• Beep! Beep! Beep!

    The annoying sound of my alarm clock processed through my mind as I groaned, hitting the snooze button and rolling over on my stomach, burying my head in the faintly old lady smelling pillow. Today would be my first day of school in a new place. Not that I really wanted to go to school anyways.

    I heard my mother open my door, and she asked, “Ari, are you going to school today? Or should I call you in sick?” She asked, as if she expected an certain answer out of me. Since we moved around so much it had become tradition for me to skip the first day of school, just because I would go on strike, and then the next day I would feel pathetic and I would head off to school.

    But not this time. This time, I would break that tradition, even if it killed me. I sat up and shook my head. “No, I’m going today mom.” I said, throwing the covers off of me as I slid out of my bed and crawled to the dresser. I was so tired, I honestly just wanted to go back to bed. But, it was my fault I stayed up so late, rummaging through my unpacked boxes and finding my sketch book and sketching random things.

    I stood up slowly, yawning and stretching. My hands unconsciously moving, grabbing my favorite black shirt and my ripped black skinny jeans. I stripped, and put those on, then went over to my vanity where my eyeliner was at, and my hairbrush. I brushed through my black hair, and applied eyeliner around my grey eyes. I looked at myself in the mirror then, and all I saw was black. Black clothes and black hair. I wondered which group of friends I would make this time.

    I put on my choker with a cross on it, and put in my nose piercing. Before my dad mysteriously left, he had protested about the nose piercing. I just laughed, and told him it would just be a little diamond, not like a huge bull ring or anything. My dad had not been convinced until I had gotten the piercing. I grinned at myself in the mirror. Thank god he wasn’t around for the tattoo that I had gotten a week ago on my back. I fixed the frizz in my hair, and got up from my vanity. I looked around for my sketchbook, found it, and put it in my book bag, along with my other school supplies. There was no way I would leave this house without my sketchbook.

    I then picked up my Ipod, and listened to Numb by Linkin Park as I walked out the door, singing very loudly so mom could hear me, letting her know I was leaving.

    “By Ari! Love you too!” She called from her office with a chuckle. I smiled and shut the front door behind me, going to my silver Soul. Yes, my car was my Soul. I chuckled a bit. That was so funny, who would name a car Soul? I got in, and put my messenger bag in the passenger seat, starting the car and backing out of the drive way. As soon as I had done that, I stomped on the gas pedal and sped through the small town of Everwood, going to school. I wanted to be early so I could have some time to draw.

    The school was huge, and in bold letters on a block of concrete next to the entrance it said, Everwood High School. “Well, hello EHS.” I muttered, parking in the parking lot and getting out of the car. That was the great thing about cities, the kids never stared at you like they did in small towns. Like this one. God, I missed New York. Just because everyone wasn’t in everyone else’s business. I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder, and headed to the office, only to be stopped by a group of students staring at me. They looked curious about me. Or, they were contemplating how much of a freak I am. Probably the latter.
    I waved at them, and smiled, showing my unnaturally sharp looking teeth. Many called me a vampire because of this. I would just laugh at them. Vampires were, unfortunately, not real.

    I walked into the room, and smiled at the gray haired lady that was behind the desk. On the desk was a nameplate, and it said this lady was Mrs. Turner. Mrs. Turned smiled at me, and she said in a sweet voice, “hello dear. Are you Aria O’Claire?” She asked.

    I nodded. It was really weird how she knew my name. “Ari, actually.” I said to her. “I came here for my stuff.” My classes, my schedule, the map, and a poisoned apple so I could die. Did I want to be here? No. Did I want to move? No. Was I happy at my first school, before the 25 other schools? Yes. Did I actually have time there to have a best friend? Yes. I hit my head while Mrs. Turner wasn’t looking. Now was not the time to complain. I was here, at this school, so I might as well have fun while I’m here.

    “Here you go dear.” She said, handing me my stuff. “Would you like a piece of candy?” She asked.

    I looked at her cautiously. I was just thinking about poisoned food, and she asked if I wanted candy. “He- No thank you.” I smiled at her. “Thank you.” I snatched the class schedule and walked out the door, back to my car, where my lovely sketchbook awaited.

