I was walking down the street early in the morning, the wind was rustling the leaves in the trees above me, the scent of rain heavy in the air.
"Fuck, can't it go a day without raining here!"
I pushed my thick, dark brown bangs out of my eyes but the wind just swirled around me, whipping my slightly longer than shoulder length hair into my face.
"HEY THERE!" I felt a hand clap my back with a stinging force and turned my head to see my friend standing there, "What's up T-Rex?"
Josh Ramsay, one of the first people who had bothered to acknowledge my existence when I came to this school during the middle of the tenth grade year at Magee Secondary. My name isn't actually T-Rex, it's actually Tyra. Josh gave me that name when I was pissed off at some students for taking my things and throwing them in the trash, he said I reminded him of a t-rex for some odd reason so he's called me that ever since.
Maybe it was because I seemed to walk to the beat of my own drum, but his friends and I all clicked and I was friends with the socially outcast ever since. I didn't mind it, I felt accepted for once with these people compared to living in Winnipeg. So the transition from there to Vancouver was a good one for me. There were still hard times here though, but at least when I was picked on I had someone to talk to.
"Hey Josh, just tired from the summer holidays," I gave a big yawn and attempted to flip my hair out of my face but only managed to get another mouthful of it. "Fuck! It's times like these where I wish I was bald!"
"That can be arranged," Josh said, a stupid grin stretching over his face as he eyed my hair through squinted eyes.
"Never in a million years!" I screamed at him, throwing my arms protectively around my head, "Remember when you convinced me last year in grade 11 that my hair would look so nice blonde? You bleached it and killed my hair!"
"And you spent the rest of the evening chasing me around with the bleach threatening that you would bleach my pubes!" He shot me an accusatory glare but, I could see the humour in his eyes.
"Come on then asshole! We don't want to be late for the first day of the last year of school now!"
We started walking in a comfortable silence down the road to our school, feeling so relieved that I only had one more year til' I got to decide what I wanted to do with my life.
The school was a little more than a block away when the clouds suddenly let off their heavy burden on Josh and I, we started running as fast as we could to the front of the school. We were only a little wet thankfully. I didn't want my new neon pink hoodie and black ripped jeans to get dirty on my first day of school. My family wasn't the richest of people so I rarely got new clothes that weren't worn by other people before me. Josh didn't worry about his black hoodie and blue jeans though, his parents made a decent living being in the music industry. His mother taught vocal lessons and his father owned his own studio so money was rarely an issue for them.
"Who's your homeroom teacher this year?" I asked Josh, secretly hoping he was in mine again this year.
"Mr Fariss. And you?" He looked at me and I muttered, "Mrs Terin,"
"Mrs Terin is a cool teacher! She is so laid back compared to the rest of the teachers."
He was a clown and generally so enthusiastic, he didn't like to see his friends frowning so he always tried to cheer us up, except when he was having a mood swing... He was my closest friend next to Adriane so I was a little disappointed that he wasn't in my homeroom, "Maybe Andrew or Teresa is in mine," I said it with a smile on my face but I was still a little sad.
"Or maybe Matt," He whispered in my ear as he quickly walked by me to get to his homeroom. I felt heat rushing to my face and knew that I probably looked like a tomato to anyone passing by me in the front entrance of the school.
I had a little crush on Matt Webb and I really hated myself for it, he was one of 'them' and I didn't like that group of narcissistic pricks, he was also the arm candy of one of the girls in that group. Josh and Matt were friends for a long time and did choir together now but Matt had apparently changed when he hit high school. Josh doesn't really believe he has but Andrew and Chris say that he joined the in-crowd the moment he could. He barely ever spoke to any of the old crowd and would walk away if one of his old friends was getting beat up or picked on. He was loathsome to me yet there was something about his baby face that I found attractive, but that's where it ended.
I could feel eyes on me and I quickly turned around to see someone looking at me. I shot her a nasty glare and she immediately looked away and started a quick walk down the hallway, her bright red mane of hair swishing behind her and her little heels making a sharp clicking noise in quick retreat.
