Chapter 1: The color of snow
Opening Theme:
Pink – Raise Your Glass
So if you're too school for cool
And you're treated like a fool
You could choose to let it go
We can always; we can always party on our own
Here we go again.
Those were the only words that I could think of as Seven and I entered this damned place everybody called School. It's not that I hate the school. It’s just that I hate the people in it. I'm sure one day when this all ends, I'd miss it, but not so much the people.
"First day of school! Aren't you excited?" Seven asked, as we walked the hallowed halls of Bookside High School.
I didn't understand. How could someone be so excited about the first day of school? Sometimes, Seven just really bothers me.
Seven Dylan Ward has been my best friend ever since I can remember (I don't really remember much of my childhood and I don't know why. However, I do remember Seven being there, maybe because he lived about a street away from us.) He's just your average Joe with brown hair, eyes with a slight green tint and reddish lips. He's actually a handsome young man however, his ever changing mood and personality repels the opposite sex.
"Aren't you excited?" He repeated.
"No! Not at all!" I answered.
"What? Aren't you excited that finally, we're seniors?"
Of yeah, we were finally seniors. How could I forget? You know what; I take back what I said earlier, about me not hating school. I hate school, the whole idea of it sucks! I hate hate hate it!
"Hello? Earth to Snow!" Seven said, snapping me back to reality.
And I'm Snow. It's not my real name; it's just what people close to me call me. My real name is Summer Cassidy White. I've gotten used being called Snow over the years.
"Huh?" I guess I spaced out. "What was your question again?"
"I said, aren't you excited about being seniors, finally?"
"Nope. Not at all," I replied. "I'm happy, though. After this year, I can finally leave this place. No more stupid people harassing me every day."
Suddenly, the once loud hallways turned silent. Everybody seemed to look at something, or someone. Seven and I turned in unison to see whatever these people were looking at, and there they were, the resident jock and cheerleader of Bookside High School walking side by side with their posse.
"Speaking of people who live to harass me," I thought to myself.
Now we welcome the resident jock and cheerleader of Bookside High School, Prince Gray DiAngelo and Quinn Ivy Torres. Come to think of it, their names fit perfectly: a "prince" and a "queen". Very royalty, am I right?
Prince Gray DiAngelo was your typical, run-of-the-mill jock that has all the recipe to become the most popular guy in school. Still, even with being your average jock, he has this something that made him stand out. Maybe it was because of his messy (the sexy type of messy) dark brown hair that was not too long, not too short. Or maybe because of his hazel eyes that had this piercing effect, that you’re just forced to stare. Every girl wanted to be with him, every guy wanted to be him. The only un-jock-y thing about him was his personality. He wasn't a snob, which was like the cherry on top of a big scrumptious cake.
On the other hand, Quinn Ivy Crane was your typical (everyone here was typical, even me) cutesy rich girl who lived for the attention, good or bad. Of course, she has this power to make any bad attention good. For example, last year, there was this girl who dabbed Quinn's skirt with paint. Instead of humiliating Quinn, this made her more popular. How? By starting a new trend. People just automatically liked her. I didn't know why because I didn't like her and I never will. There was just something about her long wavy blond hair, her blue eyes and pink lips that annoyed me so much.
Quinn and I, we were the epitome of oppositeness. I had jet black hair, equally dark eyes and reddish lips. My long straight hair opposed her wavy locks. Her usually tanned skin was a little too dark for my snow white skin. She always sported this fake as plastic smile while I usually looked evil, like my heart was filled with darkness. Of course, I was just exaggerating. In a word, Quinn was bubbly while I was grungy.
"Done drooling?" A familiar voice asked, snapping me back to reality, again. I've been spacing out quite a lot lately.
I didn't notice Quinn and Gray were already in front of me, their friends behind them, laughing. "I'm not drooling!" I defended. I was staring but definitely not drooling.
"Oh yes you were, honey," Quinn said.
"Yo, Snow! Hey, Seven!" Gray greeted us with a smile, which surprised me because he hardly greeted us.
