"And so, to balance the equation, you have to put a two in front of Chlorine, and…"
I sighed boredly, doodling in the margin of the otherwise blank sheet of looseleaf in front of me. Sure, I was supposed to be writing notes on balancing equations like my Chemistry teacher was droning on about at the front of the class in that impeccable monotone of hers, but I already understood how to do it, so I gave in to my urge to simply tune her out. This class was so boring, it actually, physically hurt. No, wait. That's probably just my butt getting pins and needles from me sitting on it for hours in the extremely uncomfortable school desks.
As I was no longer listening to the Chemistry teacher (blech), my mind quickly wandered, and sadness overwhelmed me. Today was the last day of school. Now, normally, this would be a cause for extreme partying, but today was different—my best and only friend (well, aside from my brother, but he doesn't really count) was leaving the province today, after school. This was the last day I had with my best friend Sam.
Now, how could I possibly describe Sam? Hmm…oh, I've got it: STRANGE, with a capital 'S'…and capital every other letter, for that matter. She wears mismatched socks, is constantly "borrowing" one of my shoes and "lending" me one of hers. She puts depressing songs about death and breaking up and peppy, upbeat songs about dancing on the same CD as rap songs with tons of swears and talk of drugs and country gospel songs. 'Man, she is one messed-up chick', is what you might be thinking about now. Well, that's only the tip of the iceberg—she makes food using the strangest combinations of food—peanut butter, lettuce, and anchovies, for example—and always claims it tastes good…and actually eats it. And in spite of all her strangeness—or perhaps it was because of it—I loved her to death.
Too bad she's leaving today.
I glanced at Sam as she sat in front of me, her curly blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail, her pen sprinting along the paper as she copied down the notes from the board—not that she needed it; she had fairly good grades in this class, and she understood balancing the equations just fine, so she'd probably just hand the finished notes off to her "favorite slacker of the day"… don't ask.
At last, the bell rang, cutting off the teacher and sending all the teens in the Grade 10 Chemistry class scrambling go gather their books and rush off to lunch. I managed to get out of the room right behind Sam, and I grabbed her arm with my free hand, causing her to look back at me with a very strange expression. I fought the laughter that bubbled in my throat—man, but it was hard! But I guess that by now, I should've gotten used to the overall utter strangeness that made up my best friend, but I still found it funny after two years of the insane spontaneity of Sam. I overlooked her pout as a chuckle escaped my lips.
"What?" Sam huffed, sounding slightly offended. I rushed to save face in her opinion. I didn't want anything stupid on my part to wreck my final day with her.
"Whaddya say we hit Tastee's down the street to commemorate the last day of school? My treat," I added hurriedly. As soon as I saw her Cheshire cat grin, I knew my allowance for that week had just gone down the drain.
"Sounds like a plan, Tor," she said, still grinning. "Gonna bring your bro along? We wouldn't want poor Demmy to throw a fit 'cuz he wasn't invited along for celebratory ice cream, now, would we?" she winked as we reached her locker and she pulled it open, throwing her books haphazardly in her still-messy locker.
Throwing my books in my own locker, three lockers down, I quickly shut and locked it and bustled off to the cafeteria to retrieve my brother before he spent his money on unnecessary cafeteria food. I quickly spotted him in a spot in line, and rushed over to him.
"Demyx!" I exclaimed, grabbing my dirty blonde-haired brother by the wrist as I reached him. "Tastee's. Now."
No further words were needed, for Tastee's was one of Demyx's favorite not-so-well-known restaurants in town. Honestly, Strathmore wasn't one of the biggest towns there was—the population didn't even hit the quadruple digits—but there was still plenty of places to grab a bite to eat for a town of its size, and Tastee's was Demyx's—as well as Sam's and my—personal favorite. I'll admit, they really knew what they were doing there.
Demyx and I rejoined Sam at her locker and rushed down to the restaurant, chatting about summer plans—mostly Demyx's, since neither Sam nor I wanted to talk of the impending doom that loomed over our heads, which was soon to strike a fatal blow to both our friendship and our summer plans for fun. Thankfully, Demyx's bubbly, talkative nature made up for our semi-silence until we reached the restaurant.
