Breaking Julien

Chapter One

“I hate this,” I said as I rounded the corner, on my way to school. ” It’s like 12 degrees outside! Of all the places in the world, why the hell did we move to Nebraska? Never in my life did I think I would actually be walking to school.”

“It’s like 55 degrees out here, chill out Jules. We only have a few more blocks to go, anyway,” Ayden Scarborough, my best friend, said with a chipper smile.

“Well, nobody asked you,” I snapped at him.

It was freezing outside but Ayden didn’t seem to notice. He had a wide smile across his face and his thick black hair was tousled over his forehead. His bright blue eyes squinted as looked down at me, laughing. I, on the other hand, was not so happy. My teeth were chattering like a chainsaw and my entire body was shivering. My hair was whipping around in the wind, practically blinding me. Nebraska was not kind to me. I had just moved from “The Sunshine State“ to “The Cornhusker State”. It was pretty obvious that I was not from the hellish wasteland that is Elliot Grove, Nebraska. When I lived in Florida, I had a tan year-round! Do you know how nice that is? Well, you don't know how nice it is if you live in Nebraska. I can tell you THAT. I wasn't exactly what you would expect a girl from Miami Beach to look like. I didn't have bleach-blonde hair and those vivacious curves to flaunt in a bikini all day, everyday. I was just a normal teenage girl. My hair was light brown, but more so when I lived in Florida. The lack of sunlight in my new home state was forcing my hair to lose its summery shimmer. My hair reached just below my shoulders and fell in loose curls. I stood a good half a foot below most of my friends. My face was rounded and long, my checks were almost always rosy. I had inherited my father's blue-gray eyes. People would often tell me that I looked like my father but, in my opinion, it was just the eyes.

I had lived in Miami Beach with my parents my whole life, that is, before my parents got a divorce. My mom had caught my dad cheating. It wasn't really a surprise, at least not to me. They never got along and my dad was hardly even home. I didn't really know him, or even talk to him. I could barely even tell that we lived in the same house. And he didn't exactly make the effort to talk to me. Even though I hardly knew the guy, it still hurt to know that he was choosing some lady over us. But my mom more than made up for my almost-absent father. So, the decision of which parent to stay with was an easy one. Besides a couple of practically dialouge-less phone calls, I hadn't spoken to my dad since the move.

After the divorce was finalized, my mom said we needed a fresh start at a new place. I thought, ‘This is great! I bet we go somewhere cool, like New York or California!’ No, we go to freaking Nebraska. Way to go, Mom. I had been in the wonderful town of Elliot Grove, Nebraska for all of five months and I still wasn't able to walk outside without feeling like I was going to catch hypothermia. I was still used to my Florida warmth. I missed the secluded beaches and the busy city. To my dismay, it hardly ever rained in Elliot Grove. I loved the rain, it was calming. Storms have a way of making time slow down; of making everything better, if only for a little while. It would  rain every other day in Miami. Little things like that made me wish we never moved. But I know that if I hadn't moved to that forsaken town then I never would have met Ayden. I would say he's worth it. Well, I would say that when he isn't teasing me for wearing three jackets and a sweatshirt to school.

Ayden was my best friend in the entire world. It didn't even take a whole month for me to form such a strong bond with him. It was an instant friendship. He was the first person to make an effort to talk to me on my first day at Elliot Grove High School. That building was by far my least favorite place in that town. Why? It's high school. Do I need to elaborate? I didn't think so.

Despite my loathing of the city, I have to admit, it did have one cool thing- Harlow Academy. Harlow Academy was one of the many schools for breakers in Nebraska. Turns out, Nebraska has one of the highest breaker birthrates in the whole country. I wasn't even sure that breakers were real until I moved to Elliot Grove. The government is doing a great job of keeping them under wraps. I used to think that they were just another mythical creature, like vampires and Frankenstein. I had seen movies and read books about them, but they were nothing to worry about in my metropolis on Miami. Because it was so densley populated, it wasn't really a hotspot to find breakers.