"Do you want to hang out? After school?" She asked me abruptly as she shoved her unfinished food in the trash can and opened the door to the warm and loud school. Back into the real world. She wanted to hang out with me? Was this a joke? It must have been because I couldn't if I wanted to. I had Responsibility to think about.

"Um, I can't," And her face fell visibly, "You see I have to run some errands for my dad… Unless, you… maybe want to go with me?"

Aster smiled as I walked through the doorway, "I don't mind."

"Great. That's uh, great. We can meet at the bench is that cool?" I couldn't say much more because as soon as we got to a more crowded hallway, Aster seemed to be flocked by a bunch of people. Like I said, she was cool, and it didn't matter that no one knew her or that it was her first day, everyone wanted to know her. Even me.

"Aster right? I'm Emily. I have first period with you." Emily Erwin cut in completely oblivious to me or the fact that I was in the middle of a conversation with Aster. Maybe she just didn't care.

"Right. Mrs. Mackey's class." Aster said, pointing at her with a far off look. She didn't remember Emily, but no one else seemed to catch that. "She's so weird." Aster said with a smirk commenting on Mackey and her strange obsession with permanent markers.

It was that smirk that got me. At that point, I realized how different she was from just moments ago when we were sitting, laughing about old 90s songs that made us remember. In an instant, I was annoyed with her. Because even though everyone else was falling for this puffed up, overconfident, James Bond-esque version of Aster, I liked her better when she was singing Dave Matthews Band off-key with her air guitar. Screw this, I thought. What made me think we could be friends? I was getting ready to turn and walk away when her hand on my arm stopped me.

She was piercing me with those eyes. They had no glint of secret agent suave, just sincerity. "So, after school, at the bench, right?"