My suspicions were aptly justified—Sam ordered a Denver, a strawberry cheesecake sundae, a chocolate milkshake, and a medium fries. I sighed and decided to suck it up and pay for that, my own chicken burger and shake, and Demyx's grilled cheese sandwich, Skor blizzard, 7Up, and grilled chicken Caesar wrap to munch on on the way home from school.
'My poor allowance…' I silently mourned the loss of my dear, hard earned cash. I'll have you know I put several hours of pouting, whining, and sucking up into getting that big of an allowance for both myself and Demyx every week!
"Yo, princess, if you don't quit moping about spending money on your brother and best friend, I'm gonna steal your shake," Sam said offhandedly, knowing how sensitive I was about people stealing my drink. I quickly grabbed it in a protective manner, glaring at her with an insane look on my face. My brother laughed as he sipped his 7Up, causing me to growl at him. I was satisfied when the 7Up came out his nose from laughing too hard. That'll teach him to laugh at his little sister. Bwahaha, and all that jazz. I'm too lazy to be evil.
The rest of the day passed much too quickly. Much to my amazement, Sam, for once, sat out on the bleachers with me in Gym class, just so we could talk. Once again, we managed to skirt around the subject of her leaving, but I knew we'd have to confront it at the end of the school day. Math and Futures In Business (a.k.a. The Most Pointless Class In the History Of the Earth) passed without anything interesting happening, as only our Chemistry teacher was stupid and cruel enough to give us notes on the last day of school.
In case you haven't noticed, I really hate my Chemistry teacher.
Anyways, the end of the day—the time I'd been dreading ever since Sam told me she'd be leaving then—finally rolled around. Now, I was happy and sad at the same time—sad for obvious reasons, but happy for Sam because she'd get to make a fresh start in a bigger school where I was sure she'd get more than one friend (or two, if you count Demyx), and happy because the final bell that sounded also signalled summer vacation, which symbolized sleeping in, pool time with Demyx, and not having to worry about Demyx bringing home bruises from a beating by the bully I had yet to catch in the act. However, though I was both happy and sad now, the sad indefinitely outweighed the happy.
As Sam emptied her locker into her bookbag and a large duffel bag, I put my books in my bookbag (I'd already cleaned out my locker two days ago), pulling out a bundle of denim tied with a pretty purple satin ribbon—the kind Sam liked to tie her hair back with. Biting my lip, I hesitantly handed Sam the bundle, the people whose lockers stood between ours being gone already.
"Um…here. Hope you like it," I said, retracting my hand and nervously scratching the back of my head as she took it from me. I watched out of the corner of my eye as she undid the ribbon, pocketing it, and shook out the bundle, which was really just a pair of jeans.
Her eyes visibly widened. She looked slack-jawed. I gave a tiny grin. 'Mission accomplished.' The jeans had vines crawling up the sides of the legs with roses growing on them, had a picture of a guitarist with shadowy features on the back of the right pant leg with a caption that said "Rock Out!" on it, and a pile of cookies on the front of the left leg with a caption that said "A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand".
I almost fell over from the intense glomp I suddenly received. I honestly thought my ears were going to bleed from the quiet, yet surprisingly high-pitched, squeal that Sam then emitted from right next to my ear.
"All right already!" I laughed quietly. "You're welcome. Now gimme your foot for a moment." I whipped out a white fabric marker and, on the foot she stuck out which she was still wearing my "borrowed" shoe on, I wrote my signature on the black canvas shoe with white details.
"Hey… You got a black one of those, Tor?" I heard her ask. I was surprised, but then understood what she was thinking. I dropped the white fabric marker back in my bag, drawing out my black one and handing it to her as she crouched over my shoe I had of hers—which was the exact opposite coloring of my original one—and signed her name on my "borrowed" shoe of hers. As she stood and gave me back my marker, she grabbed me in another hug before I could object.
"I'm not gonna say goodbye, 'cuz I'm definitely gonna come back here next summer to steal your pool," Sam said in a watery voice. I pouted while she couldn't see my face. Dangit, she was gonna make me cry if she kept this up!
"…You'd better go, Sam. Don't wanna miss your plane…" I smiled. "Besides, I'll e-mail you. There are ways for us to stay in touch." I gave her one last squeeze and pulled away, slinging the straps of my bookbag over my shoulders.
