I walked into my classroom on just a regular Monday morning after a painful weekend. I saw an extra desk with a name tag on it, and it read “Ben”. I was surprised. When I saw my teacher, Ms. Dellie, I asked her what it was for. All she told me was that what I said was a good point, and that I reminded her of something. Curious, I sat down. Once everyone had arrived, she asked us to sit down and be quiet. She told us that we would be having a new student in our class. This caused a rucus. Kids were shouting out all kinds of questions. But I shouted the loudest one.

“Where is he?”

Ms. Dellie sighed. “He’s absent.” The whole class groaned. Kids complained about not getting to meet him. Suddenly the door burst open. Ms. Dellie exclaimed, “How did you-“

“Hey guys. What’s up. My name’s Ben.” I heard a girl faint, but I couldn’t look away.

My teacher mumbled,”I don’t need another one of you.” All the girls except me swooned. I rolled my eyes.

“Whatever. He’s not that cool.”

As soon as I said that he flipped his hair, then looked at me and winked. It was as if he was trying to contradict me. I sighed. This would be harder than I thought. To make matters worse, he sat directly next to me. I asked my teacher why and she said that it was because I was the only one who wasn’t impressed by him and I was the only person without a table partner. I sighed again. Then we finally sat down.

“Ava, huh?” He asked. “Thanks a cool name.”

“Thanks,” I replied, then looked away. I didn’t want to engage. Finally it was time for me to go to my math class.

“See you later,” Ben called.

“You wish,” I muttered.