Fall.

Chapter 1.

The crowded lunchroom of my school was filled with screams and laughter coming from various different people. It came as a surprise to most, but I actually didn't like lunch time. Even though I spent close to all of my lunches with Michael and a few of our other friends, I still didn't enjoy myself. Everyone in the lunchroom always seemed to find a way to get on my nerves.

"What time does Luke leave tomorrow? I need to come over, but not with him there." Michael asked, shoving half of a slice of pizza in his mouth.

It is now three weeks later, and I've made little to no progress in my friendship with Luke. It's not that I wanted to be his friend, because I didn't. I was mainly just annoyed at the fact that I spent every Saturday with him and the two of us still couldn't talk to each other about anything other than math. All I was asking for was him to at least act civilized when he was with me, for him to be able to hold a conversation not on the topic of school work.

"I don't know. Why do you need to come over?" I flicked a piece of hair off my shoulder. I glance at the other people sitting at out table, they were all consumed in their own conversations. This was what most of our lunch times consisted of. The two of us talking and pretending that we belonged with the people sitting near us.

"I need the DVD player." Michael shrugged. This was a completely normal thing for him.

"Get your own! You're always using me for my DVD player!" I let out a laugh, slightly annoyed at the fact that Michael only seemed to come over when he wanted to watch a movie.

"I don't have that kind of money!" Michael complained. "I was going to bring Ashton with me, but I guess you don't want us.."

"I'll have Luke out by 3:00." My head snapped up. I was honestly sickened by the fact that I would go to any measure just to get Ashton to my house, but again, I couldn't help it. I liked him that much.

"Out of where?" A voice spoke from behind me. I turned around quickly to see Luke standing over me, holding a lunch tray in his hands. I looked him up and down, he wore a dark grey T-shirt and black skinny jeans with a huge hole in the knee. I noticed that his hair was styled differently today, up in a quiff, using who knows how much gel to keep it in place.

"Out of my house. I have plans later tomorrow." I rolled my eyes, turning back around. A second later Luke was sitting down next to me, acting as if this was totally casual for us.

"What kind of plans?" Luke asked.

"Plans that don't concern you." I answered quickly, not realizing how rude that was until a lot later.

"Well, sorry that I'm such an inconvenience." Luke muttered, opening up a bag of chips from his tray and popping one in his mouth. Michael and I both stared at him with wide eyes, not used to him siting with us.

"Don't look so surprised. I've been hanging around with Stel for, like, 3 weeks, I'm allowed to sit here, right?" Luke rolled his eyes at us.

"Stella." I corrected him.

"Since when do you eat lunch with us?" Michael asked. This was the first time Luke has tried to interact with either one of us.

"Since today. I don't know, I felt like sitting here today. Just fuck off and don't talk to me." Luke glared at Michael from across the table.

"I didn't even know you were in our lunch period." Michael said, shooting me a confused look in the process.

"I thought I told you not to talk to me." Luke sighed deeply, annoyed with Michael already. Though it didn't take much to be annoyed with Michael, Luke seemed to have an unusually low tolerance for him.

"I was just wondering." Michael threw his hands up in defeat.

"Well if you must know, Pinky, I usually go to the library for lunch. I can't stand being around all these... Teenagers." Luke said, glancing around the lunchroom. He was biting down on his cheek again, which I've learned to be quite a habit of his.

"You're a teenager too." Michael countered back. Even I was annoyed with him by now. I wish he would just shut up and eat his pizza.

"Does it really matter? Jesus, you're such a-" Luke was cut off by another person walking up to the table. I had my head down, looking at my food, so I didn't notice who it was at first.

"Is anyone sitting here?" As soon as I heard him speak, I knew who it was. I immediately looked up, not caring that I accidentally elbowed Luke while doing so.

"No, sit down man." Michael said, pulling out a chair for Ashton next to him.

"Thanks." Ashton giggled, ruffling his curly dark blonde hair with his large hands. "Hi, Stella."

