This Life is a Beautiful War

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Jake

There’s nothing like waking up to an angry mother. 

“Jake Macpherson, you’d better wake up this instant!” Mom yelled from downstairs.  “You’ve already been late to school six times this year and you’ve only been in school a month!  You’re not making me look good here, young man!”

I groaned, tossing the covers off of me just so I could open my door and yell down.  “I’m up!” I yelled. 

“That’s what I thought!” I heard her say, and then my dad chuckle. 

After I got dressed and ready for school, I made my way down to the kitchen.

It sucked being the only one of your siblings who still lived at home.  And being thirteen-plus years younger than all of them isn’t very fun also.  My oldest niece, Elise, was born when I was five!  And I was only eighteen and I already had seven nieces and nephews!

I went to the fridge and got out the orange juice, chugging it straight from the carton. 

“Jake, please don’t do that!” I heard Mom groan from behind me.  “Kole used to do that and it got on my nerves so bad.”

I pulled the carton from my lips and put it back in the fridge.  “Where do you think I learned it from?” I asked, walking over toward her to give her a kiss on the cheek. 

“Here,” she said, holding out something wrapped in paper towels.  “You’ve got to eat something.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking it from her.

“Oh, and Gabby called and said that she didn’t need a ride this morning,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll see her at school then,” I said, and grabbed my bag heading for the garage.

I had the toast she’d given me eaten before I even got to school.  When I pulled into the parking lot of Jackson Academy, I instantly saw my best friend Dylan leaning against his car with about ten different girls around him.  He had his usual charm on, flirting with all of them shamelessly. 

When the girls saw my car pull up beside his, half of them were instantly standing at my door, waiting for me to come out. 

Unlike Dylan, I didn’t use these girls just for sex.  I didn’t use them at all actually.  I’d only ever slept with two girls and they had been my girlfriend at the time.  I guess since I was apparently ‘the nice guy’, that somehow made me more attractive which brought on more girls trying to get with me. 

I only had eyes for one girl, though, but she didn’t see it at all.

I got out just I saw Gabby walk into the parking lot with her headphones on, not paying any attention to any of the guys who looked her way.

Gabby and I had been best friends since we were in preschool.  All three of us actually.  Dylan was the son of one of my sister’s best friends, which is how we got pushed together.  So when they’d officially moved here and Dylan, Gabby, and I were in the same preschool class, we were pretty much inseparably ever since. 

You could say that I hadn’t really developed romantic feelings toward Gabby until about a year ago after I broke up with my last girlfriend, Ari.  Yeah, there were some feeling before but I didn’t start really noticing them until then.

I didn’t think Gabby knew just how gorgeous she really was.  She had this long dark brown wavy hair that went almost to her waist, dark emerald green eyes, and had a face that was absolutely gorgeous without makeup, which she didn’t wear any of anyway.  I knew that all of the girls were jealous of her just because of that.  They had to pile on the makeup and barely wear any clothes for guys to notice them while she could let her face go all natural and wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt and still be more beautiful than they were.