"No, I wasn't!" I retorted, then turned my attention to Gray. "Yo? How's your? Um... Summer?" That was an awkward way to greet someone back.
"Hey!" Seven greeted back.
Did I forget to mention? Gray and I used to be friends. Not really "used-to-be", I mean, we're still friends now but just not that close anymore. In a way, we were best friends, him, Seven and I. His house is just across our house, actually. Also, he's not one of those people who harass me. It just so happened that he's friends with them.
"Don't answer that, Gray. People will think we're friends with them," Quinn said, stopping Gray from answering my question.
What's wrong with this girl? I was just asking a question! And what did she mean about people thinking they're friends with us? What's wrong with us?
Before I could even retaliate, Quinn bid goodbye, Gray just smiled, then walked away while their army of jocks and cheerleaders pretended to be happy and followed.
"What is up with her?!" I exclaimed.
"She's a cheer leader. That's what they all are supposed to do, ridicule people," Seven answered.
"But, why me?! Of all the people, why me?!"
"Maybe because you're friends with Gray. You know they're together, right?"
"They are?! Since when?! Wait, wait, you're also friends with him!"
Really?! The oh so nice and perfect, Gray, was dating the enemy of the state, Quinn?! What has this world gone into? The nice guy with the bad girl; the prince with the queen; the perfect combination?
"Snow, you're in the 21st century. Jocks and cheerleaders are bound to be together, at least during high school," Seven replied. "And regarding that part where he and I are friends, the thing is we're both guys."
"That's very stereotypical!" I told Seven. "The jock with the cheerleader? How many T. V. series have portrayed that theme?"
"You say it's stereotypical but you're finding it hard to believe. Why is that?" Seven said, disproving my argument.
"It's just that Gray is so nice while Quinn is so bitchy." There, I said it. Quinn is very bitchy. She's not a bitch but sometimes, she's just so bitchy and that's what annoys me about her.
"I know what this is about," Seven said.
What were Seven talking about? This was about Quinn not deserving someone like Gray! "What?" I asked him.
"This is about you having a crush on Gray," Seven answered.
I was shocked with what he said. "Keep your voice down, Seven! Someone might hear you!" I whispered. "And besides, that's not true."
"Oh really? Remember when I slept at your place? You were sleep talking! You were saying how Gray - “ Before Seven could even say anything else, I put my hand in front of his mouth to shut him up. He continued on trying to speak making his saliva fill my hand - ew.
"Shut up, Seven!" I said to him, almost shouting. I looked around to see if anybody noticed us. "Fine! I have a crush on him. You don't have to tell everyone about it!"
"Aha! I caught you! You weren't even sleep talking that night. I was just trying to - OW!" I punched him mid-sentence. "What did you do that for?!"
"You're a sick bastard, Seven! You're my best friend! Best friends don't trick each other!"
"And best friends don't do physical damage to each other."
"Well, you deserved it!"
With my day starting at such a low note, I was hoping it would get better and thankfully, it did. I never saw Quinn again which was what I was hoping for. Seven and I, on the other hand, reconciled during lunch. He even treated me to a Ham and Cheese Croissant Sandwich. How sweet! Aside from those, nothing much happened.
"Let's go home, Sev!" I told Seven, as we got out of the school.
"I forgot to tell you earlier, Snow. For this semester, I will be living with Dad," he answered.
Seven's Mom and Dad separated 3 years ago. His Mom decided to stay with his grandparents, who lived near us while his Dad stayed in the city. Since both parent didn't want the other parent to take custody of Seven, they decided to just let Seven stay with one parent per semester. I guess for the first semester of our senior year, he decided to stay with his dad.
"Oh is it? I guess I'd have to walk alone, then," I told him, fake sobbing.
"Oh hush now, my dear Snow. Even with me gone, your skin will still be white and glow," he said, as he wrapped his arms around me. His hug always seemed to calm me down.
"I'll miss you, Sev."
"I'll miss you, too!"
Even though we were only joking around about missing each other (we will still see each other at school), I can't help but long for him as I walked alone from the school to my house. Of course this was not my first time but I'm just so attached to him that I easily miss him.
