay to put her stuff away, another kid shoved roughly passed her completely out of nowhere.
In the moment, almost by instinct, she reached for something around her, anything. She grabbed someone's arm in a tight grip without realizing, and as her knees hit the ground the person's arm was ripped from her grasp. She put her now free hand out and caught herself. both hands were now flat on the dirty school tiles with her glasses in between them and she was left trying to let the surrounding air into her lungs. She quickly looked up to see a confused Hope Mikaelson with her arm pulled to her chest, rubbing her arm where it had been so tightly gripped.
“I’m so sorry,” Kara quickly grabbed her glasses to put them on, the bottom of the frame on the left pane was cracked but other than that there was no major damage. She didn’t give it much thought and put them on her face before quickly getting up to look at Hope, she guessed the other girl had just been walking by and had been unlucky enough to be right next to Kara when she was shoved judging by the confused and disgusted look on her face and as Kara looked around, she realized whoever had ran into her was probably already long gone.
“It’s fine,” the words were sharp as they left Hope’s mouth and Kara couldn’t tell if it was anger, pain, or accidental, “It’s fine,” she repeated, this time her tone was slightly softer. Kara took a second to look at Hope, it wasn’t long, but it was enough for her to notice the girl looking down at her arm. Her eyes were going back to that emotionless angry expression she usually had, before she stopped rubbing her arm and let it drop to her side.
“Hope,” Kara heard the familiar voice behind her and turned around to see Lena approaching. When she made eye contact with Kara her eyes became slightly brighter and she gained a small smile that was gone as quickly as it had arrived. Kara gave her a slight nod in greeting before turning around and quickly making the rest of the way to her locker.
When she got there, she took a moment to gather her thoughts and steady her breath. Why the hell was her heart beating so fast? She took a deep breath, closing her eyes in an attempt to calm herself. She was about to open the locker when she realized her hand was clenched shut. She narrowed her eyes in confusion and opened her hand to reveal a small rose gold metal bracelet.
She stared at it for a second or two, this was Hope’s bracelet. It must have been torn off into Kara’s hand when Hope had pulled her arm away. How had neither girls noticed? Whatever, it didn't matter as long as she returned it. Kara put the bracelet in her jean pants pocket and proceeded to put her stuff away.
As she made her way towards the lunchroom after closing her locker, she took a deep breath. She was revisiting the hours prior in her head. She had been shoved twice today, one of which had caused her to fall and accidentally steal a bracelet not to mention the fact that she could have broken Hope’s arm.
She made her way quickly into the lunchroom. She had left her last class hoping to be early but after her encounter with Hope she should have known there wasn’t a very big chance of her making it to the lunch line before the usual rush of students came in.
She got into the back of the line, just looking to the ground as she waited for it to move. There was the usual laughing and talking ringing in her ears, she couldn’t help but wish she had someone to talk to, but that wasn’t new. The line moved as quick as it could with at least thirty high schoolers in it and it wasn’t too long till Kara was leaving the line with a red tray that had a few tater tots on it, a piece of cheese pizza, and a juice box.
On the way to her usual lunch table where she often ate alone, she passed a group of guys all wearing letterman jackets.
“Watch this,” she barely had time to register the words before a hand came in contact with the bottom of her lunch tray and the tray hit her in the nose. The tray hit the floor loudly and without thinking Kara visibly flinched at the loud noise as it rang against her eardrum.
The jock that had hit the tray was laughing along with a group of his friends. He had black hair and dark brown eyes. He was holding his lunch in one hand and he was using his other hand to high-five his friends.
“Jed, knock it off,” A boy slightly taller and more muscular shoved through the group. He had short brown hair and blue eyes. She could recognize Oliver Queen anywhere, he was probably the most popular guy in school. Quarter back of the football team, rich family, boyfriend of Laural Lance, the list goes on. The point was that everyone knew who he was. The laughing stopped quickly and now everyone around the group was looking at him in silence. Jed stared at him for a moment before turning and walking away without another word. As the rest of the group followed behind Jed, Oliver waited back for only a little longer, narrowing his eyes and surveying Kara quickly before going after the group.
Kara watched them go before she dropped down to the floor to pick up the food that she would now have to throw away. There was marinara sauce covering part of her vision from where it had smeared on her glasses and when she kneeled to pick up her food, she realized it was all down her shirt now too.
She quickly put all the food messily back onto the tray, aware of a few eyes still following her. She stood up, nearly shooting herself into the air, and walked as fast as she could to the trash can where she threw away the wasted food. She placed the tray on an empty table near the lunchroom entrance and left. When she was out of the lunchroom and away from curious eyes, she sped through the hall into a nearby bathroom in a matter of seconds.
She stopped in front of one of the sinks in the middle of the large room and looked into the mirror. She took her glasses off and placed them onto the edge of the sink the looked at the marinara sauce smeared across both lenses and the crack in the frame. She let out a deep sigh before turning around and looking for shoes under the stalls to make sure she was alone, then surveying the room with her x-ray vision just to make sure.
When she determined she was alone she took a moment to go and shut the bathroom door then she went back to the sink and faced the mirror, breathing deeply now trying to calm the anger filling inside. She gripped the edge of the sink tightly and closed her eyes. Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out. It wasn’t helping, if anything it was making her even angrier.
Suddenly the door opened quickly, and Kara felt the appliance she was holding onto crumble in her grip.
She opened her eyes and backed up. She tried to grab her glasses quickly and put them on, but they were still dirty, and she fumbled with them before they fell to the ground for the second time today. Great, now there was debris from a broken sink surrounding her on the ground, along with her glasses that were now covered in dirt, along with the sauce from lunch. She looked up to see who it was, she was desperately hoping it was Alex, she would probably have a lot to say and would probably spend 5 minutes yelling at Kara but it was better than someone else finding her in the bathroom without her glasses and a broken sink. But the girl that came into the bathroom was someone that Kara definitely wasn't expecting to see.
Damn it.