The Beauty of Us

Chapter 1

"Earth to Annie." I say to my best friend, who zoned out while I was talking to her.
"Sorry Lil, go on." She smiled.
"Well, I heard him talking to his friends about a girl and it sounded like they said your name." I smile and jokingly wiggle my eyebrows.
Annie likes a boy named Jace Barnett. He has black semi-curly hair. He's five foot ten inches, so fairly taller than Annie. He towers over me, but freshmen tower over me. They've started to become pretty good friends.
"Really?" Annie suddenly looked a lot more awake than she was two seconds ago.
"Yeah, but I don't know for sure." I say.
Kayla sat down at the lunch table with her MacBook Pro.
"I forgot to take my History quiz online." She said and quickly logged on to our teachers website. Kayla Davenport is smart, blonde, my bestfriend, but very forgetful. She's almost always doing last night's homework at lunch. We're in our junior year, you'd think she would have a good organization system by now.
"I don't know how you have a 4.1 grade point average, forget to do homework, and yet still get any guy you want," Annie sighs.
"Alright, I don't know how on Earth I have a 4.1 either, and I don't get any guy I want." She rolls her eyes and quickly answers questions on the quiz.
"No, that answer is 'B' not 'A'" I point to her screen.
"Thank you, Lily." She says and finished the fifteen question quiz.
Back to the Jace thing. So Annie has liked him for a few months now, but I'm not saying anything to him, though. I hate telling my friends secrets to people. This is why. If you have good friends, no matter how much life is sucking, they can find a way to make you laugh. I can't make my best friend laugh if I'm the reason their life is sucking. It's just impossible.
Kayla has this thing with Braxton Bridges, but she gets to call him Brax. He has a girlfriend, though, so we can see where this goes.
As for me? I don't like anyone at the moment. I mean I think a few people in our grade are cute but that's the most attraction I feel to any of them.
The bell rang for fourth period and I was off to AP Chemistry with Kayla.
"Good afternoon, class." Mrs. Merritt smiled.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Merritt." Everyone responded in monotone.
"It's been a few weeks since we got new seats, correct?" She asked.
Everyone nodded.
"And this class is particularly loud, correct?" She frowned.
Everyone nodded with a groan.
"So, I have solution to the problem. We're getting new seats today." Mrs. Merritt smiled and picked up her clipboard with names on it.
I gathered my stuff together and waited to hear my new seat.
"In this row is Hailey, Jordan, Ashley, and Nick. The next row has Jace, Lilith, Noah, and Janet." The class cut her off.
"Which Noah?" They asked, everyone looked at Noah Serrano and Noah Ratliff.
"Ratliff, next to Miss Summers." She nodded her head over to where I was sitting.
I'm alright friends with Noah Ratliff. I mean, we have a snapchat streak and we've been to parties together. Actually, we talked a lot last year but this year we haven't had a lot of classes together.
"Thank god I'm sitting next you, I hate this class." Noah smiled and took out last night's homework to check.
"Yeah, we could've got way worse seats." I agree.

I drove home after school and kicked off my shoes at the door. I immediately made my way to the fridge for an after school snack.
"Hey girlies whatcha doin tn ;))" Kayla texted to our girls group chat.
"Nothin wbu?" I responded.
"Nothing. What about you Annie?" Kayla asked.
"I don't think I'm busy." She sent.
"Brax is having a party tonight, you guys in?" Kayla sent.
"Sure Nothing better to do :)" Annie sent.
I agreed to going. About an hour later I changed into cuter clothes.
"Carpool?? I'll pick you guys up." Annie said.
"I'm already on my way.." Kayla responded.
"Ok, Lil?"
"Sure :)"
"Alr I'll be there in 5"
I set down my phone and dug through my closet for my favorite high heels. I slid them on just as Annie pulled up.
"Hey hottie," Annie winked as I got in.
"Thanks, I'll probably be third wheeling the whole night so might as well look good in the process." I laugh and buckle up.
"I'll try not to hang out around Jace so much and if Casey is there then Braxton and Kayla won't be able to hang out." Annie said.
"He needs to break up with Casey. Cheating is so stupid, and Kayla should make him choose between her and Casey." I say.
"The whole situation is crazy." Annie sighed.
"Let's turn up the music and let go tonight." I smile and turn up the car radio.
We sang all the way to his house. When she pulled up I grabbed my phone and stepped out.
"Ready?" She smiled.
I nodded and we walked up. The music was so loud when we stepped in I could hardly hear myself think. But I could remember seeing you across the room talking to some boy, who I still don't know come to think of it. I'd seen you in the hallways before but I never really paid much attention to you. Now that I had, though, I couldn't stop.