The Girl Next Door

Part 1 - Iris

Part 1 - Watch Where You're Going

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Beep Beep Beep!

The irritating noise pounds in my head; a constant, shrill noise that's already causing me a headache.

I toss the blanket down to my feet, exposing my legs to the cool air. I stand up, running my fingers through my chestnut hair before walking over to the glass window. The cold breeze is blowing inside my small room, so I close the window since I left a little piece of wood under it last night. I was having trouble going to sleep because of how hot and stuffy it was the night before, and I like the cold anyways.

I trudge towards the bathroom, not ready for Monday. It's just me getting prepared for another redundant day back at school, another seven hours which make me feel about ten times more nervous than I already do.

In the mirror, I look at the soft waves of my dark hair, reaching just a little bit below my shoulders. I decide to put it in a casual bun, getting it out of my way for now since it's so thick. I'm just wearing a T-shirt and pajama shorts right now.

This morning I woke up at five, just like I always do. My dad doesn't get up until six, so I wake up early because I like to have the first hour of the day to myself. After brushing my teeth and changing into some better clothes (skinny jeans, a dark blue hoodie, and combat boots), I roam into the kitchen and make myself some hot cocoa.

When I finally get to school, I have a second serving of hot cocoa in a metal thermos which makes my hands feel nice and toasty. While walking over to the school library, which is where I like to study before the bell rings, somebody squeals from behind me.

"Iris, guess what?!" Sophie taps my shoulder at a rapid pace.

"What?" I irritably mutter. It's not because she's a bad friend or anything, but because her overreacting is just a lot to stomach in the morning... especially for a pessimist like me.

"You know Ella, right?"

"Do I...?" I ask myself, before shaking my head and sitting at one of the tables. I take out the homework for my hardest class: Calculus.

"C'mon, Ella? She's the girl with the twin braids, she loves theatre. Does that ring a bell?"

"Oh, yeah!" I lie, flipping through the pages in my math textbook.

"Well she's finally dating Johnny now! I mean, Johnny kinda sucks, but they're so perfect for each other and I'm so happy they're finally in a relationship!" she rambles some more.

"That's great," I mumble, poorly pretending to be interested as I attempt to wrap my brain around this equation.

"You're not listening, are you?" she says flatly.

"Not really..."

Luckily the bell rings, signaling for first period to start in four minutes. I hurry over to my next class, looking down at my shoes and not looking up. It makes me dizzy when I look up at the sea of heads surrounding me. I guess you could kind of say it makes me claustrophobic, I don't know.

Suddenly, I'm being knocked backwards and the hot cocoa goes flying out of my hands and onto the dirty tiles of the floor. I immediately sit up, feeling like somebody squeezed my stomach when I hear a few chuckles.

I look up to see what I ran into. My eyes widen when I see the shining, messy dark brown hair and striking hazel eyes of Pierce Wright, the school's "bad boy." He's got on his signature outfit: a plain white T-shirt, a leather jacket, and dark black jeans. Even with his face pulled into such a tight scowl, I can't help but to admire his facial features. You know, which consist of a long, narrow nose, square jaw, and light pink lips.

"S-Sorry," I stutter weakly, but he doesn't hear me. I try to apologize, but choke on my words and end up stuttering. God, this is what happens whenever I try to talk to anybody. I just stutter like a complete idiot. It doesn't help that he's... Well, you know, the bad boy.

He narrows his eyes, swirls of green and brown, watching me as I try to stand up. Now my hands are shaking and I honestly feel terrified, and while my brain reminds me that I'm an idiot my face goes as red as a fire truck. Once I stand up, I observe my shoes... They used to be plain black, but now there's drops of hot cocoa which I try to get rid of with my sleeves.

"Watch where you're going next time," he mutters, before storming off into another direction.

Boy, was that a good start to my Monday.

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I can't express the joy I feel when the bell rings for the last time today.

I practically bolt out of the classroom and out of the school. Since my house is only four blocks away I start to walk home.

I don't live in the best part of town. After my mom passed my dad just started to wallow in his own filth on the couch, and it's been that way ever since. Our house used to have a bright green lawn and a huge, healthy elm tree growing by the freshly painted porch. Those were the good old days.

Now, though, the porch's paint is chipped, revealing the rotting wood. The elm tree is rotting just as much, and the bright grass is now dry, crusty dirt. Instead of flower pots, we have old cigarette butts with the white patch on the back stained yellow from being smoked.

Our house is surrounded by these brick apartments that are also really small. Most of the people that live there are just college kids, but there's a few old ladies and divorced drug-addicts too, here and there.

I didn't really notice the other footsteps behind me until I was just one block away from my house. I glance back behind me to see the same leather jacket and hazel eyes that ran into me this morning.

My head snaps back ahead of me, and I pretend like the person behind me isn't freaking me out at all. To be more precise, I'm pretending like I didn't notice Pierce Wright following me. While my heart is setting off an alarm louder than the ones at school, I blink briskly and my breathing gets inconsistent.

When I get to my house and he's still about fifteen feet away, I turn around and confront him. The good part of me is telling me to just go inside and act like he doesn't exist because I'll be crazy embarrassed at the end of this, but I, for once, ignore it.

"Are you following me?" I ask incredulously. A feeble disguise of confidence.

"Don't flatter yourself," he scoffs. "I don't even know you. I live here."

"R-really?" I stutter again, that disguise already torn into shreds. "I... haven't noticed you before," I add, stupidly.

"I just turned eighteen, it's called moving. Get inside and mind your own d*mn business," he snaps.

I unintentionally glare at him before getting inside and calling my dog over to me. When Jax runs up to me with a wag of his tail, I smile. "Do you want to go to the park, buddy?"

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A/N

Alright peeps, so I'm finally back and I'm glad to be here! I know I have a big thing against clichés but you know... sometimes you write them anyway. Nope, that makes no sense at all, but I guess I can't explain! Anyway, I tried to make this a good cliché though, so if you already read this whole chapter I hope you continue to read it!

Thanks for reading anyway, and please vote for it if you liked it since that would mean a lot to me! See you next week!

(Also, the picture above is Katie Findlay, Iris's face claim! The song for this chapter is Team by Lorde. I chose this song because she describes how they might "not be pretty but sure know how to run things" and I think that's definitely how Iris views her life. Pierce could definitely say the same thing about his too.)