Just a Scared Girl (open)

[Angela Chambers]

Angie had been at Hammel for a few days and she’d barely said a word to anybody. A teacher had called on her yesterday in class and the introverted girl managed to choke out an answer. Then earlier today she’d accidentally bumped into a boy and muttered an apology as she scurried away. These two incidents alone in only her first few days of being at the school were enough to make her feel ridiculous and wonder if it was a mistake to be here.

But Officer Ryans promised her it was important and that the school would be good for her. Despite the fact that she missed Nolan and Riley, she was comforted by the fact that Ryans was able to get them out of their house and into foster care. And he even promised that there was a good chance they’d stay together because Nolan needed somebody who knew ASL.

Poking her head in, she found the student lounge to be empty. Which she hadn’t seen since first coming here. Though, it was nearly 9pm. Maybe most of the students were off campus. But that meant they’d be coming soon. This was nearly enough to send Angie into fight or flight mode. She didn’t like being around people for the most part. And the fact that the girl had no social skills at all didn’t help the panic that was creeping up inside of her.

If she was going to enjoy her time here though, she needed to make the best of it. Terrified, she walked quickly into the room, sat in a chair furthest away from the pool table and TV, and watched the door. But it soon dawned on her that sitting here, it wouldn’t seem like she open to social interactions. So with her bag still on her back, she stood up and moved to sit in the middle of the room.

Dropping her bag on the floor she tried to relax. But it wasn’t easy. And she refused to listen to her CD player, because then she’d definitely be sending off a ‘Don’t talk to me’ signal. But maybe sitting in the middle of the room would make her look like she was trying to hard to be social? And she did not want to be the new girl who tried too hard to make friends. So maybe a seat a little off to one direction? Yeah, that was definitely the right way to go.

Picking up her bag, Angie moved yet again. But she froze. Should she sit closer to the pool table or perhaps the TV? She’d never played pool. And her parents hadn’t let her watch a lot of TV. Either one would be a good way to start a conversation, right? She figured she could ask them to explain pool to if they began playing. Or if they watched TV she could ask the premise of the show. Either one would be an appropriate way to start a conversation. But in the end, she figured that somebody might be more likely to choose to watch TV, so sat near it, but not in front of it.

Deciding that she had in fact picked her seating correctly, Angie let her bag slide from her hand after pulling a book out of it. She made herself comfortable, sitting criss-cross in her chair, Angie laid her book in her lap and began to read.

[Annabelle Coronova]

Bag of popped popcorn in hand, rather piping hot from just coming out of the microwave, Bells juggled the bag between her arms trying her best not to burn herself. She had made plans to hang out with a few friends down in the lounge, as odd as it sounded. Bells? Have friends? What did that even mean? It was true though, once she had come out of her shell, it was amazing how many more people would be less frightened to come up to her and talk to her. Amazing stuff, amazing. She'd even had people come and tell her off, something they were too chicken to do when she was silent and all to herself. But this person was a lot better, she could say. Annabelle was creating someone who was not the same ass he used to be, but someone better, someone more assertive, bold, and sometimes even more brash than normal. But she could never master or dominate Zac's brash behavior, or that other girl..Naomi Greene, she thought she was called. Boy did that girl know how to tell Anna off, and especially when she was just beginning to realize who she was and the potential she had to offer.

On her way to the room, whistling as she went, Anna thought about what she could do. It was Naomi, the very reluctant and snipey person that sort of showed and told Annabelle about how awesome she was, although Naomi would never put it that way. It would sound far too positive and she might just keel over and die with such great positivity. But now its like Annabelle had almost an excess of positivity and bravery. She wanted to go put her power to the test. She'd been training a bit, and now that she was confident, she could touch people for brief moments without flashing on them and going all crazy-lookin'. This was quite the improvement, if she did say so herself, and about time, too. If she hadn't made any change any time soon, she was nearly positive they would have kicked her out of Hammel for being a lost cause.

