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Catra has friends, it’s obvious to everyone. She has Scorpia of course, she’s a tad bit older than Catra, white hair in a half-shaved pixie cut, dyed the same colour as the clouds, her eyes a charcoal brown.
She also has Entrapta. The purple haired girl is extremely extroverted much like Scorpia, she’ll converse with anyone about science and mechanics, even if they weren’t interested. Most of the time she would end up just talking at people and not to them.
Catra, she’s extroverted on the outside. She’s 14, a brunette, she for some unknown reason has one eye the colour of honey and the other as glassy and blue as the sky. Catra wouldn’t describe herself as gorgeous, she’s just never had enough self confidence to call or think of herself as that, even though she’s currently winning fist fights against girls and guys years older than her.
It’s not something the feline spirited girl notices instantly, more like she notices gradually over time that she’s more introverted in the classroom than she takes credit for. She sits in the back row in the right corner of the classroom, next to the window. Before sitting down, she always rolls the lavender coloured blind down, shoves her headphones on and sometimes on her bad days, she throws the hood of her black hoodie over her head, drowning out whatever instructions the teacher has for the class.
However, Catra only does this in her core subjects. Believe it or not, the brunette loves her electives. Not just because she gets to sit with Entrapta and Scorpia, but she finds that she can express herself easily through her music and art. She also enjoys drama, she enjoys the fact that she can bring meaning to either a play or a character.
Catra may be receiving top marks in her favourite subjects, but not even that can save her constant failures in her math exams.
Mrs Weaver approaches her at the end of fourth period when she’s rising from her seat.
“Catra. Would you like to sit down for a moment?” Mrs Weaver suggests, mere inches away from Catra’s face.
Mrs Weaver has never exactly enjoyed Catra’s company. She’s hated her for years at this point. Mrs Weaver used to teach at Brightmoon elementary, it just so happened that when Catra graduated from there, Mrs Weaver coincidentally began teaching at Brightmoon Middle School.
Catra huffed, pulling out her seat once again, a screech from the chair filling the now empty classroom.
“Yes?” Catra asked, eyes widening for a small moment, chin thrusting forward, malice dripping in her voice.
“You’re failing this class.” The dark-haired teacher stated, emotion void in her expression.
“And?” Catra said, poison interlaced in her tone once again.
“If you don’t pass this class, you’re going to get held back.” Mrs Weaver said.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
The brunette shrugged, rising from her seat for the last time, slinging her backpack over her shoulder.
Catra attempted to squeeze past her teacher, trying not to make physical contact with the cold-hearted woman.
Just as the student thought she was going to escape the other woman’s clutches; she felt a cold hand on her shoulder.
Without Catra having to turn around, Mrs Weaver said.
“Find a tutor. We both know you don’t want this.”
Catra left the classroom and didn’t look back.
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Mrs Weaver wasn’t wrong though, Catra did need a tutor. The girl damned herself for slacking off during class, she would never admit that she was terrified of being held down. Not necessarily the fact of being held down scared her, however what other students would say was what did.
Catra was sitting on the bleachers during PE. She preferred not to participate. Not that every student had that option. At this point, her sport supervisor, Mrs Tossa wouldn’t even ask if she brought her sport gear.
The only other student sitting in the bleachers was a boy she had a few classes with. She thought his name was Bow, he had a bird’s nest of curly, dark brown hair perched on top of his head and comforting brown eyes.
Bow had appeared to have broken his arm or something like that, the sling currently holding his right arm in a backwards L shape making the fact obvious.
Catra slid down from the few rows above she was sitting on, deciding she might as well keep the boy company.
“What’d you do?” the brunette asked, gesturing to his sling.
The kind boy turned to her, taking his gaze away from the class.
“Fell off one of the lockers in the boy’s locker room.” Bow said, chuckling to himself.
Now Catra was deeply concerned for this crazy boy’s mental health.
“Why the hell where you on top of the lockers?” Catra asked, for once a goofy smile taking over her expression.
“Do you know Seahawk and Rogelio?” Bow asked.
Catra nodded.
“Well, they dared me to get on top of one of the lockers and start dancing to that hit or miss song for their snapchat stories, they said it could go viral, so I didn’t resist.” Bow said, shrugging and smiling.
“Do they have the video?” Catra questioned, interested.
“Oh yeah, they weren’t wrong about it going viral! It has five thousand views!” Bow exclaimed, joy in his eyes.
“That’s cool, I mean five thousand is a start.” Catra says, shrugging but somehow still managing to crack a smile.
“You’re Catra… right?” Bow asked.
“Yeah, Bow?” She asked, holding out her hand.
Bow nodded and took her hand in his own, shaking in a friendly, non-intimidating matter.
“You’re in my math class, but you always have your headphones on for some reason. Do you just not like math?” Bow asked, curiously.
“It’s not exactly my favourite subject,” Catra said, breaking his gaze and looking around the oval at her classmates currently running around, sweat dripping down their foreheads.