    I shut my car door, and pulled out a pencil and my sketchbook, and continued the one I was doing last night, of an angel. The angel was falling, feathers were everywhere, his wings were torn and he was reaching toward the sky, as if he was afraid to hit the ground. It was the best drawing I had ever drawn, I had to admit. It was really cool.

    Time flew by way too fast. One second I was drawing, with 40 minutes until the bell would ring, and then the bell rang. It was so unfair. I sighed, and shoved my pencil and sketchbook in my messenger bag, and got out of my car, walking to my first period, which was my favorite I had to say. Art, my best subject, and after that would be math, my worst subject. Ah, how the world hated me so.

    I didn’t even have to look at the map, it was in bold and colorful letters on the teachers door. Art, Room 201. I grinned, and opened the door. I went to the teacher, whose name was Ms. Penn. Quite fitting, considering this was art. Ms. Penn was wearing a very colorful shirt, with splatters of pain all over it, and jeans. Like she was at home, and just teaching her grandchildren how to paint. It made me smile. She had black hair that was a bob, with gray hairs at the roots, and warm brown eyes. She also had very tan, wrinkly skin. She looked about sixty, and she had a smile on her face. I waited until she wasn’t busy and I smiled at her.

    “Hello, I’m Ari, I’m new here.” I said to her. I couldn’t wait to get started drawing. I knew I would like Ms.Penn, she seemed like a cool teacher.

    “Oh, yes, your Ari! Well, welcome to Everwood! I hope you like it here so far! Here, you’ll sit here.” She said, walking over to an empty seat and pointing to it. “I’m Ms. Penn, and your classmates sitting here are Hailey, Taylor, Alex and Chris.” She said, pointing to each student. I liked Ms. Penn. I had a feeling we would get along quite well.

    The girls named Taylor and Hailey smiled and waved. They were twins, they both had light blond hair and pretty brown eyes. Alex wasn’t there, or I guessed he wasn’t, and Chris was reading. I couldn’t see much of his face, but he did have brown hair. Just then, he looked up, and real blue eyes I had ever seen were looking at me. They were Ice blue, not the stupid kind of blue that weren’t really real blue eyes. He had a regular black T shirt on, that fit him snugly, showing his perfectly muscular chest. I looked away from him, and then looked back at his face. Chris had a bored expression on his face, though I couldn’t blame him, he was the only guy at a table with three girls.

    “Hi.” Chris said, in a faint English accent. Hailey and Taylor looked bummed out that I didn’t say anything to them. So I just smiled at Chris, and said to him, and the twins,

    “Hey. I’m Ari.” I said, sitting down. I hadn’t noticed that the bell had rang, and school was in session. Ms. Penn was at the front of the room, putting up directions for what they were doing that day. I smiled, there was no assignment really. The students were just supposed to draw something, and then turn it in in three days. That should be easy for me.

    I pulled out my sketchbook and flipped through the pages that I had just started. The only one that wasn’t totally finished though, was the fallen angel, and all I need to do was finished drawing the floating feathers. I didn’t want anyone to think I was cheating, so I just flipped to the next empty page and began drawing trees.

    I didn’t notice one of the twins, probably Hailey, looking at my picture. Until she spoke. “Wow, that’s really good! Even I can’t do that.” She said, amazement clear in her voice.

    I looked up at her. “Thanks.” I said, looking back down at my drawing and continued it. Okay, the way she said that it was good really ticked me off. Like she thought that she was the best artist in the classroom, which really isn’t likely. There is no best when it comes to art class. There is always room for improvement, always.

    The classroom was rather talkative, and loud. I didn’t care though; I worked better around noisy environments anyways. What I didn’t anticipate though, was the twins trying to talk to me, and Chris glancing at me every so often. That was a bit uncomfortable, and for the twins, slightly annoying.

    It had been awhile, and to my surprise, I was almost done with my picture. My hand started hurting, so I put my pencil down and shook my hand, looking at my picture. I smiled. It was a pack of wolves lying under some trees, with the full moon shining. Besides the fallen angel, this was my best drawing I’ve ever done.

    “That’s really good…” I heard a faint English accent say to me. I looked up from my nearly finished drawing and saw the handsome and muscular Chris looking at my drawing. He smiled at me, and went back to his drawing.