Half way through my walk, I heard the sound of running behind me. I tried to ignore it but the sound just kept getting louder and louder. It also seemed like the aim of the runner was me so I turned to see who it was.
"Yo, Snow!" The runner greeted me.
"Gray?!" I was shocked to see him. "What are you doing here?" I asked, as he stopped in front of me.
"I was trying to catch up with you," he answered.
Why was he trying to catch up with me? "What? Why?" I asked him.
"I was on my way home from Quinn's when I bumped into Seven," he replied. "I asked where you were. He told me you were on your way home so I decided to catch up with you."
"Oh is that so?"
"Yes!"
"But, why did you ask where I was?"
"Nothing, I just wondered why you and Snow weren't together."
"He's living with his dad, this semester," I told him. "So he's city bound."
"I figured," he replied. "So, shall we go?"
"Go where?"
"Go home, of course! Let's go together!"
Since we were already together, I agreed. We continued walking in silence. I thought we would be talking to each other but we weren't. It was all so awkward.
"My summer? It was okay. It was hot, but okay," he said, breaking the silence. He was probably referring to my question earlier today.
"Oh yeah, you were never able to answer that question," I said to him. "So, I heard you and Quinn are dating."
I didn't know what took over me prompting me to say that. I mean, so what if they were dating. I couldn't care less. I mean, I guess I cared a little bit since Gray was my friend but Quinn wasn't.
"Yep, we are. One of the results of my summer," he replied unenthusiastically, as if he wasn't happy about their relationship.
So, they hooked up during summer vacation. "Oh," was all I could say. I felt so pathetic bringing the topic up. He seemed nonchalant about it but I didn't let it bother me.
"How about you? How was your summer?" Gray asked.
"I guess, it was alright. Nothing much happened, really," I answered.
"Not like the old days?"
I closed my eyes, trying to remember the old days. I remembered some but most was a big blur. "Nope, I miss those days," I said to him, pretending I remembered every single day.
"Me too."
Oh, the old days. Even if I couldn't remember most of it, I still felt the happiness that it brought. Those were the days of not caring about the things happening around us. Who was I kidding? We were still kids! Why would we care about the things around us? We were too busy having fun with our own little games, now replaced by apps and games in gadgets. Oh, the good ol' days. At least, I think they were good.
I remember, though, when the sun started setting, we would get Mrs. Elvi's (Gray's mom) paint and brush then we would paint our faces with different strokes of dark to camouflage ourselves. The reason? Hide and go seek. We would finish painting or camouflaging at around night time making it perfect for hide and seek. There were only the three of us but we would have the best time. There were other times when... Ummm... What did we do aside from hide and go seek?
"Remember Seven's gameboy?" He asked. "We would play Pokemon nonstop. We would fight over who the better trainer was."
I couldn't remember at first but as he elaborated, the memories came and rushed back to me. "Which was me!" I said, referring to who the better trainer was.
"Oh, I was definitely the better one. You couldn't even beat the Pokemon League!" He recalled.
"What? No! I beat the Pokemon League multiple times!" I defended myself. "You were the one who couldn't beat them." I tried to remember as hard as I could, and it was hard. "There was even this one time when you finally beat them then the battery died. You cried for hours!"
"Oh yeah," he agreed. "But that part where I cried, that's not true!"
I kept teasing him about his crying scene while he defended himself. Then, he remembered something to tease me with. Of course, I, too, defended myself, and then teased him again with what I could remember. We found ourselves teasing each other with stupid things we did in the past and then laughing them off. We did this until we got home.
"It was nice catching up with you, Snow Pee!" He said, referring to the untrue story of me peeing my pants when we, supposedly, rode the mini-coaster at a nearby theme park.
"Yeah, it was nice indeed, Grace!" I greeted back, referring to the very true story of him during middle school when he lost his voice making his voice tiny which made him sound like a girl prompting everyone to call him Grace.
"We should do this more often," he suggested. "Y'know, reminiscing and remembering."
I smiled and said, "Maybe, we should."
