Chapter 1
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Beep beep beep.
The alarm blasted through the cold morning air, waking Natalie with a start. She fumbled around for a minute before hitting the snooze button with a groan, and rolling back over. She pulled the covers up to her chin, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes again.
When she woke up again, it was to find her mother standing over her bed, hands on her hips in typical mom fashion. Natalie closed her eyes and reached for the blanket again but found nothing on her bed. Confused, she felt around for the soft edge of her comforter.
After deciding her search was useless, she opened one eye. She could see her mom still standing there so she opened her other eye and sat up slowly. Now sitting on her bed, Natalie had a good view of her new room.
There were boxes lined along her faded yellow walls, stacked up and towering above the rest of the room. Her small window had no curtains and her closet was still barren, waiting for her to get her shit together and unpack. Looking back at her mother, she noticed what she had missed the first time: the large green comforter that Natalie had been looking for.
"Mom!", Natalie whined.
Her mom gave her a stern look and threw the blanket back on the bed.
"You need to get up, or you're going to be late", her mom reasoned.
Natalie knew she was right, but she didn't want to get up. She didn't care if she was late. She didn't want to go to school at all! Natalie tried to think of a way to get out of going today. Maybe if she just pretended to be sick-
"Now!" Her mom interrupted.
She watched her mom leave and flopped back down on her bed. "You can do this", she told herself. " All you have to do is be yourself".
She couldn't help but laugh at that. What a load of bull! Natalie sighed again- something she had been doing a lot lately- and climbed out of bed. On the way down the stairs, she caught the scent of pancakes and bacon. She knew her mom was trying to make her feel better, but lately, there was no better.
After her parents' messy divorce, her mom decided it would be good for both of them to get a fresh start. So she packed them up and moved them both the 885 miles from western Michigan, to the small town of Myrtle Grove, North Carolina. Natalie was more than happy to get away from her deadbeat dad, however, leaving meant saying goodbye to her life in Michigan. She would have to leave her family, her school, her best friends.
Natalie thought about the day she had told her friends about the move.
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" You're what?!", Mackenzie cried. "You can't move!"
"Mac's right", Seth pitched in. The rest of the group all let out small sounds of agreement, nodding their heads.
The only person who hadn't said anything yet was Natalie's best friend of twelve years.
"Em, are you okay?", Natalie questioned the silent girl. Emma kept her eyes fixed on the old blue carpet.
"When do you leave?", Mac asked quietly when Emma didn't respond.
"Natalie felt a sharp twinge in her chest. "2 weeks", she responded.
There was a collective murmur of protest from her small group of friends.
"But it's the middle of senior year! Why couldn't you move at the end of the year?", Kira questioned, holding back tears.
"My mom wants to get as far away from dad as quickly as possible", Natalie says, using the same words her mother had used when Natalie had asked the same question.
"Then we better pack the next two weeks with the best memories we've ever had", Emma finally reasoned. Everyone agreed that they would spend the next two weeks together, hanging out and packing up.
Natalie looked around at her best friends, vision clouded with unshed tears and realized that leaving this group behind might just kill her.
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Natalie snapped back to reality, wiping the escaped tears from her cheeks and giving a sniffle. She couldn't think about her best friends back home right now; she needed to focus on life in North Carolina and her new school.
After finishing her pancakes, Natalie went back upstairs to get ready. Entering her bedroom, she crossed the floor to the stack of boxes and opened one of the ones labeled "clothes". She dug through the box looking for her favorite shirt- the one her friends had given her on her last day in Michigan- so she would have a piece of home with her on her first day.
Coming up empty handed, she pulled open another box labeled "clothes" and dug through that one. Coming up empty yet again, she checked the clock.
7:30. Shit! School started at 8!
Looking back to the boxes, she grabbed the first thing she could find and ran to the bathroom. Upon closer examination, she realized she had grabbed the dress her mom had picked out for her when they went shopping last year. Natalie let out a frustrated groan, seeing as she hated wearing dresses, but knew that she had no time to look for something different.
She quickly peeled off her pajamas and threw on the dress. She ran a brush through her brown hair, viciously pulling out the tangles. She threw on some mascara and lipgloss and gave herself a once over in the full length mirror on the wall.
The pale pink dress was a little small but it looked okay. It fit snug on her torso, hit her waist, and flared down, falling just above her knees. She grabbed her pair of white converse and her backpack and ran downstairs. She gave her mom a kiss on the cheek and flew out the door to her car. She flung her bag in the backseat and turned the key in the ignition. She checked the time again.
7:45
She peeled out of the driveway and navigated her way to the school with the help of her GPS.