    Okay, a second ago he was bored and looked like he didn’t want to talk to anyone, and the next second he just gave me a compliment. I didn’t mind much, I just thought it was strange. “Thanks.” I said, going back to my wolves. All I needed to do was fix the extra pencil marks and draw two more wolves, and I was good to go.

    The bell rang then. Ms. Penn hadn’t even given us a warning. “Oops! Sorry kids!” She called from her desk. “Didn’t pay attention to the time, have a good day! Learn something! See you tomorrow!”

    Everyone waved and said goodbye to Ms. Penn, and then walked out the door. I followed the other students, and looked at my schedule. Oh, that was cool. My math class was room 203. I grinned, and walked into my math class. I went over to my math teacher, a grumpy looking man with a balding head and a sour expression, and introduced myself. He snorted, and pointed to a desk in the back of the class. I did my best not to scowl at him as I said thank you, also doing my best not to be sarcastic, knowing already that we wouldn’t get along, just because of the subject he taught, and went to my new seat for this class, prepared to spend the next hour drawing my picture for art.

    After math was History, a subject I actually enjoyed to an extent. After history, was lunch. I walked with a girl named Holly, who was very short with dark brown hair and brown eyes she was Asian, with a Chinese accent, although she spoke perfect English. She sounded like an American despite her accent. She was a bit of a chatter mouth. All she did was talk the entire way to the lunchroom, and then we went to a table of her friends, and she introduced me to everyone.

    “So, you’re from New York City?” A boy asked, his name was Jasper. He had blond, spiky hair and black eyes. It looked like he died his hair, which made me believe that he either wanted to be a girl, or was gay.

    I nodded. “Yeah, I’m from New York City.” I confirmed, and then I took a sip of my nestle chocolate milk that I had bought. I really wasn’t that hungry right now.

    “Damn, what are the girls like there?” He asked. Okay, he wasn’t gay. Maybe he still wanted to be a girl though. Or maybe he was gay, and he did want to be a girl. Oh well, it was too confusing to think about.

    “The same as they are everywhere.” I replied, and everyone laughed. I grinned, not knowing what else to do. I hadn’t meant that as a joke. I took another sip of my chocolate milk, and looked around. My eyes fell on a table with only one person at it. Chris, the guy form my first period, was looking at me. I smiled, and waved at him. He looked away.

    “He’s hot, isn’t he?” I heard someone say. I looked up and saw a girl I hadn’t noticed before. She was pale, like a freaky kind of pale, with very long, thick blond hair. Her eyes were a sky blue, and she looked like she was used to being ignored. She was dressed in all black, like I was. I smiled. I knew I would like her, not because she was in all black, but because she was probably an outcast in her own group of friends, like I was. She giggled. “Too bad he’s taken.”

    “He’s taken?” I asked, with a sinking feeling. God damn it, why are all the hot guys taken? It wasn’t fair. It was so not fair. Okay, my girly freak out moment in my mind was over. “Why is he sitting alone?” I asked.

    “His girlfriend and his brother haven’t showed up yet. Give them a min- Oh, there they are!” Holly said with a sigh. “The blond is Chris’s girlfriend, Meredith, who cheated on him twice. I’m pretty sure that he’s gonna break up with her today at lunch.” The girl crossed her fingers and closed her eyes, “Let’s hope he does Aria, let’s hope he does.”

    “Ari.” I said with a sigh. It was weird, she knew my name, but I didn’t know hers. “What’s your name anyways?” I asked.

    “My name is Kianna, Ki for short. I’m from Ireland.” She said proudly, smiling. “You look like you have Irish in you as well.” She noted, looking at me.

    I rolled my eyes. “I don’t look Irish, but yeah, I have Irish in me.” It was true, I didn’t look very Irish. I looked over at the table again, and there were three people. Meredith, the soon to be ex-girlfriend, and another guy. He looked exactly like Chris, except he had black hair. His blue eyes, but they were different. His were like an exotic dark blue. A color that didn’t even have a name, unlike Chris’s ice blue eyes. “What’s his brother’s name?” I asked curious.

