"Shut up, Aisha!" Harry glared at me fiercely, violet eyes laced with flecks of gold, cold and unyielding in his anger. His jaw was tightened angrily, teeth gritted, but the intense expression on his face slowly melted away as he tugged hurriedly on his book bag. It was like he was desperate to get away from me.

My neck was beginning to feel strained from looking back at him over my shoulder, and I sighed in puzzlement. What the heck was this? Some sort of temper tantrum? I hadn't done anything to provoke this sort of wrath. Again, I faced forward, the stairs calling my attention, and as I began the hurried ascent, I felt him smack at my book bag irritably. "Hey!" I demanded, now majorly ticked off. "I didn't do anything to you! I barely said anything!"

"I know," he grumbled, and my brow crinkled in shock.

What the heck was going on?

"That's not very nice," I tried again, attempting to make light of the situation.

"You tell me to shut up all the time!" He jostled past me up the stairs and I was going to say something else, but Gene squeezed in between us and shoved me against the railings.

"Aisha! Watch where you're going!" he teased.

"You too," I grunted, and shoved the redhead back.

He laughed, maniacally almost, and we continued to push and shove at each other all the way to fourth period. Out of the corner of my eye though, I noticed that Harry's expression was completely softened and he had hurried ahead, which I regretted greatly. He normally wasn't like that. Had I done something to upset him? All I'd really said was something like, "Yeah, well, you don't think much anyway, do ya?"

It was a standard remark.

Maybe I'm too harsh.

Gene was slamming me against the wall now.

Maybe I'm not harsh enough.

Gene ended up on the floor as I ran on ahead at top speed to my next class, clumsily tripping along in my clogs and ugly plaid school uniform. When I reached history/world geography, I tried to locate Harry, maybe talk to him, but he was playfully flipping up Meg's blonde hair, causing her to shrug and giggle against the tickles. I like Meg, but it REALLY bothers me when she does that.

Harry used to play with my hair.

I ground my teeth mentally. It really was all my fault. We used to be such good friends, but when Suzuka and I became better acquainted, it was like we were instantly inseparable and created all these inside jokes that he'd ask about, but I'd just wave a hand and flippantly say, "You wouldn't understand..."

Wow. I'm a jerk.

But he made me feel left out sometimes too. It's like he preferred his guy friends to me, and although that is understandable, it's not understandable when he promises - PROMISES - to be somewhere, but ditches me for someone like...Leon. Leon with the negative five I.Q. His excuse was always the same. "I forgot."

I took my seat and tried to catch Suzuka's eye, but she was across the room and, oh great, talking to Harry. Sometimes, I think something's going on between them... She is always passing notes to him, but never telling me what they say.

While my friendship with her grows stronger, mine with Harry dies.

Jim sits behind me. He's an average looking blonde kid with blue eyes and an almost shy smile. We have this little game going on where I try to unzip a pocket on his trapper before he can react and slam his hand over mine, but I've never actually succeeded. The boy has reflexes like a cat, and he's super smart to boot. It's funny, because we're actually really good friends, but no one seems to notice.

"Hey, Aisha," he said, leaning forward to captivate my attention. "Have you ever been to and I love Strong Bad," I replied with a charming smile. One thing about me - I can pretend like I'm the happiest girl in the world when I feel like I'm drowning in sorrow. It has its pros and cons.

"Ever see the one with the interview?"

I shook my head and let him explain the web cartoon to me in avid detail, blue eyes glittering, mouth set in a crooked grin, but really my attention was on someone else, someone sketching in a black notebook with eyes staring into a world only he could see.

Maybe you're confused, and I should fill you in a little. Ok, here goes.

Being me isn't easy. This could be because I'm clumsy, I'm loud, I laugh too easily, and I can get insecure over absolutely nothing, or because I am a public system reject in a private school where everyone has known each other since kindergarten and I only go back to eighth grade. Guess history does count for something.

My name is Aisha and I am so different that sometimes it's painful. And sometimes it's awesome. I mean, being different can be really refreshing, but to get the rewards you have to sweat a little. You know what I mean?

Let's catch you up. I'm your typical blue-eyed, white-haired C'tarl c'tarl. Cat-like without the grace. I attend a small, close-knit private school. Eh...it's a religious deal. I like anime, snow boarding, and doing anything that you would never even consider because it's too weird.

Not that kind of weird.

Paper mache animal weird.

I'm actually really a goody-two shoes who has a sarcastic side and a quick temper, but never sneaks out to parties or goes to movies I'm not allowed to see or anything of the sort. I have a good relationship with my family and I like to shop with my mom. My grandparents don't embarrass me and although I complain a lot about doing manual work, I get good grades and all that.

The people I know, my friends, they're...out there. But let's just doing a quick little review of my history. I just wish I had a slide show.

