Breaking the Unspoken Rule

1. The First Sighting

It was the first day.

A new school. A new town.

Iyllar High was just like any school in America.

Graffiti tagged lockers lined up on either side of a plain dead hallway. Teachers with no life out of the classroom. And it's fair share of juvenile students that thought they were the toughest kids in the state.

After growing up with kids that knew how to hold a six calibre before they learnt their ABCs, I wasn't that impressed by their show.

Because that's exactly what it was: a show.

These kids would run away, tail tucked between their legs if they faced Huge Hank, the bully in grade school back home.

Home, I thought dismally as I remembered all the friends that I had left behind. Everything that I had known for the past fifteen years was over 800 miles away now.

Freshman orientation.

Its goal of getting new students to make friends was failing miserably. I was the only new kid in this godforsaken town thanks to my dad's shocking "We're moving to Larin" announcement a month ago.

Despite the brave face I'd had on this morning in front of my parents, I was still trying to adjust to small town life.

Being the new kid I was visibly the only one by myself, sticking out like a sore thumb as kids my age, ran around in the gymnasium greeting each other like they hadn't seen each other in decades.

I remembered my hometown back in good old Texas, the home of good music and the best apple pie you ever tasted.

I left all that to come here.

Larin, of all places.

A town dead in Phoenix with about sixty miles separating it from the nearest town.

Why my dad even thought of this place was clearly beyond me. What could possibly have interested him here, other than the incredible raise he'd be getting working for his new boss?

My thoughts are interrupted as feedback burns my ear when the principal, that looks more like he belonged in the circus with his mismatched red and white striped pants and an oversized white shirt finished off with suspenders, takes the stage. All that was missing was a huge red wig and an oversized red nose.

I tried to erase the image from my brain. No need to start the school year on the principal's wrong side.

Two girls walked over and sat down in the benches next to me just as the principal called for silence and an all too hearty Iyllar High welcome.

"Now, there are of course certain rules that need to be adhered..."

I shut out his all too familiar let-me-lay-down-some-round-rules act. I've seen it a bunch of times.

My attention is focused on the two girls who've got the same idea and were chatting idly next to me.

The taller one of the two had long, lustrous dark locks that looked like it needed regular visitations to the hairdressers every week flowing down past her shoulders and dark brown eyes that instantly made one think of warm, delicious chocolate. She was wearing a pair of worn out looking shorts that still managed to look fashionable and she was in two words: Very tan.

Figures. Phoenix where there is a high possibility of there only being 8 or 9 days of rain in the whole year, you were bound to be tan by the end of the year.

The girl on her right was as equally tanned but that's where their similarities ended. Other than the fact that their looks could've graced the cover of any magazines. She had brunette hair styled in a pixie-cut just above her petite shoulders, accenting her deep blue eyes that would've made even the clear sky on a good day cry out with obvious envy.