When Vic caught up to his friends after his chat with Mrs. Laramie, they were all still milling about their lockers talking. Vic tried looking nonchalant while going through his locker, avoiding eye contact with the others when he noticed that Liz was hovering by his side, trying to look as imposing and intimidating as a person of her stature possibly could.

“Hey,” Vic said, again attempting to look innocent.

“I don’t know what you’re up to,” Liz said quietly, “But I don’t need your help.”

“I’m not trying to do anything, I just figured –”

“Well, you said it yourself,” Liz interrupted him, head held high. “Thinking is not your strongest suit, so maybe try not to over-flex yourself.” With that, she closed her locker, not slamming it, but louder than she ought to have, and then walked away arm-in-arm with her boyfriend Bailey.

Marcia, who was standing right next to them thankfully chose to ignore their exchange, but that’s because she had something else on her mind.

“Oh hey, Vic, there you are, perfect. I have someone here. Elle! Elle!” Marcia stood up on her tiptoes to peer over Vic’s shoulder and wave to someone on the other end of the line of lockers. Vic turned around, and found the girl who was probably Elle walking towards them with a bouncy gait. He had seen her a couple of times of times before but they shared no classes, so he was curious as to why Marcia was calling her up.

“Elle, hi, this is Vic who I told you about.”

“Hi Vic!” Elle said with a wide smile and a slight tilt of her head.

“Vic, this is Elle, I have Math and History with her. She’s currently unattached, so was really excited to meet you.” Vic hated being cruel, even if it was in his own head, but he could kind of see why, considering the other girls that went to Dampgate, Elle may have been unattached. Her black hair was cut into a bob cut with bangs that formed a straight line on her forehead, which only drew attention to her eyes that seemed small and a little too close together. Her smile, though genuinely beaming and surrounded by plump pink lips could not fully distract from a chin that was not entirely there. She was not really ugly by any means, and in the right lightning may have even appeared cute, but by Dampgate standards, she stood out.

Suffering a bit of an identity crisis from this new-found pickiness, Vic nevertheless did not intend to be outwardly rude, so tried to put on his best smile and said, “Nice to meet you. I’ve seen you around.”

“I’ve seen you around too,” Elle said brightly. “You’re new, right?” The thing about Elle though is she made up for everything by being very forward, leaning into Vic and putting two hands on his chest and then also doing that cutesy thing where she stood on one foot and bent the knee of the other leg. Her face was incredibly close to his and he could feel the warmth of her breath.

He put his hands around her wrists, not quite in a gesture of intimacy but to prevent her from getting any closer. “Yeah I am, only my second week,” he answered, still with that polite yet stiff smile.

“I’m kinda new, too,” Elle said, “Almost a month now? Although with how quickly things move here, almost feel like a veteran,” she laughed then, and Vic took the opportunity to use his hands to move her away from him and forced her to lower her other foot.

“Well it was very nice meeting you, Elle, I hope to see you around more.”

There was a heavy silence between them for a moment. Elle never stopped smiling, but the brightness eventually faded out of it and she said, “Okay, guess I’ll see you,” and then walked back to her lockers.

He watched her go, flat bum hardly visible underneath her skirt, and when he turned back to face Marcia she was looking at him as though he were an idiot.

“She’s nice,” Elle said, admonishingly.

“I don’t disagree!” Vic said defensively. “Look, I appreciate what you’re doing here, but you don’t need to pimp me out to the other girls at Dampgate.”

“Yeah, sure. If I’m not going to do it, then who will?”

He was about to make a joke about cutting out the middleman and just matchmaking herself with him instead, but Vic quickly realized that he much preferred to be smooth in his own head than saying anything out loud.

“I’m not going to drop this, you know,” Marcia said. “I’m very stubborn.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Vic said with a smile and returned to putting things away in his locker.