Only me

Chapter 10

"Good morning 8th grader!" Claire yells in my ear to wake me up. Claire is my fathers girlfriend of 3 years. They've been engaged once before before called it off when they had a big fight.

"Please go wake up the boys." I yawn and she walks out and closes my door. I jump out of bed and hop in the shower. When I get downstairs my dad has made French toast, eggs, bacon, and waffles for breakfast. Since Nicholas and Daryl are now in 6th grade I'm walking with them to school. We take our annual 'first day of school' picture and head off. It's only a 15 minute walk to school so my brothers ask me questions and when we reach the school I hug them, wish them good luck, and watch them walk to the office.

I find my locker and look around taking in everything. I hear laughter and yelling and everything in between. All the noises I hate when I'm home but at school it's everything I've missed.

"OH MY GOD! NIKKI!" A very familiar voice comes out of nowhere, it's Libby!

"OH MY GOD LIBBY!" I squeal. We've gotten closer over the summer and I'm so excited she's one of the first people im seeing. "How are you?"

"Ughg we're at school, im as good as I could be." she yawned.

"Haha have you seen Sarah?" I ask looking around. I'm so excited to talk to and be in class with her.

"umm no, but if i see her ill tell her to find you."

"thanks." i say and we hug. its honestly great being back with all my friends. i put everything in my locker and organize it so that everything is neat then close it and head to the bathroom where im sure to find at least one friend. When i walk into the bathroom i see Annie, Kat, Sarah, Libby and mercy all standing by the mirrors laughing. at first i just look at them and realize how happy i am to here with all of them, and how grateful i am to have them all as friends. "hey Sarah!" i say finally.

" Nikki oh my god am i glad to see you. Can you please fix my shirt, it doesnt look right and i cant figure out whats wrong?" she asks totally serious.

i laugh, "of course i can." we spend most of the time before class in the bathroom and when we hear the warning bell ring we go into the hall say our goodbye for nows and go to class. Sarah and i have all our classes together today so we walk with each other and make it a routine. Our first class is english with this horrible teacher mr. Barry, which i spent the whole class thinking about my mom. Then we had choir with the same old teacher Dr.Tall who ive had for 3 years now and have mixed feelings about. I recognize almost everyone in class except this one boy i dont think ive ever seen before. he's pretty average height with blonde hair and blue eyes. i lean over to Sarah who's been talking to Vance, "whos that?" i ask and she shrugs.

"lets find out!" she says and stands up. shes always been very social like me so we walk over and introduce ourselves." Hey Im Nikki," i say," Im Sarah." she says. "who are you? where did you come from?" we ask in unison. we both know we are over whelming him but we dont really care im sure everyone in the school will ask him eventually.

"im carter. i moved from Florida. nice to meet you Nikki...and Sarah." he says calmly. he may just fit in.