Chapter 1: School Haze

She sat at her desk, listening to yet another pointless lecture by Mr. Thomas, the History teacher. She had her head rest in one hand while tapping her pencil on her desk in the other.

She looked at the clock, willing the bell to ring. She wanted to get out of there so she could go to the last class of the day.

She was looking forward to talking with her friends. When she looked back to the front of the room, Mr. Thomas was glaring at her, "Miss Finster, is this class boring you? Because if it is, you are welcome to go to the office, otherwise PAY ATTENTION!" Ana gave him her best wide fake smile.

"Of course I'm not bored Mr. Thomas, sir. I'm always looking forward to listening to your wonderful lectures." Mr. Thomas, with his eyes half glazed over, looked at Ana and gave her a simple, "Uh huh" and went back to his teaching.

About ten minutes later, the bell finally rang and class was over. In the hallway, sixteen-year-old Ana Finster was at her locker with her best friend, Sara DeVille talking. "So, the prom is coming up in a few months and I really hope Colt asks me to go with him."

Sara looked at her with a smirk and stated, "Still smitten with Colt Williamson, huh? He's the captain of the football team! Every girl is gonna want him to ask them to the prom."

Ana glared at Sara and said, "I have the highest GPA in our class, not to mention that I'm the class president and have a great fashion-sense. There is no way he wouldn't ask me."

Sara shook her head at her friend's self-praising and motioned for them to head for the last class for the day.

….

In homeroom, Ana had been working on her remaining class work of the day. When she finally finished, as if right on que, she looked up and saw Colt walk in.

But unknown to her, she was being watched herself. His name was Jack Thomas (son of Mr. Thomas the History teacher). He sat in the back of class and had the second highest GPA in the class.

He was also unpopular and a loser and a hopeless romantic who was hopelessly in love with Ana. He knew about her crush on Colt and he knew how wrong Colt was for her.

He only had two friends, brothers Jay and Cameron Busfield. They had met in Junior High and were friends ever since. "You know guys, I still don't know what she sees in Colt anyway. I mean just because he's captain of the football team doesn't mean he's as good as his image. Ana deserves better than him."

Colt looked at Ana and smiled and she smiled back. When Jack saw this, he put a hand to his forehead and shook it in disgust.

The bell finally rang and school was finally out. As everyone gathered up their stuff to leave, Jack had a love letter he wanted to give Ana. He had made a vow to give it to her before prom so she would go with him.

He knew better. He knew she was out of his league, but he was going to try anyway. Ana Finster deserved to be happy. He was going to make that happen.

….

At her locker, Ana was getting her back pack when Jack approached her, "Hey, Ana?" She looked up at him, "What do you want?!" Jack knew she was short tempered, selfish, and rude, but he loved her just the way she was. He would never want to change her.

"I….uh……I wanted to….uh…you see…I…" Jack was losing his nerve as he reached for the letter to hand to her. "Geez, Jack will you spit it out already?! I have a life too, ya know, and I want to get back to it!" Ana said impatiently.

Jack started to sweat, "I…I wanted to tell you t-that I-I think you l-look nice today!" He gave a nervous laugh and walked away without another word. He decided he would give her the letter another day.

Ana looked at him walk away with a look of confusion. Sara came over to her locker, "What was that all about? Jack Thomas talking to you? That's bad for your image."

Ana closed her locker and sighed as she swung her bag over her shoulder. "Tell me about it. He has no life and he's a loser with no friends, except for those two moronic brothers he hangs out with. It's kind of pathetic. To think he would make more of an effort to try to be a normal human being. I guess he's hopeless."

Sara rolled her eyes at Ana's bluntness, "You know, you should take it easy on him at least a little. He still isn't over his mother's death yet. Remember? You were at her funeral." Ana had to admit, she was a little hard him.

"Yeah, you're right. I completely forgot about that. I remember Mrs. Thomas. Sometimes she came to our History classes. She had one hell of a good sense of fashion. It was hard to imagine that she had cancer, she hid it so well. Maybe I should go apologize to him."

Ana said the word 'apologize' as if it was a foreign word to her. Sara smiled, "That sounds like a good idea." Sara waved as she walked away, leaving Ana pondering about whether to apologize to Jack or not.

If she was, she decided she was going to wait until tomorrow. Now, she just wanted to go home. She started to walk toward the entrance when she spotted Colt talking to his friends.

She smiled and decided she was going to initiate communication. She walked over to him and he smiled that charming smile of his that would make every girl drop to her knees.

"Ana Finster, what do I owe this pleasure?" Ana kept her smile and squealed a simple 'Hi' and momentarily lost her nerve, which is a rarity for her.

She was just about to talk again when he said, "You know, the prom is coming up in a couple of months. Do you want to go with me?"

Ana stood there with her smile wider than ever and she said, "Okay." She walked away fast and went out the door.

Colt looked at his friends, "See, I told you. she's going to be so easy. After prom, the deal will be done and Ana Finster, the smartest girl in our class, will be just another girl of many of my other conquests. This is going to be a piece of cake."