“Lexa, get your ass down here! You’re going to be late!” Anya yelled from the bottom of the staircase.

Lexa checks her hair in the mirror of her bathroom and grabs her glasses off the counter before sauntering slowly down the stairs. She won’t admit it out loud, but she had a hard time picking an outfit for her first official day of school at Magnus Ark High School. She settled on a white button down, a thin charcoal tie done in a trinity knot, a pair of charcoal shorts and, of course, black suspenders. Her white Vans are waiting at the door, brand new. “Relax, Anya. School will still be there even if I am five minutes late,” Lexa says as she rounds the corner into the living room and then into the kitchen.

“We have to leave like, now, Lexa. Come on!” Anya’s already walking out the door with a brief case in hand and a suit jacket thrown over her shoulder. Lexa simply pulls a macintosh apple from the fridge before roughly grabbing her backpack off the floor by the door and shoving her feet into her shoes. Anya’s already in the car and has an exasperated look on her face, clearly annoyed by Lexa’s laid back demeanor. “You know, just because it doesn’t matter if you’re late doesn’t mean I can be late!”

“Sorry, An. I will be on time tomorrow,” Lexa says, letting just the teensiest bit of guilt seep into her voice.

“Better be or I’m letting you take the bus for the rest of the year!” Anya teases as they pull out from the driveway.

“You would never!”

“Oh believe me, I would love to see you fend for yourself on a bus of stinky middle schoolers and douchey high school boys.” Lexa simply rolls her eyes and decides to spend the 15-minute ride to the school scrolling slowly through Instagram, nearly drooling over the images of journals and fountain pens that show up in the feed. She is determined to get her hands on an architect nib at some point, which she would have already done if she had the money to send out her favorite Lamy nib for customization. She’ll just have to settle with what she’s got.

Lexa groans internally when the car pulls up outside the front entrance to the school. As she unbuckles, Anya says seriously, “Text or call me if you need anything.”

“Yes sir, madam, sir,” Lexa snarks in response.

Anya retaliates with Lexa’s least favorite nickname, “Good luck on your first day, Munchkin!”

“Anya! I told you not to call me that!” Lexa whispers angrily. Lexa turns around with a salute to Anya, muttering beneath her breath, “It’s too damn early in the morning for this.” It’s a small school, Anya had told her, around 150 students in each graduating class, and it’s something new for Lexa. Her past schools have been very large, around 800 students in her class which allowed her to skate by unnoticed by most. Lexa enjoyed her time to herself and never wanted to feel like she had to put on a good face for someone else’s sake. She isn’t sure how much different this school will be, but she hopes it won’t be as tight-knit as television shows make it seem. The last thing she wants is somebody snooping around in her personal life.

Lexa walks to the school office, which luckily isn’t hard to find in a school this small. The administrators had said they would be mailing Lexa her schedule after she had picked what classes she would like to take, but nothing ever came in the mail. She’s starting a week later than everybody else, so she can only hope that the office will have her schedule ready for her. Lexa walks through the door to the office and stands in front of a large counter which separates a small seating area from other smaller office desks. A woman sitting off to the right perks up when she hears Lexa come in, “Oh! How can I help you?”

Lexa thinks her voice is too sickly sweet and keeps her mouth sealed shut in that regard but says instead, “I uh, I need to pick up my schedule. It’s my first day and I was supposed to get my schedule in the mail but it never came.”

“Oh no, well we’ll fix that up real quick! What’s your name, dear?” she asks with a smile that’s all too big as she gestures for Lexa to follow her to her desk. Lexa gives the woman her name and stands awkwardly by the desk, kicking one leg outward and popping the other knee back. The secretary types away on the computer through the school’s data base on schedules; Lexa keeps her bored expression firmly in place, trying to convey just how little she needs and wants to be here. The secretary doesn’t seem to get the message though, her voice as chipper as ever as she hands Lexa her schedule with a chipper, “Here you go! Do you need help finding anything?”

Lexa’s looking over her schedule the second it hits her fingertips and nearly forgets to respond to Miss Saccharine’s question. “No, thanks, I can take it from here,” Lexa informs her with a nod before turning on her heel to walk out and find her first class. She’s thankful to see that there are no homerooms. She always hated homeroom. Her schedule looks pretty standard; Honors English, Honors World History, Honors Biology, Honors Algebra II, American Sign Language III, Photography and a period for study hall in the second half of the day.