Ok, first of all, let's start with the beginning. First person to welcome my arrival at Flame of Faith was Macy. She's a short, overweight, frizzy- haired girl with glasses and a not so great complexion. But if you need someone to talk to, she's your gal. It only took her about five seconds to claim me as a companion.

Gene. He was the second person to introduce himself. He came in eighth grade as well, so he was just as new, but made friends, like, ten times faster. This guy makes all the so called popular girls drool. Or, at least, he did. Then they got to know him. Flame-licked hair, deeply tanned skin, eyes so deep you could drown in them, and a muscular build - what's really to disagree with? Umm...oh yeah, his personality. Let me put it this way. He builds up your motivation to pursue him by faking interest, and then completely turns into an immature, egotistical jerk that is always winking and laughing and making smart remarks. But by then, you're hooked. You love him, you hate him, you're sticking pins into his voodoo doll.

A guy who finds it amusing to fake gayety (at least I THINK he's faking), is Gene's good friend - Fred Lou. Ok, Fred is cute, he's very cute, but for every bit of cuteness he possesses, he also has a smidgen of weirdness. He wears his black hair longer than the school dress code allows, but because his father is very rich, he gets away with it and always wears this hideous bandanna to boot. Sometimes, when a bout of seriousness strikes him, he'll turn and look at me with such solemn, brown eyes in his long, pale face that I wonder what the heck is going on in that mind of his. Scarily enough, he's become a good friend of mine. I think it's because he seems to have a strong feminine side.

In almost every class, Jim sits behind me. Jim is consumed with his studies and martial arts. So, he's strong and smart, but also an outcast. He prefers to be alone most of the time, and maybe that's why no one really notices him. He's cool though. I like to hang out with him.

Suzuka is my best friend in the whole entire world. She understands me like no one ever has and probably no one ever will. Sometimes, she even finishes my sentences. Before I started to hang out with her, she'd had some bad experiences with 'friends'. They'd betrayed her, mistreated her, left her out, and persecuted her for it. It was hard, trying to get her to tone down her sarcastic and cold nature and become a bit more sociable, but now she gets along very well - she even is friends with some of the more popular guys that don't notice me.

Melfina isn't really my friend, but I know her and am starting to become better acquaintances with her. She's a supposedly popular girl, jet black hair, peaches and cream skin, doe brown eyes...sometimes I hate her. She's so obnoxiously perfect with that soft voice and musical giggle.

Outside of school though, I know a few more people. Let's discuss Vash. I lived by him when I was around four and moved away at twelve, and we're still friends. So are our parents. He's weird, really. I used to be better friends with his almost identical brother, Knives, and mostly because I thought Vash was weird, but the older we get, the more I realize Knives is the weird one. He hates the government because they 'corrupted' him, and shoots a glare at happy, carefree Vash every time he announces he is going to perform a break dance move.

At my church youth group, which consists of around two hundred people, I've met about one guy. Wolfwood. He confuses me to no end and makes me nervous to boot. I'd love to go into deeper detail about him, but, wait, no I wouldn't, because he's really complicated and maybe we should just cross that bridge when we get to it.

You're supposed to save the most important for last, so here goes. Harry was the first boy to really catch my interest at school. He was different in every aspect. His personality was more sensitive, yet very humorous, and during summers he dyes his hair a teal color while other times it remains jet black. His build is tall and lanky with wiry muscle - he's stronger than he looks - and his eyes...beautiful violet. I've never seen anything like them.

Now, Harry was not an easy person to get to know. It took me months to get him to even respond to my greeting with more than a grunt. Therefore, at first, I considered him stuck-up, and then shy, and then I loathed him, but it couldn't last. Just wasn't destined too. I soon was hopelessly consumed in getting him to notice me, to be my friend...

Now you're up to speed. Those are the major people in my life, and I enjoy and hate them immensely. I guess no one's life is perfect though.

At the beginning of the school year of eighth grade, I was sort of...unpopular. Macy and I sat at a lunch table all by our lonesome, no one around us, like we were floating in a sea of rejection. Was enough to make me feel forsaken. Then as things progressed, I was friendly, I was nice, and I got the guys to pay more attention to me. Fred was my first real jump forward, and then Gene followed. Soon, they talked to me more than they talked to other girls. That felt pretty cool.

Sometimes I noticed the popular girls - control freak Maria, airhead Lacy, perfect Melfina, and sporty Gigi, staring at me. It creeped me out until Suzuka, a girl who was content to be known as an outcast, approached me one day in the act of throwing a paper wad at my head and we started to talk.

"Don't let them bother you," she said with a roll of her eyes. "They're all retards."

"Why are they looking at me?"

"Wondering why you hang out with Macy. They might like the way you look."

"Doubt it. They all look perfect - skinny with straight, shiny hair and tons of make-up. I don't even wear make up."