But now, she didn't have to wear gloves, which really opened up her wardrobe options, not to mention how happy she felt when she could burn her gloves (but don't tell the staff that she was burning anything in her dorm room, they'd have a fit). She swung open the door to the lounge room, and saw that despite how many sorts of enjoyable things were in the room, there wasn't a soul around, well, except for one. A girl sitting in the middle of the room and looking rather uncomfortable and awkward, as if she didn't know exactly what she should do with herself, Annabelle saw this as an immediate sign to go and walk up to her, and start chatting. It was almost uncanny how similar they were; two girls who had started off here without a clue of what to do with themselves, usually over-thinking what to do for other peoples' eyes, how they would view the girl, what they would think, etc. Now if she wanted, she could look back into all of her haters' minds and find out exactly what they thought of her. Not something everyone wants to know, true, but just to use, or abuse, her powers would be reason enough for her. Maybe one day she'd get to the point and skill level where she could just look at someone and choose to see their past without having to cause any physical contact. Now that would be awesome. Metas really had it good, and those silly humans who didn't have anything special other than their ability to play an instrument or sing or shoot some hoops...simply inadequate.

Back to the girl. Anna wasn't going to let her sit all alone like that, so after flopping onto the couch behind her, flipping on the television to Cartoon Network as she waited for the others to arrive so they could watch Superbad, she tried her best to make causal conversation with the new girl. "You know, you'll never make friends if you never try and talk to them first. People are weird like that, and they always want you to make the extra effort and get to talking to them. I know, I was like that. So that's why I'm talking to you first. Save you some time and effort." After stuffing a handful of popcorn into her mouth, she said through muffled speech, "Popcorn?"

[Angela Chambers]

She tried reading, really she did. But… Angie couldn’t stop herself from worrying. Most people here, well they dressed like kids back home had. Jeans that fit them, shirts that described their personality or said something about what they liked. Whereas her clothes just said they were too big for her. They’d been clothes her mother wore. And on occasion something old of her father’s. So they were outdated and stretched and just… not what she’d pick for herself to wear.

But she felt a bit better about what she was wearing now. Jeans her mother had worn when she younger. Angie had taken scissors and run the blade back and forth against them, to give that distressed look. There wasn’t much she could do about the oversized shirts she had, except to tie one side in a knot like she’d seen other girls doing. At home, she’d never been able to get away with doing things like this to the clothes she was given. She didn’t even dare try it. Though now that she was no longer under their watchful eye, she could do what she wanted… Well not anything she wanted. But she could make her clothes a little more bearable.

Then a girl walked in and Angie frozen. She didn’t dare move. But she was thrilled when it seemed she made the right choice in sitting near the tv. And she felt like doing a happy dance. But she didn’t of course. If she was going to make friends, she couldn’t act weird! And better yet the girl began talking to her. Though when Angie realized that she was kind of criticizing her, it stung a little bit. But no matter. She was talking. And looking to make conversation. With her.

“Well… Thank you for talking first.” Angie chewed the inside of her cheek, wondering what else she could say. “It’s a little like giving a presentation in front of a class. You’re afraid that you’re gonna make a fool of yourself or that the class is gonna give you a blank stare. And then if they do react, you’re afraid that they might laugh in your face…”

Before Angie could say anymore and make herself seem like a bigger freak, she reached her hand into the bag of popcorn, grabbing a handful and shoved it into her mouth. If she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t scare people away. She chewed slowly and carefully, trying to even her breathing and think of something else to say to the girl nice enough to make an effort to talk to her. “Thank you.” She said finally swallowing. “I’m Angela. Or Angie. I can take my body parts off and put them back on.”

She quickly became worried. Was that a taboo? Was it considered rude to say what you could do? “Not that you have to tell me what you do of course! I just… I mean… If you were curious, not that you were, I thought I’d say…” With a little sigh, Angie eyed the book in her lap. It seemed already to her that she’d be spending a lot of time in the library or her room. At least she’d be making good grades.

But then… she thought maybe she could still remedy the situation? Glancing at the TV, she watched it for a moment, her eyebrows wrinkling together. “What is this show?”