Carry My Heart

1. Adrien

Chapter 1 – Adrien

School was weird. God, that's such a cliché. It was weird in the sense that it was normal, which made it annoying. The cheerleaders dated the basketball jocks, the men's swim team walked with swagger because everyone knew what they were "packing." The art freaks and drama nerds were always at odds and the bookworms and matheletes always had a debate going while the delinquents smoked whatever was on hand that day under the bleachers.

Okay, so maybe some people overlapped with their cliques and had more than one group of friends and that's normal.

Then there was Mia Larson.

It wasn't as though no one noticed her, they did and they steered clear, which didn't make sense to Adrien at all. She wasn't weird or deformed in the typical sense that people would make fun of someone, she's gorgeous with long blonde hair that would remind people of Rapunzel on the off chance she didn't have it pulled back, her blue eyes reminding Adrien of the blue ice of a glacier. Teenagers were cruel and didn't understand people that didn't look like them, that weren't stereotypically normal. But that's not Mia and even though Adrien's on the basketball team and hung out with the team and some cheerleaders, but none of them really knew him. Maybe that's how high school was, people weren't that close to each other and then they go their separate ways for college and make lifelong friendships there.

There was a decision that he had to make though, one Adrien didn't know would be big and life altering in the moment that he made it. A decision that he thought would just alienate his supposed friends and teammates, not be what it was as he took the seat across from Mia in the cafeteria on the first Friday of the school year.

She was sketching something with her arm protecting the sketch from the girls who bullied her. There's no other word for what they did, he's seen them tear a whole notebook of Mia's to shreds, that probably made him part of the problem—not doing anything about that—but Adrien wanted to change that.

Her earbuds were blasting some heavy metal that he thought he vaguely recognized from before his brother, Ashton, left for college. Her black hoodie was larger than his and Adrien knew it was because she was trying to hide how thin she was and the girls were likely jealous of that too. Mia was something he couldn't describe without wanting to know more.

Adrien didn't want to push her, he knew even sitting across from her was a risk with everyone else who warily watched them, rather him, but whatever. He was never really one of them.

Halfway through eating his slice of pizza, Adrien felt a new, closer set of eyes on him and he looked up, directly into Mia's. They were angry and dark, her pink lips curled in a scowl and he swallowed my pizza before saying hello.

"What do you want?" Even with the tinge of anger, her voice was soft.

"What makes you think I want something?" he crossed his arm on the table, pushing his tray, he might get a little flirty when he's nervous and her standoffishness set him on edge.

"Adrien Saxon, captain of the basketball team, is sitting across from me. You either have a bet going with your shitty friends, or you're not the captain anymore." She paused and Adrien didn't have anything to say to that, it didn't matter. "What? Did something happened where you've been exiled to the loser table?"

He smirked, it was the most logical explanation but not even remotely close to the truth "Or neither and I just want to sit here. Maybe get to know the quiet girl I've seen around for years and never got the chance to talk to," I smiled, hoping she'd take it as genuine and want to be friends too.

Her blue eyes narrowed, darkening, "Yeah, I don't... no. Just go back to your friends."

"Mia, I—"