"They could convert you. Besides, you're not bad looking." She smirked. "And you've got more curves than they'll ever have."

I don't really know why Suzuka said that thing about the curves. She's the skinniest girl in the class, and very rough as well. I think that's why she's more of a loner. That and she refuses to attend parties. Still, we managed to form a sort of loose - very loose - friendship. It grew to the point where we were never seen apart in ninth grade.

Harry remained distant.

Then came the breakthrough. Fred invited Harry to a party that I was going to be at, and because I urged Harry a little bit with Fred present, I felt pretty confident he might show up.

Imagine my surprise when that night my mother received a phone call from none other than Harry's mom, who was calling to ask for information on the party that I, not Fred, had invited him too. I never thought I'd relocate my jaw.

"Fred asked him, not me!" I declared, but it was hopeless. Harry was happy with my bold move - which I didn't even make. From what my mother was told, he spoke of me often at home. Apparently he wasn't as aloof as I had thought.

And he was a momma's boy.

We went to the party, an old friend's elder brother declared me insane, locked me in a closet for half the night, and the rest is history. We were officially friends.

But I couldn't be satisfied with that, could I?

No...I made a very, very, very courageous venture. I invited him over to my house. He accepted. And I had a heart attack.

But first we went to the school's skate party. Now, have I mentioned I don't really roller blade? And Harry is pretty athletic? And a show off? So, while I was clunking around the ring, trying not to trip over my blades, he was skating circles around me and teasingly shouting, "LOOK OUT, AISHA!" while pretending like he was heading on a collision course towards me.

But, that's pretty much our history, so let's start the real story to where it gets really good.

For nearly half an hour I paced. And paced. And paced some more. Harry was coming to my house - MY house - for the FIRST time ever! And he was late.

His mom, Renee, had already called. I had answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"WHERE'S A CAR WASH?"

Renee believes you can't hear her on a phone call unless she shouts. I held the phone away from my ear and asked hesitantly, "Renee?" She won't let me call her by her last name. Probably because I'd have to call her 'Mrs.' And she isn't a Mrs. Harry was an illegitimate child, the product of an affair, and she had left her husband when she had figured out she was pregnant with him. So it's just Renee. But she's such an awesome person!

"AISHA HONEY? THIS IS RENEE! IS THERE A CAR WASH AROUND HERE? MY CAR IS REALLY DIRTY!"

"I don't think there is one, Renee. Are you lost? Do you need directions?"

"YES."

I promptly handed the phone to my mom and let her take care of business. It seemed like forever until Harry arrived.

When he did, he didn't even knock on the door. Just waltzed right on in. Pretty confident, I'd say. "Hey," he greeted, and then stooped to pet my dog, a chubby beagle. "I brought some video games."

I smiled, clasping my hands behind my back. "Do you like anime?" I'd noticed him doodling Dragonball Z characters in his notebook at school, so I figured it was worth a shot. It seemed like I was the only one I knew who appreciated Japanese art.

He shrugged. "Yeah. I guess. Why?"

"Have you ever heard of Rurouni Kenshin?" It wasn't on any TV stations around where we lived, so I was pretty sure he didn't have a clue as to what it was.

"Nope." Bingo. I was right.

"I have a movie - well, an OVA, of it called 'Trust'. It's a really cool show about a samurai/assassin during a war. The animation is awesome and it's got really cool fight scenes." Then, knowing that all boys are suckers for gore, I added with gusto, "It's rated NC-17 for violence."

"Awesome! Let's watch it!"

I led him to the upstairs TV room, still feeling pretty jittery, and popped in the DVD. He was impressed by the cover, which depicted redhead Kenshin in the rain, blood splattered on his face. However, I did have to reassure him when the screen displayed it's titling of: 'Samurai X...Romantic Tales of the Meiji Era'. We only got about seven minutes into the movie before Harry revealed his loud and excitable side.

"Romantic tales!" he crowed in joy, eyes wide as Tomoe's fiancé envisioned her for the last time just before taking a sword to the jugular vein.

"That's as romantic as it gets," I agreed solemnly, and we both collapsed into laughter immediately after.

My sister, who is much more serious than I, observed us with narrowed eyes. "Pigs," she seethed spitefully as Harry started on his second slice of pizza. Her jaw tightened when he turned shocked eyes upon her. Having no siblings, Harry wasn't used to sibling abuse.

"Let us watch the movie," I commanded, and she sulkily retained her perch on a chair in the back of the room, watching the display of violence on the TV screen immediately.

We watched the movie, ate our food, and played video games the rest of the night. It was a ridiculously technological night of entertainment, but we both enjoyed it. It seemed like Harry was destined to be one of my best friends. Heck, I could see him developing into a boyfriend, because he understood me, and he was kind. And I couldn't see him ever causing me any grief.

Which...when you think about it...doesn't make sense...you know, considering he is of the male gender.