And With A Twist Of Fate...

Chapter 1

                Stella Winsmin walked along the shore of the deserted beach. The waves splashed playfully around her feet ad she smiled breathing in the salty morning air. She loved coming out in the morning and just taking it all in.  And it had seemed extremely necessary that particular morning. She need to do something to distract her from the hell hole she was about to plunge back into for the third time in her life.

That "hell hole" was called High School.

“Stella!” Her head snapped up and she saw her older sister leaning over the balcony of their tall beach home, her auburn hair blowing slightly in the wind. “Hurry up! We’re already late!”

 Stella jogged up to the house and came in through the back door. Drying her feet on the soft door mat, she slipped into her sandals and ran through the kitchen toward the door grabbing an apple off the counter as she passed. She met her sister at the front door and sighed. Another first day of school meant another year of torment.

Her first two years had been terrible. If you weren’t someone who’d decided to ignore her, you fell into the group of people who decided to humiliate her on the daily basis. The only thing that’d gotten her through the year was telling herself that they were all just jealous.

Now she scuffed as she thought, jealous of what?

 Sliding into the passenger seat of her sister’s black car Stella smiled. She’d been smiling a lot lately. Mostly because she’d finally gotten her stupid braces taken off. And she was able to see without a pair of bulky black framed squares over her eyes, thanks to contacts.

Just a year earlier Stella had been as uptight as any other nerd in any other school. Her big black glasses always had to be straight over her blue eyes. Her blonde hair had to be in a perfect ponytail in the back of her head with a head band that always had to match her perfectly pressed outfit precisely. She was used to smiling at the ground to hide her hideous brace face and her grades were nothing less than perfect.

  But the summer had loosened her up a little. She’d taken SATs a little early and had gotten a good score so she wasn’t as worried about summer studies as she had been the summer after freshman year. She’d broken her favorite pair of glasses on accident and her mom suggested contacts instead and she’d let her naturally curly blonde hair grow down her back and didn’t take a flat iron to it the entire summer. Learning to surf, running with her dogs, visiting relatives, and just bathing in the summer heat had been her favorite pass time.

She’d broadened her horizons along with her smile.

She jumped as the car jolted to a sudden stop. Looking around she noticed immediately that they were in the school parking lot and it was time to get out of the car. Grimacing she slung her bag over one shoulder and reached for her door handle.

Her summer had been a dream and now here came reality, getting ready to crash down and rain on her parade.

Stepping out of the car Stella looked around nervously. There were guys rolling around on skateboards, girl hugging hellos and teacher reprimanding students everywhere. Looking over herself once and feeling a little exposed in her jeans and tank top Stella held a frantic hand out to her sister. “Quick! Give me a ponytail holder!”

Her sister, Mila, gave her an incredulous look and shook her head. “You look fine Stella; don’t go refining yourself again just because you’re nervous. Just be you.”

She looked her sister over with a somewhat proud look but a sudden smirk had Stella biting her nails again. She watched as Mila dug through her bag and pulled out a big pink brush.