Always & Forever

Chapter One:

            “Here you go,” Mrs. Daily handed me a piece of paper with my classes that I would be taking for the next eighteen weeks, one full semester.

            Algebra II

            English II

            Lunch

            Chemistry

            Study Hall

            The room numbers followed the name of the class I was taking. Algebra II was in room 102, English II was in room 105, lunch was in the cafeteria, Chemistry was in room CR207 and Study Hall was in room SH109.

            I walked out of the poorly lit office the walls an ugly puke green. I had no idea why anyone with the right mind would paint anything that color. Brillion might be a town for people with high expectations and with extremely green lawns but something in the way being here made me feel at home even though it was clear that I did not belong here, yet I wanted to give this small town and the people in it a chance. Maybe there was something for me here, something that I couldn’t fight.

* * *

            Eyes, I felt as if hundred of eyes were on me as I entered room 102, Algebra II. Six rows of desks all but one was taken.

            “Yes?” Mr. Graham asked walking towards me at the entrance of the class. He was an elderly man with gray hair, tan and wrinkly skin and bushy eyebrows. He reminded me of my grandfather, before he died.

            “I’m new,” I said gripping the strap of my bag tighter.

Someone laughed and murmured loud enough for me to hear. “Stating the obvious,”

            “Name,” Mr. Graham asked walking back to his desk and looking onto the class roster sitting on a blue folder.

            I hesitated I always did when they asked my name. “Aria Hale,” I told him; he ran a finger over the paper and finally came to a stop somewhere close to the end.

            “Ah yes, please take a seat Ms. Hale.”

            I walked to row six, the last row by the window and took the empty seat right in the middle of the aisle. Outside the sky was gray, as if it was going to rain and I sunk in my seat and stared at the white board that was tagged with numbers, symbols and letters in red dry erase marker. Behind me I heard whispers and giggles, something that sounded the same in every school. I sunk lower in my seat and sighed, today was going to be a long day.

* * *

            It had begun to rain by the end of Algebra and hadn’t stopped since, it was now lunch and the rain was coming down harder than I had ever heard it before. I walked down the main hallway towards the front doors, my escape and the only thing keeping me from that escape was a coven of blood sucking girls all walking next to each other, shoulder to shoulder down the hall. They didn’t move out of the way, the people who got in there way either moved or got run over by their heels that could puncture a hole and make an exit wound.

            “Hey,” one smiled. She was tall, taller than I was considering I was 5’2. The blood sucking coven stopped and all smiled in unison, they had all stopped to talk to me and I wasn’t sure why.

            “Hi,” I said looking at the tall girl who had spoken first, she was tan, her dark hair fell long down her shoulders in soft waves, her dark eyes burned into my pale skin as if she were trying to read me, trying to see through the wall I had put up years ago. No one knew much about me, just what I let be seen, I had learned how to create a wall and keep it up.