Sam gave me a watery smile as she wiped her eyes and grabbed both her bags, heading for the doors. "I'll see you later, Tor," she called back over her shoulder.
I grinned back, trying to look happy and confident, but not really sure how well it worked. "Later," I said, waving at her before she completely left the building. 'Aw, man. Now I have to go find Demyx so he can cheer me up before I end up crying after all.'
As I wandered towards where Demyx's locker was situated, where I knew he would be waiting for me, I began hearing some sounds, even though by that time, the school could have easily passed as a ghost town. I urged my feet to move faster, aware of what it very well might be.
Boy, do I hate being right.
As I turned the corner to where Demyx's locker was, a chill went down my spine as I saw some guy with blood red hair that I recognized as being in Grade 11, the same as Demyx, beating my brother up, as he wasn't even trying to fight back. My gaze switched over to a blonde kid I realized was in my grade—he wasn't watching the one-sided fight, but he wasn't trying to stop it, either, which really ticked me off. But as I approached the three to stop the beating my brother in no way could've deserved, a boy with somewhat messy black hair and bangs that fell over one of his eyes came from around another corner that was much closer to the trio. We made eye contact for a moment, and he must've seen the pure rage in my face as I continued towards my brother's bully.
"I think it would be in your best interest to quit beating on him," the black-haired boy said, surprising me, and causing the redhead to turn in the direction of the newcomer onto the scene.
The redhead simply snorted as he saw who it was. I was now standing not a foot away from him, waiting, albeit impatiently, for him to stop running his mouth, as he was now speaking.
"Yeah, and what're you gonna do about it, Zexion? Hit me with a book? Hah!"
The black-haired boy, whom I now knew to be Zexion, stole another glance at me and stated, "I'm not going to do anything; I just thought it fair to give you a warning, since she looks pissed."
Finally, the jerk turned back to face me with a look of surprise—neither he nor the blonde kid had seen me approaching, as they'd been looking at Zexion, and Demyx had been a tad busy getting his tail kicked. Forcing a smile that was anything but happy, I promptly delivered a punch to his stomach, then smashed his head into my knee when he doubled over, causing him to fall to the ground, clutching both places I'd injured. I turned a venomous glare at the blonde kid who'd done nothing, and then turned to my stunned brother, who was leaning against the lockers, his bag a few feet away from him. I hastily grabbed it for him, then slung his left arm over my shoulder.
"Can you walk okay?" I inquired, not usually one to fuss over people, but I was used to doing so with Demyx—as our mother had left us when I was 10 and Demyx was 11, I was, in a way, his 'replacement mother'.
Demyx gave me one of his brilliant smiles I loved, and I almost cried for the second time in one day. How could anyone beat up such a lovely boy as him?
"I'm fine, Tor. I got a bit of a limp, I think, but I'm fine. Don't worry about it, really," he insisted, but I was stubborn, and kept his arm over my shoulder anyways, carrying his surprisingly light bookbag by means of a strap slung over one arm, and my hand on the other arm supporting Demyx as we headed towards the main doors exiting the school. A quick glance behind proved true the fact that Zexion had already disappeared off to Lord-knows-where, and the blonde kid that'd been with the insufferable bully was helping said bully off the ground. I urged Demyx on a little faster as we turned a corner, but I was annoyed to still be able to hear their conversation as we approached the exit.
"Man! She's a fiery devil, isn't she, Rox? She oughta join our gang!"
The blonde sighed. "It's not even a gang, numbskull. We're the only two people in it!"
I swear I could almost hear that idiot's grin as he replied, "That's 'cuz no one else was cool enough to be in it. But, man! Did you see her, Rox? All those piercings, and—!"
I don't think I'd ever been happier to leave that school. Pausing on the steps to retrieve Demyx's grilled chicken Caesar wrap from his bookbag, I handed it to him to munch on as I helped him home. The summer I had both been eagerly awaiting and dreading had now officially begun.
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A/N: Yes, this is a new story by me. I've already got part of the second chapter done, and I've written down where I want this story to go and how I want it to end, so there is a much better chance of me actually finishing it than ones I've started before. :) Hope you enjoyed this first chapter! The review button is just sitting there... in purple... you know you want to click it... ;)