Lexa maneuvers her way through the halls, which are still filled with people as there are still another ten minutes before classes actually begin, but Lexa thinks it might be good to get to herself to class early; it wouldn’t be a very good idea to be late to her first class. Plus, she still has to find the class to begin with. The school has several main hallways, each one dedicated to a specific subject and each one with different color lockers, which Lexa thinks will help her keep everything in order. Lexa makes her way to the english hallway and finds her classroom midway down the hall. As she steps in, the teacher is at the whiteboard writing something down for class and the few kids who are in the classroom already turn to look at her. Being the new kid in a small school where everyone has known each other for the last 10 years is going to be a bit of a nuisance for Lexa. At least she knows she looks amazing and her effort this morning certainly won’t go to waste.

She takes a seat near the door which will allow her to get out fast at the end of class to find the next one. She hopes she doesn’t accidentally steal someone’s seat and God forbid there be actual assigned seats. It really irks her when teachers assign seats in high school, treating them like infants. The classroom slowly starts to fill up, and thus begins an entirely noneventful day. People look at her, clearly wondering who she is, but no one tries to talk to her and thankfully, none of the teachers try to introduce her to the entire class.

It’s not that hard to catch up on the work she has missed in the last week since most of the teachers were simply going over their syllabi and handing out whatever books they’d need for the year. By the end of the day, Lexa’s noticed a few things. The first is that this year is going to be a breeze if the pile of syllabi are anything to go off of. The second is that English, ASL, Photography, Biology, and Algebra are going to be her favorite classes. The third is that there is a beautiful blonde girl in her soon-to-be favorite classes who she can’t keep her eyes off, and who apparently can’t keep her eyes off of Lexa either.

Anya doesn’t get out of work until 4:00, so Lexa decides to hang around outside after the bell rings at 2:30. She thinks it’s a pretty big waste of her time, but she has several books with her, as always, so she decides to just sit in the grass and read while the sun beats down. As she reads, her hand idly plays with the grass beside her, long and soft. The book she takes out is her absolute favorite, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It’s a soft cover copy that she’s read many times, littered with pen markings, notes in the margins, underlined and bracketed phrases, connections within the book, between books, and with her own life. The cover is bent and one time she spilled a light-colored fruit punch on it and some of the pages are warped and just barely tinted pink. Lexa was devastated when it happened, but now she thinks it adds a little more character to her book. On a shelf at home, she has another copy of the book in hardcover waiting to be used if she ever decides she can get herself to read it.

As four o'clock grows nearer, Lexa begins to feel restless, her mind filling with things she wants to put down on paper and simultaneously feeling like she should be doing something instead of sitting and reading or writing. These things happen every once in a while and they frustrate Lexa to no end because she usually can't find a way to satisfy the feeling. Well, someone somewhere in the universe was looking out for Lexa. She hadn't noticed the people playing frisbee out on the field nearby until the frisbee landed within what Lexa liked to call her Bubble of Peace. The Bubble of Peace is sacred. When inside the Bubble of Peace, Lexa is not to be disturbed unless it is a life or death situation. And yet, here comes a frisbee to interrupt the Bubble of Peace she had surrounded herself with. The frisbee is clear plastic and has what looks to be a purple rubber ring around the edges for gripping.

"Oh shoot, Octavia! You nearly hit someone!" Lexa nearly chokes on her own spit when she notices the gorgeous blonde from her classes running toward her, presumably to get the frisbee which landed several feet from Lexa. Only slightly out of breath the girl apologized profusely. "I. Am so so sorry. Octavia, she can be a real. Idiot sometimes. But you gotta love her, it's the rule. Blakes have irresistible charm," she says with a breathy laugh and a glowing smile.

"It's alright--no harm no foul," Lexa says when she realizes she should probably say something instead of staring at the girl's lips. Lexa’s cheeks are burning and she can feel it in her ears.

“I’m Clarke, by the way. Clarke Griffin,” the pretty girl tells her.

“Lexa Woods, nice to meet you,” Lexa says with a small wave and a smile.

“You’re new here, right?”

“Yes I uh, just moved here over the summer. My paper work didn’t get finished on time so I had to start a week late. Schools and their regulations,” Lexa shares with a shrug and she starts to feel like maybe that was too much information for a first introduction. Whatever.

It’s silent for a few moments before Clarke asks, “Would you like to play with us? I mean I figure offering is the least I could do since someone nearly hit you with a frisbee.”

Lexa takes a moment to think about it; everything about this situation is weird for her. Lexa used to hear people say she was too bristly and she could acknowledge that she preferred to be alone in most situations. But, for some reason unknown to her, Lexa says, “Sure, why not.” And the first why not was that her ride would be showing up soon anyways, in the next half hour or so. And the other why not was that this would be a catalyst to a whole lot of change, and Lexa was never good with change.