Upon arriving in the parking lot, she pulled her car into the nearest available space and parked. She flipped the visor mirror down and took one last look at herself, making sure she looked okay. She flipped the visor back up, grabbed her bag, and headed towards the front of the building.
When Natalie entered the office she noticed three things: The bell that rang when she opened the door, the fact that the office was suffocatingly hot and the short blonde sitting behind the desk, typing away at her computer. When she heard the bell, the blonde receptionist looked up and welcomed Natalie with a smile. Natalie could see she was young- about 25/26- and was very short- maybe 5'2".
"You must be Natalie Parker", she greeted warmly. Natalie gave a small start upon hearing her name spoken from the stranger's mouth.
The receptionist- Mrs. Lewis, according to her nameplate- let out a small chuckle.
"It's a small school. I know a know a new face when I see one", she explained with a smile. "Let me get you your schedule and- will you be needing a map?".
Natalie thought about it for a second before nodding her head. Mrs. Lewis hurried around the cramped office, picking up a paper here and another one there. Finally she returned with a stack of papers for Natalie to look over. She pointed to the top one, which Natalie could see was a course list.
"Your first class will be English with Ms. Price". She pulled out another paper- this time, a map of the school- and a highlighter.
"You'll go here-", she started, as she made a circle a around a square labeled "Room 300". "Then you'll go here, here, and here". She continued on as Natalie silently listened. When Mrs. Lewis finished highlighting, the map was almost a solid block of color, and Natalie eyed it nervously.
Mrs. Lewis gave her a reassuring smile. "You'll do fine, honey". She patted Natalie's shoulder and returned to her seat behind the tall desk. As she got back to her typing, Natalie spun and walked out the door of the small office into the large hallway.
The walls were lined with faded red lockers, taller than Natalie and maybe half her width. How do they fit anything in there?, she wondered. Every spot on the wall that wasn't filled with lockers was filled motivational posters and campaign posters and posters announcing the lunch menu for the week.
Natalie followed the hallway, consulting her map every few steps, making sure she was going the right direction. When Natalie finally reached room 300, she looked at the clock: 8:10. She was ten minutes late. That meant she would have to walk into a room already filled to the brim with students she hadn't meant, a teacher she didn't know, and homework she couldn't possibly have done. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door, knowing if she waited any longer she would be even more embarrassed.
The class quieted immediately when Natalie entered and then took off with whispers of the new girl. Natalie hesitated in the doorway, looking over her shoulder as if to calculate whether or not she could actually escape. Her teacher, Ms. Parks- no,no! Ms. Price- made a point of clearing her throat loudly and ushered her into the room. She snatched the late pass Mrs. Lewis had given Natalie and set it on her desk.
"Take your stuff and go sit", Ms. Price said stiffly, pointing to the only open seat in the class. Luckily for Natalie, it was in the very back corner of the room, beside the window. She hurriedly took her seat, twenty-six pairs of eyes watching her. The twenty-seventh pair- the guy she was sat next to- seemed to be intent on ignoring her completely as he scribbled away in his notebook.
"Excuse me?", Natalie spoke up hesitantly. The guy didn't look up. She tried again. "Excuse me!", she said a little louder. At the front of the class Ms. Price shot her a dirty look.
"Please refrain from distracting other students in my class, Miss Parker. You may not want to learn, but others do". Natalie looked down, feeling the color rise to her cheeks. She could hear the guy chuckling under his breath and could see his shoulders shake. She gave a small "humph" and tried her best to ignore him, but she couldn't seem to stop looking at him. At the way he wrote quickly in his notebook, head low, his broad shoulders stooped. How he kept brushing strands of his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes.
She was so busy watching him, that she barely noticed when the bell rang. It wasn't until he stood up that she snapped out of her trance. The mystery guy bent down to pick up his bag, Natalie watching him the whole time. As he straightened up, he met Natalie's eye for the first time all class period.
She was incredibly startled to see how amazingly green they were. She stumbled over her words, trying to think of a coherent apology for her staring and after a couple of seconds of her opening and closing her mouth, she came up short.
The guy gave her a lopsided smirk, spun around,and weaved his way through the desks, out the door. Natalie gave a heavy sigh of relief at the sight of his retreating back, only to find it caught in her throat as his muscular frame reappeared in the doorway.
"When you stare at me tomorrow," he drawled, "try not to drool as much". He gave a small chuckle and slinked back out the door. Natalie stood dumbfounded at her desk until Ms. Price came back in and told her to find her next class. She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and left the room quickly, headed to her second block.
One down, four to go. And so far only one weirdo in her class.