Chapter Text
Sameen Shaw was not the type to chase after someone. She didn't have crushes and she sure as hell didn't pine over people. She just wasn't relationship material and yet here she was, sat in detention completely absorbed in the new girl who was sitting a few seats away.
The other girl had started that week and Shaw didn't know a single thing about her except that they were in the same AP English and Calculus BC class and she was quiet. Other than in class, Shaw never saw her either. She was weird but there was something about her that drew Shaw in and it was pissing her off.
She was hot, that was obvious. She was tall with long chestnut brown hair that framed her face perfectly and big brown eyes that were always reading something off some sort of screen. That was probably why she was always wearing glasses. Thick black glasses that somehow made her incredibly sexy. 'Get it together,' Shaw thought to herself as she turned her attention back to the biology homework she was almost finished.
Shaw was an AP student with a perfect GPA and attendance. Her behaviour, on the other hand, was completely erratic. She didn't do emotions very well and processing them made her extremely frustrated. So add a few annoying idiots to the equation and the result was a black eye and detention. If it wasn't for the principal she would have been suspended, possibly even expelled by now. The principal, who everyone knew as Control, had a soft spot for Shaw for some reason and didn't see any point in ruining her chances at getting into college. She was also smart enough to realise that Shaw was only reacting to others, not that it mattered.
Detention was a regular occurrence for Shaw, so much so that she was on a first name basis with Mr. Finch who was in charge of detention. So when Shaw had walked in today she had been surprised to see the new girl. Shaw wondered what she could have done but didn't dwell on it too much, as she soon became completely engrossed in the girl and forgot all about it.
It wasn't until Mr. Finch announced that they were free to go that Shaw decided to introduce herself after a lot of internal debate.
"You're the new girl, right?" Shaw asked her offhandedly as she began packing her stuff back into her backpack. It was fairly obvious that she was talking to the girl as the few others that had been in the room were now gone, including Mr. Finch.
Shaw looked up when she didn't get an answer to find the girl staring at her with a suspicious look. After a few moments she nodded slowly, turning her attention back to packing away her laptop.
"I'm..." Shaw began to introduce before the other girl cut her off.
"Sameen Shaw. We have English and Calculus together." She spoke in a disinterested tone and her movements were frenzied, as if she couldn't wait to get out of there and away from Shaw.
"Right, and you are?" Shaw asked. Now she was curious.
She stopped what she was doing completely and made eye contact with Shaw for the first time, resulting in Shaw getting completely lost in her dark, dough eyes. "I am a social pariah, a ghost, so it doesn't matter."
"I wouldn't have asked if it didn't matter." Shaw grumbled to herself as she continued to shove her books into her bag, not realising she had said it loud enough for the other girl to hear her. She looked up again to see the other girl staring at her once again but this time she seemed surprised, possibly surprised that Shaw actually wanted to know who she was.
The last few minutes that they spent together were filled with silence until the moment Shaw got to the door and heard the other girl say something. "Root," She told her and, at the look of confusion on Shaw's face, clarified. "My name is Root."
Shaw turned around and nodded at her with a smirk. "See ya around Root." And with that, she walked out of the detention room using all of her strength to keep herself from looking back.