I See You (complete)

Chapter One

"Rachel! Hurry up or we'll be late!"

"I heard you the first forty times you shouted at me!" I yelled back. I'd be out the door in a second if only I could find my other runner. I'd looked everywhere already and was on my second run through my house. Not that it was helping. "Where is that stinkin' shoe!" I muttered, moving from room to room.

"You mean this one?"

Looking up from my crouched position on the living room floor, I saw my brother standing there holding up my runner by his index finger, a smug look on his face. I hated it when he found my stuff. Now I'd have to hear about it for days.

Rolling my eyes, I pushed myself up off the floor, brushing my now rumpled navy striped skirt flat again. I didn't know what possessed me to wear a skirt today. It wasn't like me at all. I'd always been more of a jeans and t-shirt kinda gal. But I guessed with it being the first day of school, it was good to make an impression... or something.

"Thank you," I huffed as I swiped it from him and bent down to slip it on. I grabbed my backpack and headed for the front door.

Craig ran ahead and jumped in his Jeep, leaving me to lock up. He revved the engine as if that would make me move faster.

Lara, our neighbor, was sitting in the back seat. She flashed me her big, good morning smile.

Lara has been our neighbour for ten years now. Even though she is one grade lower than me and Craig, she has become a close friend of mine. Craig still sees her as the pesky younger neighbour girl who is forever trying to hang out with us. Truth be told, she had been a pest in the earlier years, but since she's hit high school, she has changed. Matured. I liked her a lot now. She is charismatically fun and quite intelligent, and I am beginning to really trust her. Maybe even more than my best friend Claire, who I've known since grade three. Neither of them know this, of course.

I jumped into my seat and clicked on my seatbelt as the Jeep roared away from the curb and onto the street. Craig's car stereo was thumping loudly. Too loudly. I attempted to turn it down from its deafening level, but he slapped my hand away.

"Nice try," he said. He preferred hip hop rap music whereas I enjoyed a good piece of classical music and, of course, the top 40, but we met in the middle with our love for all things Coldplay.

"We're going to be deaf by the time we graduate at this rate," I mumbled sarcastically.

He snorted at that, bobbing his head to the beat. Lara laughed like she always does at everything my brother does. I have a sneaking suspicion that she has a thing for my brother. Sad, though, because I doubt he'll ever see her as anything more than a pesky neighbour, which is too bad because I could see them getting along quite nicely. They have more in common than they realize.

Lara is a pretty little thing, with long dark, wavy, auburn hair and bright blue eyes that flash with excitement whenever she tells one of her stories. She has lots of stories. That's one of the things I appreciate most about her. She is always looking at life as a series of stories to be told.

Sometimes, when the gang hangs out on our back deck, we get her to tell us one of her stories, and she always gets us laughing, sometimes even crying. Even Craig enjoys her stories, though he'll never admit it.

Today is the first day of the last year of school. Hallelujah! Don't get me wrong, I don't mind school. Neither does Craig for that matter. We're both good at it. We get good grades, we have lots of friends, and we're both athletic — though Craig is much better at sports than me, partly because he's interested in them and I'm not.

Technically I'm the oldest by two minutes, but everyone thinks he's the oldest. Everyone thinks this because he always acts and talks like he is and, honestly, I don't really care. He decided a long time ago that he would be my protector and he's never let up on that. Especially when the boys come around me. It drives me nuts when he gets all protective if and when a guy tries to ask me out on a date. Which they don't.