Cheryl, that little bitch was, in my mind, the mastermind behind the endless troubles that my friends and I faced here. She thinks because she has it all that she can harass us and get away with it! Her mom is a wealthy lawyer with a firm of her own so Cheryl could afford practically anything she wanted. She was pretty in so many ways (I'd never mention that out loud though) and managed to rock braces in ways that most people couldn't! She was an A+ student that was on as many school councils and clubs that were available to her greedy little fingers. She was athletic and scored the winning point in the national volleyball tournament! She also had one more thing, Matt. She rubbed it in every ones face whenever she could that he was hers and that only made my thoughts about her worse. I partially blamed her for Matt's change in life. In the end, she just infuriated me in so many ways. She was too perfect to be the angel everyone thought she was.
I turned and walked the opposite direction down the hallway towards my homeroom, expelling all thoughts of Cheryl and looking forward once again to the first day of my last year.
I got to my homeroom class and looked around for any familiar faces. I saw many people I knew but I wasn't friends with any of them, they weren't any of 'them' so I would be able to last in this class without any friends around me.
I walked to the back of the class and plopped down in the seat by the window. I put my backpack on the floor and shoved the headphones of my MP3 into my ears before resting my head on my desk and closing my eyes. I was just nodding off when suddenly a finger tapped my head. I shot up straight and pulled one headphone out of my ear hoping that it would be Adriane or Chris or somebody that I knew but... I wasn't exactly what I expected.
"Is this seat taken?" It was Matt, he had a little smile on his face as he motioned to the seat right next to mine.
"No," I mumbled making to put my ear bud back in.
"What're you listening to?" Matt asked in lazy tone while sitting down in the desk.
"Times Like These by Dave Grohl," I replied quickly, immediately turning my head to the window. I couldn't believe that he of all people was in my class, I felt like shooting myself because he was in here.
"Really? I love that guy! He drummed for Nirvana for a while and he's a pretty good vocalist and guitar player!" Matt replied enthusiastically to me. I wanted to ignore him but his manner of talking to people seemed to draw me in.
"Yea, he's pretty awesome," I said to him, the corners of my mouth threatening to smile.
"I'd totally do him," he winked at me and I snorted accidentally blowing a snot rocket at him.
"I'm so sorry!" my face burning red as I grabbed my face with my hands. I kept my face hidden feeling so embarrassed with myself for doing that. I heard a slight noise coming from him and risked a peek through my hands. He was... laughing softly, the edges of his eyes crinkling warmly. I brought my hands away from my face and gave him a questioning look.
"Sorry, I shouldn't be laughing at you for that," he took a tissue out of his bag and wiped the little booger on his pent leg, "It reminds me a time when me and my friend Josh were little. He decided to chase me around wiping boogers on me and I was a wuss of a little kid so I told on him," he smiled to himself, bunching up the tissue and threw it in the garbage can.
I sat there stunned, "Josh picked his nose?"
"When he wasn't eating them, he was wiping them on me," he started laughing again which caused me to laugh. His laugh was so infectious, no one could help themselves from laughing.
Suddenly, a girl flopped down in the desk in front of me. Nikki, she was Cheryl's best friend and just as terrible too. I loathed Nikki, she spread a bunch of rumours about me days after I came to this school. She told everyone that the reason I transferred schools so far away was because I'd slept with every guy at the school I'd been going to and people in the surrounding area, so I moved here to start all over again with fresh people. But I bet Cheryl told her and from there, things spread like wildfire!
"Hey there," Nikki said to me with a sneer, flashing her perfect bright white teeth in my direction, "When did you two become friends?"
"We're not," I mumbled, looking down at my desk.
"Oh!" She flipped her long perfectly curled, blonde hair over her shoulder and turned her bright blue eyes and blindingly bright smile to Matt.
I came back to my reality and shoved my headphone back into my ear, turning to look out the window again. I didn't belong in that world and thinking for even a second that I could look at Matt was completely wrong.
The teacher handed out or daily schedules before the bell rang for us to leave for the next period. Every morning I would have to deal with the two for half an hour before getting my freedom from their nauseating presence.
"I wish lunch would come sooner"