We were about to separate and go to our respective houses when my mom came out of the house and saw Gray. "Cassidy, who is that? Is that Gray? Come, let him in. It's been years since," Mom said, inviting Gray in.
"Hey, Mrs. A!" Gray greeted with a smile.
"So, wanna come in?" I asked him.
"Sure, why not!" He acknowledged.
We went inside my house. Mom let him sit on the sofa while I went upstairs to my room so I could change from our uniform to normal clothes.
"I can't believe, Gray is in my house, again. After all these years!" I mumbled, as I brushed my hair in front of a mirror.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, I saw a figure, no, a shadow on the wall behind me through the mirror. It surprised me making me stand up. I turned to confirm if it was really there, but it wasn't. I looked at the wall closely but it was really not there. Then I noticed through my peripheral that something was standing beside the window.
I pretended not seeing the figure so it wouldn't go. I wasn't really afraid of it, and I didn't know why. I, honestly, felt like the shadow was there because it was hiding from something. If it was already hiding from something, then I guess it would never harm me.
As I was leaving my room, I could sense it still standing beside the window so with one last try, I turned and glanced at it. Fortunately, I was able to see it before it eventually went or flew out the window. It looked as if it was a shadow of a human wearing a flat but pointed hat. It was also wearing pointed shoes but I couldn't really tell. It was a shadow, after all. When I went back down, I found Mom talking to Gray.
"Speaking of the secret admirer," Mom said, as I entered the living room. Then, both of them laughed.
What did she say? Secret admirer? Oh no! What the heck did she tell Gray? Why the heck were they laughing? "What was that, Mom?" I asked her, as I sat down on the sofa beside Gray.
"Oh nothing, I was just telling Gray, here, how you had a crush on him when you were younger," Mom answered. "Remember those scrapbooks you made with pictures of him and you?"
At first, I couldn't remember what Mom was saying but the moment I did, my world collapsed. My deepest, darkest secret has now been revealed. Worst of all, it was revealed to the person who the secret was about. "Why, Mom, why?! Why are you doing this to me?! This is where I die," I thought to myself.
I couldn't say anything. I was literally speechless. The moment Mom said those words, my jaw dropped, my heart sunk. I could feel my cheeks turn red. Gray wasn't supposed to know about these things. I was so embarrassed.
"You're as red as a tomato right now," He smiled. I think he was blushing too.
"Of course, I'm blushing! I'm so embarrassed right now! You're not supposed to know about those things!" I exclaimed.
"About those letters you sent to Santa so you could get those scrapbook materials? And when you got them, you immediately cut up pictures of us together and made a scrapbook?" He humiliated me even further.
The more he revealed what he knew, the more I blushed. "Stop! It's really very embarrassing!" I begged. "Besides, we were kids. We were still kinda stupid."
"I think it's sweet. Don't worry, all your secrets are safe with me," he assured.
Even with him saying it was sweet and his assurance that the secret was safe with him, I couldn't help but be embarrassed because even if it was safe, the secret was about him so it didn't matter.
The dinner went by oh so slowly. Every time Mom told a story, my guard immediately went up. My mom knew a lot of embarrassing stories about me that involved Gray, even Seven, so of course I had to keep my guard up. Honestly speaking, I couldn't remember half of what my Mom was saying so keeping my guard up was a very wise thing to do. Thankfully, the dinner ended with no more embarrassing stories, just stories that made me remember my childhood so much!
I thought after dinner, Gray would insist on leaving because this night was unplanned, after all. Instead, he decided to look at old photo albums first. Of course, we only had a few albums left because of my scrapbooks.
"Sure, but only one album!" I told him.
He smiled and said, "One album? Okay! But I have to pick which album."
"Go ahead!" I said, and then I lead him to the location of our photo albums.
The photo albums were located inside our mini-library. There were shelves for fiction books, non-fiction, encyclopaedia, and then there was a photo album shelve. Obviously, we had so many books that we had to have a mini-library.
Gray went in the library and stood in the middle. He carefully examined every shelf and spine that he saw. I, on the other hand, went back to the living room and sat on the sofa.
