Under Her Sleeves

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Why do I have to be here at this hell hole?

Today was the first day of school and I did not want to be here. I can already feel that this was going to be a long, stressful day.

 I looked around at all the other girls around me. They were all dressed in brightly colored tank tops and shorts while I was wearing a long sleeved shirt and jeans. I was already sweating like an animal while everyone else looked cool as a cucumber.

Damn the warm California weather.

            I looked around to see if I recognized anyone from the past years. Jennifer from 10th grade history class, Chelsea from 9th grade English class, Devon from 9th grade Spanish class... Some of the people I talked to every day. Then a blonde haired female caught my eye. My best friend, Kylie Shanes. She was the average high school girl that you see in the movies; blonde hair, blue eyes, dressed to impress, the girly girl that attracted all the boys. She was THAT girl. The one that everyone wanted to be. The one with the thin, Victoria Secret body that everyone wanted, including me. The one that everyone was completely envious of but they couldn't hate her because she was so outgoing and sweet. That was Kylie.

And that girl was my best friend. You're probably wondering how the heck we became friends. The truth is we actually hated each other when we first met back in 6th grade. Kylie had just transferred from a different school and the teacher seated her next to me. Throughout the year, we both learned that we would get about the same high grades and began to compete secretly to see who could be the better student.

"Ha ha, I got a point higher than you!" Kylie would say as she stuck out her tongue.

"SO?! I know you cheated and I'm going to tell on you!" I would say back.

With the way the school year was going, I thought we'd never be friends. Until one day, towards the end of 6th grade, I saw that she had gotten a really low grade on a math test while I had gotten a really high one. Kylie looked as if she was going to start crying so I leaned over and pointed at one of the problems she had gotten wrong.

"You forgot to divide by the reciprocal here and that completely messed up your math! If you would have flipped it you would have gotten a 5 instead of an 8," I had said, looking up from her test paper to see her reaction to my explanation.

To my surprise, Kylie looked as if she was actually getting what I told her. And she smiled. That was honestly the first time I had seen her smile genuinely in my general direction. 

That one day set off a chain of events. We started sitting next to each other during lunch to go over some of the content we had learned for the day and if one of us did not get something, the other would explain it thoroughly to make sure we had gotten it. For the first couple of times we had done this, I thought she was tricking me and secretly trying to make me fail but the next test came and we had both got 90's on it. I had high-fived Kylie out of victory and it was the first day that we had physical contact with one another and I actually didn't want to strangle her.

Years went by and we had become best friends and Kylie and I decided that we would go to the same high school together. It was one of the great decisions I had made in life.

"Hey Jessie!" I heard the perky blonde yell and saw her wave me over.

            I walked over to the small group of friends that surrounded her. They all had their schedules in their hands and were showing it to one another, trying to match lunches and different classes.

            I pulled mine out and compared it with the others girls and guys in the group.

"Looks like I have day 1, 3, 5, and 7 lunches with Jess and I got put in all honors classes besides chemistry. How about you guys?" Michelle asks.