wake up call Chapter Three - - - - - - From the minute that Flynn left Mindy and I alone, I knew that she hated me. The tension in the air was thick, even though I hadn’t even done anything to her yet. The bell rang and we both got our books out of our lockers and I followed her to class. She was obviously trying to ditch me, because she was moving at top speed and weaving her way in between people having conversations. Lucky for me she was the only one wearing that much pink and it was hard for me to lose her. Our first class was English and was always my favorite. I was lucky to have Flynn in this class, otherwise I wouldn’t know anyone. But when I walked into the classroom, Mindy and Flynn were already sitting around their own groups of friends, so there was nowhere for me to sit that was near to them. I decided to sit towards the middle of the classroom with no one sitting in front, behind or on either side of me. I thought I would be sitting alone, but a boy came into the classroom at the last minute and sat down next to me. He was a tall, muscular guy with blonde spiky hair and sky blue eyes. He looked at me and smiled. “I’ve never seen you around here… are you new?” I nodded at him. “My name’s Reid. It’s my first day.” He stuck out his hand for me to shake. “Jake.” The bell rang and a petite woman walked to the front of the room with a stack of papers. She had a name tag on that said ‘Mrs. McIntyre’. “Partner up. We have a group project today.” A few people groaned as they tried to choose which friend to partner up with. “Do you want to work together maybe?” Jake asked. I smiled and nodded. “I’m usually the awkward kid that no one wants to be partnered up with. It’s nice to not have to join a group of three.” Jake laughed. “Trust me, I’ve been there before.” For the rest of the period, we worked on creating funny compound/complex sentences and laughed the whole time. It was the fastest forty-five minutes of my #life. When the bell rang, Jake and I packed up our stuff and headed for the door. “What class do you have next?” he asked me. I glanced at my schedule before answering. “I have geometry.” He grinned at me. “I do too!” Flynn came up to us just at that moment. “I see you’ve met Jake.” I nodded. “He has geometry with me so I don’t have to worry about Mindy.” Flynn looked at Jake suspiciously and Jake suddenly seemed to tense up. I don’t know what the deal was with these two, but I wasn’t about to ask. “Can I talk to you privately for a second?” Flynn asked, turning to me. I was about to object, but Jake was already starting to turn away. “You go ahead,” he said. “The geometry room is just three doors away.” Flynn pulled me off to the side where no one else was. “What are you doing?” he asked; his eyes wide open. “Making friends?” Flynn sighed. “You don’t want to be friends with someone like that. Trust me.” Before I could ask any more questions, Flynn walked away; leaving me alone. I didn’t know what was going on and I was curious, but it looked like a sensitive topic. I wasn’t going to let Flynn choose my friends for me though. I was going to keep hanging out with Jake no matter what he said about it.

wake up call Chapter Two - - - - - - I ended up sitting next to Flynn on the bus since I didn’t know anyone else. I was crushed in between our backpacks and the window while he was already busy talking to one of his friends across the aisle. I took a strand of my blonde hair that had fallen out of my ponytail and tucked it behind my ear, while looking out the window. I was interrupted from my thoughts by a loud thud that kept hitting the back of my seat. I sighed, rolled my eyes and turned around, poking my head out of the top of the seat. All I saw was a big blob of pink. This girl had a pink top, pink skirt, pink shoes, pink hair accessories, and even a pink phone. It was blinding, really. “Excuse me…” I started, trying to be as nice as possible. “Could you stop hitting the back of my chair please?” The girl didn’t even look up at me; her eyes were glued to her phone. She didn’t even acknowledge me existence; she just kept texting away and hitting the back of the chair. I glared at her, but retreated back into my position in the seat. I tapped Flynn on the arm. “Who’s the girl behind us?” I asked him when he acknowledged me. “Mindy.” Flynn turned around to talk to Mindy, the same way that I did. “Could you stop hitting the back of our chair?” Mindy looked up at Flynn and stopped immediately. “Sorry,” she said, her cheeks turning red. I frowned. It didn’t matter anyways. We were just pulling into the school. “Do you want me to come to the front office with you to get your schedule?” I nodded. I didn’t want to make Flynn late for class, but I had no idea where any of the classrooms were. When we walked into the school, the front office was the first door on our left. When the receptionist saw us, she smiled. “You