"Hi." I said quietly, trying not to let myself blush. I looked back down and tried to act very focused on the food on my plate again.

"Are we still on for tomorrow? Stella, are you hanging out with us?" Ashton asked. He wore a permanent smile on his face, showing off his deep dimples.

"Yeah. Stella's gonna let us hang out at her place, if that's alright." Michael nodded, taking another bite of his pizza.

I wasn't sure how Michael and Ashton became such good friends, but I was definitely glad that they did. Even though I felt bad about it sometimes, I loved using Michael for an excuse to hang out with Ashton. Don't get me wrong, I loved hanging out with Michael too, everything was just a lot more fun with Ashton. He had such a great personality, it was impossible not to be happy around him.

"Cool. Thanks, Stel." Ashton smiled back at me, gently kicking my foot with his own under the table.

"She doesn't like to be called Stel." Luke finally spoke again, making all eyes go on him.

"Sorry?" Ashton cocked his head to the side, like he'd misheard Luke.

"Stella doesn't like being called Stel." He repeated, speaking more clearly this time.

"Then how come you get to-" Michael looked at Luke with a puzzled look on his face.

"He doesn't." I said sternly. "I don't care, Ashton. You can call me it if you want."

"You're so pathetic." Luke leaned over and whispered in my ear.

"Shut up." I whispered back.

"Sorry, Stella." Ashton apologized, making a point to use my full name. "I won't call you that if you don't want me to."

"She doesn't like it." Luke continued talking. "Only I can call her that."

"Luke, stop." I practically begged. Luke slouched back in his chair, throwing more chips into his mouth.

"Anyway, I was thinking that tomorrow we could go get some frozen yogurt or something after we're done at Stella's, and then, my parents won't be home at night so we could go back to my house and watch movies and shit." Ashton babbled on and on, getting more excited about tomorrow by the second.

"I love frozen yogurt." Michael nodded, his mouth half full of food.

"Frozen yogurt's great." I agreed, mostly because I couldn't think of anything cooler than that to say.

"Luke, are you coming?" Ashton asked. I knew he was just asking to be polite, that was just Ashton. I don't think any of us expected Luke to come.

"No." Luke replied. His eyes scanned over each of us before speaking again. "Why would I want to spend any extra time with you? I hate you all."

"You're quite the charmer, Luke." Ashton laughed. He nudged my foot under the table again.

Luke stayed completely emotionless. "Thanks."

"Well, I better get back to my friends over there, I'll see you guys tomorrow!" Ashton laughed again. He hopped up from the table and skipped away.

"Stel, you like him so much, it's hilarious." Luke turned to me once Ashton was gone.

"If it's so hilarious why aren't you laughing?" Michael asked. Luke stared straight ahead at him, like he was looking into his soul.

"I don't laugh." He said slowly, as if he was making sure that Michael understood every word he said.

"Jesus, what happened to you as a child to make you like this?" Michael reached up and scratched the back of his neck. Normally I would have yelled at him for asking such a rude questioned but since it was directed to Luke I didn't bother. Besides, I was curious to see what he was going to answer.

"You want the truth?" Luke's voice was hushed, like he wanted to keep the reason why a secret. He bent down and gestured for the two of us to come closer to him. "I watched both of my parents get killed right in front of my eyes when I was three years old."

Michael's eyes went wide and he stared at Luke. He scooted his chair away a little, like Luke was contagious.

"I'm kidding, dumbass." Luke sat up straight again. I half expected him to be smiling, or even laughing about how gullible Michael was, but I was wrong. In fact, through out the whole lunch period he hadn't even smiled once.

"I didn't believe you anyway." Michael tried to play it off cool, but we all knew he thought Luke was telling the truth.

"You didn't answer the question." I reminded Luke. I was still curious as to why he acted the way he did.

"I was born a generally unhappy person, that's what happened."