    “That is Alex Grey, Chris’s brother. Alex is a Junior, and he looks exactly like Chris. The only difference between the two is their hair and eye color.” Ki explained, looking at the three too with a frown. “Usually Chris’s and Alex’s friends are at that table too.”

    “Weird.” I muttered, still staring at their table. Suddenly, Alex looked over at me with a smile, and waved. All I could do was stare stupidly at him. He chuckled a little bit, and went back to the conversation his brother and Meredith were having. Meredith looked like she was about to cry. So, what Ki said was true. Chris was breaking up with her. I just realized then, that the guy who was supposed to be at my table in art also had the name Alex. Weird, Alex must have ditched.

    Chris then looked up and saw me staring. His brother might have told him that I was. I looked away quickly. Poor, poor Meredith. Even though I had never had a real conversation with Chris, I could tell right away how much it hurt to be broken up by him.

    Then, Chris hugged her, and kissed her on the lips. I could hear Ki’s disappointed sigh, and I saw Alex look over at me again. He rolled his eyes and pointed at the making out couple and acted like he was gagging. I grinned, and started laughing out of nowhere.

    Ki and Holly were looking at me, amazed while I laughed. Their heads turned head turn towards Alex, and then back to me at the same time. “Oh. My. God. Did Alex Grey actually notice you exist?!” They both asked.

    I stopped laughing for a few moments to answer. “What? He doesn’t do that with everyone?” I asked, still smiling from laughing so much. I looked back over at him, but he was looking away, out the window, with a bored expression on his face, like Chris had in art.

    “No, he doesn’t. Well, yeah, he talks to people, but only if they talk to him, and even then all he say is hi and that he was fine and that’s about it. He usually would just walk off; he wouldn’t talk to someone first! You need to go over there. Now.” Holly said, getting up and pulling me out of my chair. I looked at everyone else at the table, and no one was paying attention to the two of us.

    “Uh, Holly, I would really rather not.” I said. I really, really, did not want to go up there and talk to him. I yanked my arm out of her hand and sat back down. Thankfully, the bell rang just then. “Well, cant do it anyways!” I said hastily, walking out of the lunchroom quickly, and waited for school to end.

    When I got home from school, I dumped my messenger bag on a kitchen chair and sat down with a ground, my head falling into my hands. I heard my mom come out of her den, and into the kitchen. “Hey kid, how was your day?”
    .
    “Boring.” I stated, grabbing a glass of OJ. People said that my mother and I looked alike, but I really couldn’t see the similarity. My mother was a true Irish woman. She was short, with the most purest green eyes and long wavy fiery red hair. Her skin was pale, not as pale as to think she was a vampire or a ghost, but a nice, pretty pale color that people pay billions of solar to try to attain that kind of skin tone. She wasn’t exactly fat, but she wasn’t anorexic skinny either.

    Sure, I had green eyes, but they weren’t nearly as beautiful as my mother’s eyes were. Mine were tainted, they had orange and brown in them, although you really couldn’t see the brown very well. My hair wasn’t the beautiful auburn like my mothers. Mine was black, and it wasn’t even that pretty really. I’ve always wanted my hair to be so black, that it looked like there was blue and purple in it too, and I’ve always wanted it to be wavy. Instead, I got the boring, normal straight regular black hair and the freaky, ugly eyes. I call them green, because they were mostly green.

    “Oh come on Ari! There has to be something that happened! Any cute guys?” My mother sat on the counter. That was the other thing I loved about my mother. Even though she was an author, and she had a sixteen year old daughter, she acted like a sixteen year old herself. She never took anything seriously, except when it dangerous or something, and she never treated me like her daughter, more like her friend really. Yeah, she was more like a kid than a parent, but she always took care of everything and raised me the right way, without the pain of being spanked as a child.

    “Of course there was cute guys mom. Its high school, it wouldn’t be the same without cute guys.” It wouldn’t be the same if the hot Grey brothers weren’t there. Sure, it would be the same if I had never seen them, but now that I have, there was no way that I would ever move from Everwood until they either left the state or died. Lets hope they wouldn’t die.

    “Who were the cutest?” She thought for a moment, and then seemed to have shaken off the question. She grinned again. “Hey, your uncle and cousins are going camping this weekend, at the beach that’s only like a half hour away. Wanna go?” She asked.