must be Reid,” she said. “Your mom called a few weeks ago to let us know you were coming today.” I guess everyone knew I was coming today except for me. I nodded and smiled in spite of the fact. She handed me a few papers including the map of the building, my schedule, and the rules on conduct and dress attire. She motioned to Flynn. “I’m sure that Flynn can help you get to where you need to go.” He nodded and took my schedule from me, scanning it over. “We have first, third and seventh period together…” he started. “But I’m sure I’ll be able to find you someone that has all of the same classes as you.” The receptionist smiled. “Thank you, Flynn. We appreciate it.” He nodded as we both walked out. The hallway was already filled with people and he led me to my locker by finding the number on the bottom of my schedule. “You’ll get all of your textbooks in the classes today,” he said. “All of your teachers probably already know that you’re coming and will have them ready for you.” I opened my backpack and put all of my spiraled notebooks and binders into my locker and then closed it. “Thanks for helping me,” I said. “You probably have better things to do.” He smiled. “No pro-” Before he could finish his sentence, Ms. Pink came up to my locker. “Hi Flynn,” she said in her bubbly voice, grinning at him. She paid absolutely no attention to me whatsoever. She opened the locker next to mine and got out a binder, which of course, was pink. Just my luck… she had the locker next to mine. “Can I see your schedule, Mindy?’ Flynn asked her. I hope he wasn’t about to do what I thought he was going to. My eyes widened. “It’s okay; I think I can find my classes on-” “It’s okay Reid, Mindy won’t mind.” Mindy looked confused, but got her schedule out of her locker and handed it to Flynn. After glancing over it, and then looking at mine again, he smiled. “It looks like you guys have every class together!” Mindy looked horrified, and I’m sure that I didn’t look too pleased either. “Could you take Reid to all of your classes today please?” Flynn asked. Of course Mindy wouldn’t say no to Flynn. She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.” Flynn grinned. “This is perfect,” he said, putting his arms around both of our shoulders and bringing us closer to him. I prayed once again, but this time, it was for Mindy’s safety.

wake up call Chapter One - - - - - - I woke up to the beeping of my alarm clock next to my bed. I groaned and opened my eyes slowly, only to be blinded by the sunlight coming in from the windows. I attempted to press the off button on the clock, but that didn’t work. I sat up in bed, annoyed that the clock wouldn’t turn off. It was way too early for a noise this loud. I pressed all the buttons over and over, but the alarm wouldn’t shut off. I unenthusiastically crawled out of bed over to the outlet and unplugged the alarm clock, smiling at the silence this brought to the room. I was just about to scramble back into my bed and pull the covers over my head when it dawned on me; I had to go to school. I groaned and trudged over to my closet and grabbed the first thing I saw. It happened to be a pair of dark wash jeans and my favorite sky blue sweater. I put the sweater back into my closet; a top that amazing didn’t deserve to be put through eight hours of school. I looked around for a little bit before deciding on a purple fitted t-shirt. “Reid? The school bus is coming in ten minutes!” I had a history of always missing the school bus, and having my mom drive me to school was not always the most pleasurable experience. So I hurried up, changed into my clothes for school, put my hair in a ponytail, grabbed my backpack and went downstairs. “Don’t kill anyone today,” my mom told me as I walked past the kitchen to the door. She tossed me a granola bar. “The school bus stops where the cul-de-sac is.” I smirked. “No promises.” As I walked out of the house, I saw that Flynn was just leaving his house from across the street as well. He saw me and waved, proceeding in crossing the street to get to my house. I waved back at him, walking towards him as well. “I didn’t think you’d be coming to school for at least another week,” he said, when we met up. We started walking again, towards the cul-de-sac. I rolled my eyes. “Trust me, this wasn’t my choice. I would have much rather been sitting at home on my bed, watching The Big Bang Theory and listening to Marina and the Diamonds.” Flynn laughed. “School may not be as great as Sheldon Cooper, but I think you’ll like it.” When we reached the cul-de-sac, we saw the bus coming right to a halt in front of us and a couple of other kids from the neighborhood. “Perfect timing,” muttered Flynn. When I got on the bus and looked around at all the people on it, I did a silent prayer. I prayed that I would be given the strength to restrain myself from having to slap any of these people.