Lexa has never been a huge fan of sports, despite the fact that she’s actually pretty good at them. She just prefers to spend her time doing more solitary, calm things. But now here she is being introduced to one Octavia Blake and her brother, Bellamy. Past saying “hello” and “nice to meet you,” the four of them spread out into a rough square shape. Lexa notices the other three tend to use advanced throws, not just the standard backhand, so she takes her own turn throwing fronthand and under-the-leg tosses. Bellamy whistles when she throws the disk under her leg and Octavia makes a whooping noise; Clarke simply makes a “not bad” face.

Half an hour later, Lexa can see Anya pulling up out in front of the school. “My ride is here, guys,” Lexa says as she picks up her backpack from the ground.

Clarke tosses the disk back to Octavia, pointing her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of Lexa. Octavia just nods and gives a thumbs up before passing the disk to Bellamy. “I’ll walk you to the car, if that’s alright with you?” Clarke asks with a blinding smile.

“Yes, of course,” Lexa confirms with a nod of her head. “Thank you for inviting me to play with you.”

“Any time! And I mean that. You’re very good, Lexa, you should try out for the school’s team,” Clarke tells her.

Lexa blushes a little at the compliment, “I’m not much for teams sports.”

“Well, in any case, I’d love if we could play again sometime. Maybe we can hang out..?” Clarke says and Lexa can hear the hopeful tone in her voice.

“Yeah, I would like that…”

“Ah, great! Well, here we are…Bye, Lexa, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course, Clarke,” Lexa says with a genuine smile.

Clarke turns and jogs back to her friends, looking over her shoulder once at Lexa and waving to her. Lexa opens the door to the car and sits in the front seat, “So who’s the girl?” Anya teases right off the bat.

“Her name is Clarke—she’s uh, she’s in most of my classes actually and she invited me to play frisbee with her and her friends after Octavia nearly hit me with the frisbee.”

Anya coos at her, “Aw look at my little Munchkin making friends on the first day!” Lexa juts back as she sees Anya’s hand coming at her, presumably to muss up her hair.

“Anya, please, I am not a child and I’m not little! And don’t you dare mess up my hair!” Lexa tells her.

“Fine fine, relax, Lex.” Lexa just huffs out a puff of air as they pull away from the curb. “So how does take out sound? I was thinking some Thai for dinner?”

Lexa nods along, “Yeah, Thai sounds good.”

Twenty minutes later, Anya is pulling the car into the driveway and Lexa’s got a steaming paper bag filled with delicious-smelling food sitting on her lap. The bag crinkles as she kicks the car door open to get out. “An, can you grab my backpack, please? My hands are full.” In truth, she probably could manage to grab her backpack as well, but this darn paper bag has no handles and the food inside is precious cargo, too precious to risk dropping.

“Yeah I got you.” Lexa approaches the door and skillfully finagles the house keys out of her pocket and into the door. She twists the knob just enough to push it open an inch before nudging it open the rest of the way with her food. She walks through the house to the kitchen where she promptly drops the bag on the table. “Where do you want your backpack?”

“Just leave it on the couch! I’ll bring it upstairs later!” Lexa responds as she pulls each of the food containers out of the bag. They may have gone a little overboard with the food, but at least there will be leftovers for late night snacks and dinner the next day. Lexa moves to the cabinet to pull out two paper plates, silverware, and serving utensils and places them on the table as well.

When Anya comes into the kitchen, Lexa huffs a laugh at her shirt, “Nice shirt, An.” Anya merely grumbles in response, which has Lexa smirking. It’s one of Anya’s favorite shirts, an old one she had won in a beer drinking competition back in her college days. The shirt is a little worn out, threadbare in places with a few holes, but Anya loves how soft it is. Plus, it may be a point of pride in her college self as well. Lexa likes to joke that Anya’s left her glory days behind in the bottom of a glass, but of course they both know that’s a lie. Anya has a professional career now and she’s getting better all the time.

“How was your first day?” Anya asks as they walk to the couch with their plates piled high.

“Boring. Honestly, Clarke has been the most exciting part of my day and that was only half an hour in the day,” Lexa says with a sigh. Anya waggles her eyebrows at Lexa who rolls her eyes. “Oh come on, it isn’t like that. Well, not yet. She’s cute, but we don’t even know each other.”

“Well, there’s time to fix that, Munchkin.”