    The beach? Camping? “How do you get to the beach?” I asked. It all depended on the location of the beach, whether or not for a fact it would be fun to get there or not. I was weird like that. I always thought that if there was a bit of a hike to go to a beach, then it would feel more like you were thousands of miles away from civilization and the only company you had was the people camping with you. I liked that feeling.

    “It’s a bit of a hike, and I hear its really pretty.” My mother smiled. “Like a Hawaiian beach Washington style.” She grabbed a cookie and waved it in my face. “You cannot resist this opportunity. It has a forest, and it’s really beautiful. The stars that are out at night in that place are incredible. You need to come.”

    I laughed and grabbed the cookie, and took a big bite out of it. “Sure, I’ll come.” I said after I chewed and swallowed. She was right. I couldn’t resist the temptation of a mysterious forest and a beautiful beach.

    “This is gonna be so great!” Mom jumped off the counter and gave me a big hug. “Thanks Ari.” She said. Then, she had seemed to think for a moment, and a cautious look swept across her face. “You know… The uncle that’s going camping is Uncle Erik.”

    Erik, the one person in the entire world that I did not want to see right now. Erik was my 18 year old uncle, and was a total jerk. My mom also had cheated on my dad with him, one detail only I knew. Erik really wasn’t my uncle, we weren’t related by blood. My dad’s parents adopted him when I was born, because they were lonely without my dad around. When I found this out, I thought my grandparents were crazy. How the heck would they be lonely with a little baby granddaughter running around the house almost every day?

    It seemed that my dad thought they were crazy too, like he had told me once. But, he put up with them because they were his parents. Just like the time I had put up with my mother cheating on my father. But, before I did that I had yelled at her and made her break up with him. That was more than two years ago. Ever since then, I had avoided Erik as much as I could. It seemed like he tried to avoid me too.

    “Oh.” Was all I said. I grabbed my OJ and a cookie and started walking up the stairs. “Well, I have homework to do. Talk to you later.” I lied. I didn’t have homework to do; it was just an excuse to get away from my mother. I was still sincerely pissed that she had done that to my dad, who she said she loved very much. I had actually slapped her across the face, something that I still feel horrible about. I don’t like hurting people I care about, emotionally and physically. But, she was cheating on my dad! The guy who she married and had three kids with! I thought that if I had done that at the time, it would knock some sense into. I guess I was wrong.

    I got into my room, and set my OJ and cookie on my untidy desk. I frowned at my half finished bedroom. I still had to unpack most of my clothes, my books, my art supplies, and all my embarrassingly childish stuffed animals. Plus, my room was a mess. God, I hated moving, it was too much work to pack everything up then unpack it again. I moved everything off my huge desk and set my laptop on it. I then grabbed a box that said Desk Stuff and opened a drawer, putting stuff in it.

    It was about half an hour later when I was done with my desk. 30 minutes it took me to fill up my desk. I really needed to get rid of some stuff. I started on the rest of my room then, with my headphones in my ear and humming along to Whisper by Evanescence. I was in the middle of putting up my posters when I heard something. I took out an ear bud and listened. It sounded like… wings, maybe? Yeah, I was hearing the wings of a huge bird. Yeah, that’s what that was. I finished putting up my Jacob Black poster, (Yes, I was on team Jacob when it came to Twilight) and hurriedly nearly ran over to my window, and opened it, looking out into the night sky. I hadn’t even noticed it was dark out until I opened the window. I looked around, but saw nothing.

    I was just about to close the window when I heard something again. It was definitely the sound of wings, but I saw nothing around. ‘Your losing your mind.’ I thought to myself. I shut the window, and looked at the time. “Daaaaaaang.” I said to myself. “It’s seriously that late?” It was nine o’clock at night. I looked around my room, and just then realized how much work I had done in my room. It was almost completely finished. I must have been so focused on my room, and my Ipod, that I didn’t pay attention to the time. Speaking of my Ipod, I looked around. Oh, I must have dropped it. I picked it up off the ground, shut it off, and went to take a shower.

    When I got out, I got into my Team Jacob T shirt and my happy bunny PJ pants and climbed into bed, closing my eyes, and drifted to sleep…