wake up call Prologue; Part Two - - - - - - The only sound in the house was the gentle tapping of raindrops on the windowsills all around my bedroom. I looked out of the window and frowned. This place was so much different from the city. I had become so accustomed to hearing the honking of horns and the skidding of tires on the pavement that I felt completely out of place. Both of my parents had gone out to buy groceries and decorations for the house. It made me wonder if this might just be our permanent residence. Usually when we got to a location, my parents didn’t bother to buy food or anything to make the place look nicer because there wasn’t a point. I got up from the chair by the window and picked up one of the boxes outside my room. I placed it on my small, twin sized bed and started to open it. Immediately, I felt a smile tugging on the sides of my lips. The box was filled with all of my favorite CD’s. There had to be about one hundred of them in here. Just when I was about to start taking them out, the bell to our front door rang. I groaned and walked downstairs, wondering who it could be. My parents were still out, and I didn’t know anyone around this area, so it had to be one of our neighbors. When I opened the front door, I saw that I was right. There was a boy on the porch, about my age, holding a tray of cookies in one hand and holding an umbrella over his head with the other one. His facial expressions showed that this was the last place on earth that he wanted to be. I smirked at him. “Can I help you?” “Uh, yeah…” he started. “I just wanted to welcome you and your family to the neighborhood.” I raised an eyebrow. “You wanted to?” He chuckled softly and held the tray of cookies out towards me. “Not really, but my mom made me. I’m used to seeing families with kids that are way younger than I am. It’s nice to see a change.” I smiled and took the tray of cookies from him. I then opened up the door wider, motioning for him to come inside. After he did, I shut the door behind him. “Sorry, my parents aren’t home right now.” He shrugged his shoulders, looking around at the house. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he said. “My name is Flynn, by the way.” “Reid.” His phone let out a soft ring and he took it out of his pocket. His eyes skimmed over the message and he sighed. “I completely forgot,” he said. “My friend is hosting a party right up the street and I told him I would be there.” There was an awkward silence for about seven seconds. I took this time to admire the rug that I was standing on. “I guess I’ll see you around,” he said before heading to the door. He smiled at me and then opened up the door and passed slipped through before closing it with a gentle click. I looked through the window and watched him walk up the street to where the party was with his umbrella. I half-wished that he had invited me, but I knew that there was no way of that happening. He had just met me, for crying out loud. I walked back up the stairs to my bedroom to start unpacking a few things when I heard my parents come in through the door leading through the garage. They were laughing as they put away the groceries. I deserted any attempts I had made for unpacking and went downstairs to meet them. When I got to the kitchen, my mom immediately held out a plastic Tupperware bin filled with pencils, paper and binders. “What’s all this for?” I asked, taking the box from her and inspecting it. She rolled her eyes at me. “School, obviously,” she started. She then put a small shopping bag on top of the Tupperware container. “Here are some clothes, too. You’re starting tomorrow at Sharon.” “I have to start tomorrow?” I exclaimed. “We haven’t even been here for a full day!” She shrugged. “Well then you better get everything ready.” I glared at her before marching upstairs back upstairs. I was used to being new; I had become accustomed to it after my third school. It’s the same routine every time. I always meet people, but before I really get to know them, it’s time to move again. I just hoped that I would have a little bit of time before I had to do it all again. I dug around in the boxes for a few minutes before coming across my backpack. I quickly stuffed all of my books, papers, pencils and binders inside and then threw it inside of my closet. Then, I took all of the clothes that my mom had given me and hung them all up in my closet, not even caring to try them on. I then flopped on my bed, staring at the ceiling for a while. I wondered how my first day would be like, and I drifted off to sleep thinking about it.

wake up call Prologue - - - - - - It had just turned into routine. I hadn’t attended the same school for more than four weeks in my sophomore year so I was used to always being the new girl. My dad couldn’t find a job that suited him, so he was just “trying out his options” like he told the rest of our family. If “trying out your options” meant traveling across the country and back, then I definitely wasn’t on board. I looked out the car window as we drove down the street. All I saw were trees, trees and more trees; the polar opposite of my usually busy and fast paced city #lifestyle. Usually, we moved to bigger towns, but my parents wanted to try out the suburban area. “Why are we here again?” My mom sighed and looked back at me from the passenger’s seat. She pushed a lock of her curly blonde hair behind her ear. “I’ve told you about a million times. Your dad needs to find a job so until he finds one; the family is going to be quite mobile.” Obviously, neither of my parents understood what it was like for me to move all across the country. I had to leave behind my friends and even my boyfriend, who decided that our relationship would be way too much of a hassle to try making it long distance. “I just don’t understand what was wrong with your old job,” I said. “It’s not like we weren’t making enough money or anything.” Now it was my dad’s turn to sigh. He tightened his grip around the wheel, his icy blue eyes staring straight forward at the road. “You know what the case is Reid.” Yes, of course I knew. My parents didn’t care how much money they were making. If it didn’t make them happy, they wouldn’t do it. My dad sharply turned the car onto a new road, and instead of buildings we saw houses. We drove up the street for a little while, until finally we turned into a driveway. Immediately when the car stopped, we all got out of the car to see where we would be staying. It was the cutest little town home I think I’ve ever seen in my #life. “Is this ours?” I asked my dad, walking toward him. He smiled and nodded. “I have a good feeling about this place.”