Moments later, Gray called me saying he already found an album so I told him to bring the album to the sofa. He walked out of the library with his hands behind him, presumably holding the album, and then he walked towards the sofa, then sat beside me, still his hands behind him.
Clearly, I was confused as to why he had to hide the album. I live in the house. I, probably, have seen all the albums here. "Why are you hiding the album?" I had to ask.
"Because it's not an album," he replied.
"Then what is it? A book? Harry Potter? Twilight?"
"It's a scrapbook," he said, then he revealed the pink book covered in ribbons and glitters. Written on the front of the pink book was, "Gray is the color of Snow!"
My world shattered, exploded and disappeared. The moment I saw the pink book, my mind did a backflip and told me what it was, "Look! It's your scrapbook full of pictures of you and Gray. Now, you're gonna be embarrassed, big time!"
Unfortunately, my mind was right. I was going to be embarrassed like I've never been embarrassed before. But, I could turn this around. I'm Summer Cassidy White! I always find a way!
"NO!" I shouted. I grabbed the pink book, hid it under a pillow, and then sat on it. "You can't read or see it!"
He was shocked. He didn't say a thing. He just looked at me as if I murdered someone.
"Um, Gray?" I said, trying to make him talk.
Finally, he spoke, "You're unfair!"
Me? Unfair?! "What?!" I retorted.
"You said I could pick an album. Now that I have chosen one, you don't let me see it," he replied.
"Technically, this is not an album. It's a scrapbook. Of course, you're not allowed to read this!"
"It's a book of pictures and notes. It has me in it! I think a have a right to see it!"
"No, you don't!"
He tried snatching the book from me. He succeeded in getting the book from under the pillow even if I was already sitting on it but I was able to get it back. We had a mini "catch me if you can" game inside my living room. I was surprised Mom was just staring at us, not stopping us. I guess she was happy to see Gray and me playing again after all these years.
I tried my hardest to keep the book away from him. With one last effort, I tried to throw the book back into the library but failed. The book hit the wall, bounced, then dropped in front of me.
Since I was still running, I accidentally stepped on the book and slipped. Gray saw what was happening so he tried to save me but to no avail. We found ourselves lying down on the floor beside each other, laughing like maniacs.
"That was fun!" He snickered.
I was laughing and was so exhausted at the same time that I couldn't say anything.
Finally, my mom went and helped us. She gave Gray a cloth to wipe his sweaty face and just about everything. She also gave me one. She also gave us water so we could rehydrate. We were so tired that I think no amount of water could rehydrate us.
"I'm surprised to see your scrapbook still intact," Mom said, as she picked the scrapbook up. Aside from glitter-less spots and torn ribbons, the pink book sustained no other damage.
"I'm sorry," Gray apologized, his face slowly turning red.
"Don't be sorry. It's not your fault," I assured him. "Things happen."
Once rested, we all decided that it was time for Gray to go home. It was getting late, even though his house was literally just across the street. But before he could leave, he asked me if we could exchange numbers. Of course, I said yes so we exchanged. Then, I gave him a torn ribbon from the cover of the scrapbook.
"Is this from the scrapbook?" He asked, while examining the torn ribbon.
"Yes," I answered. "It's pathetic, I know. But since it's already out there, I just want you to remember that there is a book, a pink book, in this house that has pictures of me and you in it."
"It's not pathetic. I think it's kind of cool that you would want me to remember about your scrapbook," he said, making me blush. "Thanks for today, Snow."
"Thank you too, Gray."
From out of the blue, Gray grabbed me then, wrapped and locked me in his arms. It was all so sudden that I didn't know what to do. When my brain finally processed that he was hugging me, I hugged him back.
At that moment, I wanted time to stop. I could feel his arms locked tighter but his muscles relaxed. I just wanted to stay in that moment forever.
"I missed you, Snow. And for the record, I had a crush on you too."
Ending Theme:
Colbie Caillat - Bubbly
It starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose
Wherever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Wherever you go
Next chapter: The fairy tale trio
_________________________________________________
Please comment and spread! Thanks! :D