[center][h1][color=moccasin]Dionne[/color][/h1][/center]

Dionne was late, and she absolutely hated being late. “Didi, honey, come down for breakfast!” her father called from downstairs as the delicious aroma of blueberry waffles wafted up the stairs. Groaning, Dionne sidetracked from her path to the door to grab a waffle from the kitchen table.


[color=moccasin]“Thanks dad! See you later!”[/color] she said before popping the waffle in her mouth and taking off for the door again. 


“See you, Dee!” she heard her father call as she closed the door behind her as she turned around and walked quickly towards the school bus parked at the end of the street. Practically inhaling the waffle as she walked, Dionne mentally went over her appearance. [i]Eyeshadow and eyeliner still on point? Check. Foundation dried and set. Check. Lip gloss—[/i]Dionne grimaced, swallowing the last bit of waffle as she boarded the bus—[i]I’ll fix that in the back.[/i] If only she could somehow resist her father’s cooking. 


The old man had been preoccupying himself with the scrumptious craft for the past year, and even his picky daughter had to admit that he’d made some huge leaps and bounds forward in the culinary world. Having never really met her mother, Dionne didn’t feel much obligation to the stranger. Why should she occupy her mind with some woman that had left her behind at the start of her life when she had a perfectly good person to love right here at home?


Dionne made her way to the back of the bus and took her seat towards the left as she always did, waving to the people who were already there. “Dee!” her friend Ellie trilled, wrapping her arms around Dionne in a quick early-morning hug. Her embrace ended before Dionne could muster up a response, but it always did. “Okay so I heard that Samantha and Kendrick,” Ellie started, eyes very serious as she relayed to Dionne all the gossip that had spread during the weekend. Dionne nodded along seriously, jotting down a few mental notes here and there about who to talk to and who to avoid like they’d caught the plague—which they’d basically done in social terms—as she quickly reapplied her lip gloss. She’d considered switching to a more permanent liquid lipstick but had never really found anything that matched.


The bus was stopping again when Ellie finished her rant about the happenings, and Dionne made a few comments about what she’d heard before turning her eyes to see who was getting on. Her eyes connected with a dark-haired boy who looked to be in her grade, although she couldn’t summon up his name. It almost seemed to be at the tip of her tongue, and she was pretty sure she shared quite a few classes with him, but she couldn’t find the right syllables, the right consonants. “Seth Sterling,” Ellie said, shocking Dionne back into the present. “Resident loner. Gamer?” Ellie shrugged. “Dunno much about him. But, your eyes shouldn’t be lingering there. Instead, direct them behind the nobody to see the somebody.” 


Indeed, there he was. ‘He’ being the resident heartthrob and varsity quarterback Cavan Maynard that is. Dionne grimaced internally at the wink he sent her, pasting a polite smile on her face as he walked over and plopped down in the seat behind her. “Hey Dee,” he said, crossing his arms on the back of Dionne and Ellie’s seat and setting his head on them. “Looking good.”


[color=moccasin]“Looking fine yourself,”[/color] Dionne replied, smiling. Ellie made googly eyes at Cavan, which he missed entirely—as always. Internally Dionne was grateful—boys like Cavan would make quick work of girls like Ellie, and she didn’t want her friend, however frivolous she might seem, to be on the receiving end of that treatment. [color=moccasin]“How’s football going? Excited for the last home game?”[/color]


“We’ll crush Everbrook, as always,” Cavan replied confidently, high-fiving his friends beside him that cheered in agreement at his words. Nodding, Dionne threw herself into a conversation that lasted until the bus pulled to a stop outside the school gates.


[hr]
Dionne tapped her pen against her desk impatiently as the teacher took her time pulling up the necessary notes, a frown on her face as she waited. Even with her grades aside, Dionne’s track record wasn’t anything anyone could be proud of. Straight C’s and the unusual B here and there marked her transcript, and she wasn’t looking forward to applying to university. Her only solace laid in that she’d never failed a class, although that wasn’t to say she never came close. The only classes she’d aced—yes, aced—were PE classes, and those didn’t even count into her “academic GPA” or whatever they called it.


The teacher passed out the worksheets, and Dionne—being in the second row—dutifully received the stack of four, removed one, and turned around to none other than Seth Sterling, the boy on the bus. [color=moccasin]“Here you go, Seth,”[/color] Dionne said with a smile as she handed him the papers. 

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[@DFA]