“Well, are you at least doing well? I mean it’d be prettttty impressive if you can sit in the back of a classroom, not paying attention and get high scores. Like, you’re a really good writer! Your presentation last semester on LGBTQ rights was incredddddible, like I have two dads, so it honestly hit me hard in a really good way, I also heard from my best friend Glimmer that you’re a super good actor and singer too! You should join choir some-”
“I failed maths, Mrs Weaver said if I don’t find a tutor I could get held down.” Catra stated, looking at her sneakers, ashamed of what she admitted. She couldn’t just accept Bow’s compliments, right?
“Oh, well! I know Adora is tutoring a few people now! She’s my best friend and she’s like… really smart!” Bow smiled.
“Do you like complimenting every one of your friends every time you speak or is it just a habit?” Catra asked, slightly amused at how nice and forgiving the person sitting next to her was.
“I just like talking about my friends, they do so much for me. I just love sharing with the world how cool and awesome they are!” Bow beamed, genuine happiness shown on his face. Catra sometimes wondered what that was like.
“Well, they’re lucky to have you as a friend.” Catra admitted, surprised she meant it.
“Would you like me to talk to Adora for you, she’d totally be down to tutor you!” Bow said, realising once what he said escaped his lips, he dramatically gasped, cupping his mouth.
Before we get into anything else, it’s probably important that you understand this. Adora is popular. Like, the most popular girl in school. At first, Catra wasn’t sure why. The first time she saw Adora across the hall all she though of her was that she was a basic blonde looking barbie. Period.
Now? She knows she’s so much more than that.
Adora. She’s beautiful. She stands slightly taller than Catra, her blonde hair just passing her shoulders in a sandy blonde ponytail. Her eyes are just as blue as Catra’s left eye, showing the reflection of the sky in them. It’s not just the blonde’s looks that made Catra fall for Adora, it’s her bright smile that accompanied her laugh. Her laugh sounded like many melodies playing at once, Catra could have sworn that Adora summoned birds whenever that sweet sound escaped her lips.
The brunette studied the blonde’s features whenever she entered the room. Whether it was one of her electives or core subjects, even if she walked into the cafeteria at lunch time Catra would’ve preferred to drop her fish burger than miss the sight of the gorgeous girl sent from the heavens above.
Catra denied ever having a crush on Adora. Scorpia caught her slipping up first. Adora was walking into the cafeteria, accompanied by Bow and a girl with sparkly pink and purple hair. Catra thought her name was Glitter, though she was unsure.
They were at their lockers after break when Scorpia finally asked.
“So…. You’re into Adora huh?” the taller girl said, a nervous smile wracking her lips.
Catra remembers dropping her phone into the bottom of her locker.
“What… Nooooo! Why would you think that?” She smoothly replied. (or what she thought was smooth).
“It’s just…. Never mind.”
Catra realised that she shared most of her classes with the blonde. However, she would never like to admit the fact that she was a total chicken when it came to flirting with Adora. She had no trouble flirting with girls in general though. Catra remembers coming out to Scorpia and Entrapta, they showed their endless love and support as usual, and Catra loved them for it. Still, not like she would ever let them get in over their head about that. Keeping her walls up was the only thing she had going for herself these days.
Being only fourteen, it’s not like Adora could even be a lesbian. Or know she’s into girls at all. Catra knew over half the grade was a part of the LGBTQ community, but what if Adora just happened to fall into the straight half? Not like it mattered, the girl hadn’t even known Catra existed, not like she will ever notice her anyway.
“Hey! Adora!”
Somehow, Catra had missed the fact that Adora was in her PE class.
Adora ran up to the stands, darting up between the rows of seats and leaning against the row in front of the two other students.
“Hey Bow!” Adora greeted.
Wow, she’s even more beautiful up close. Catra thought.
Catra wasn’t sure why Adora’s cheeks were flaming red, or why the barbie look a like was transforming herself into a stuttering mess, but Catra didn’t care. She was perfect the way she was.
“This is Catra,” Bow said, introducing the two to each other.
“Hey Catra, I’m Adora.” The blonde said, her voice slightly shaking, holding out her palm to shake.
Catra cautiously took her hand, shaking her hand like a snow globe, attempting to rid herself of her nerves.
“Catra was actually looking for a math tutor, I know you’ve been tutoring Perfuma and Mermista lately so maybe you’d like to take up tutoring Catra as well?” Bow suggested, promoting Catra’s cause.
“S- sure!” Adora agreed. “Can I get your number?” Adora asked, for some reason nervously.
Adora held out her phone in her palm, a new contact open just for her.
“Yeah! Totally!” Catra replied, grasping the phone and jotting her digits into the tech.
Bow began to whistle an unidentifiable tune as Catra handed back Adora’s phone.
“It was cool meeting you Catra, I’ll text you.” Adora said, smiling as Bow joined her on the staircase.
“Same, we should hang out some time!” Bow beamed, waving to Catra as the two walked away, chatting happily.
Catra thought her heart might burst out of her chest.
Maybe not now. At some point? Definitely.