~

"Luke, I'm making sandwiches, do you want one?" Eric yelled from the kitchen. It was Saturday afternoon again and Luke and I were sitting in the dining room, trying to focus on doing my homework for the weekend.

Of course my brother picked today to hang out at home. He hardly ever came around, now that he was taking classes at the community college. I was actually left home alone a lot, with Eric either away at college or with his friends and Mom working almost 24/7 to pay for our apartment. Most of the time I didn't mind, since I had Michael right downstairs to keep me company.

"No, thanks." Luke called back. It upset me that Luke and Eric seemed to get a long better than Luke and I ever would, and they had only met a couple times before today.

"What do you want on yours, Stel?" Eric shouted to me.

"Ham, Provolone cheese and Salami! And mayonnaise!" I yelled towards the kitchen.

"You let your brother call you Stel." Luke noticed, looking a bit shocked.

"That's different." I said. Eric was my brother, he had been calling me Stel probably since the day I was born. There was no preventing him from calling me that. Besides, it wasn't the name Stel that made me upset, it was the fact that Luke just assumed he had the right to call me that when we weren't anywhere near friends.

"Then you shouldn't get so pissed when I call you that." Luke furrowed his eyebrows together.

"You shouldn't insist on calling me it." I shrugged.

"Ew, mayonnaise." Luke said after a moment of silence, making a strange face. I think it may have been the first time I've seen him do anything besides a small smile and his normal blank facial expression. He set down his pencil and leaned back in his chair, obviously knowing that I wasn't going to get any work done today.

"You never eat when you're over here." I observed, not exactly meaning to say it out loud.

"Because you're always having meat." Luke shrugged. He sat across from me at the table, his light blue shirt making his eyes pop even more than usual.

"Well, we're Italian." I chuckled, letting a few pieces of hair fall in front of my eyes.

"I don't eat meat." Luke responded quickly, as if he was just waiting for me to mention something so he could say it. I don't see why he would be proud, meat is great.

"You're a vegetarian? Why?" I asked, not seeing how anyone could live without meat.

"Well, it's not because I'm all conservational and I don't like the idea of killing animals for food, because in all honesty I think that's what they were made for. I just don't particularly like meat, so I decided not to eat it." Luke explained.

"So, you're a vegetarian." I said, clarifying mostly for myself but also for Luke, incase he didn't quite grasp the concept of vegetarianism.

"If we have to it a label on it, then yes." Luke groaned. Just as he was doing so Eric came into the dining room with my sandwich on a paper plate before exiting the room again. He had even warmed it up in the microwave, just the way I liked it.

"So, what do you eat?" I asked another question. I suddenly couldn't think of any meals that I normally ate that didn't include meat.

"Um.. Popcorn." Luke shrugged and looked down at the floor, and I could already tell he was trying to hide a smile.

"Popcorn?"

"I work at a movie theater." Luke replied, sounding slightly offended that I didn't remember that he worked there.

"Right." I nodded.

"Flow proofs." Luke said after a few minutes of us staring at each other while I ate my sandwich.

"Right." I repeated.

"You suck at these." Luke sighed, picking up the pencil again. "You need to learn all your properties first."

"I don't like memorizing things." I groaned.

"I love memorizing things." Luke looked up from his paper, and again I swear I could see a small smile play across his lips.

Within the next hour, Luke had actually managed to help me out with my homework, even though the two of us argued quite a lot. When we decided that we were done, Luke again hurried to collect his belongings and throw them into his backpack before rushing to the door. It seemed like he always lost track of time, and always had somewhere to be.

"Why are you in such a rush?" I finally asked after finally becoming tired with watching him struggle to get all his things together.

"It's 2:55. You wanted me out by 3:00. I'm getting a head start." Luke said, before opening the door and stepping out into the hallway, slamming it behind him.

Less that a few seconds later the door was opening again and Luke was peaking his head in. He looked down at his feet before opening his mouth to speak.

"Goodbye, Stel."



Sorry for any typos I'm like half asleep right now I tried as best as I could