"Selena, if I could dare to bother you for a just a moment, I was explaining to the class, quite wonderfully, if I do say so myself, the problems with Freud's psychoanalysis theories."

Professor McGreggor snapped Selena out of her reverie. She was daydreaming out the window, looking out at the rain, wondering how her day could get any worse.

"Would you care to reiterate one of the points I just made?" McGreggor asked, with a smirk, crossing his arms in front of his beer belly.

Selena stared up at the man that stood in front of her desk. He looked very much like a polished ostrich egg. He was very large and round, bald, and had beady black eyes, which looked down at her like she didn't deserve to be in his class. Which, to be honest, she didn't.

Everyone here at the prestigious university got here because their rich daddies donated large amounts of money for the campus to "use as necessary." Selena, who couldn't afford to put gas in her lime green, Volkswagen beetle, was here solely because of a very generous scholarship. And everyone knew it.

"Umm, I, uh…" she stuttered, pushing a frizzy dark brown strand of hair behind her ear. "Freud, th-thought that, uh, women wanted to have male body parts. Which, I think, is just gross."

The whole class snickered, and Selena turned bright red. McGreggor was not amused.

"Miss Fitzgerald, if you wanted to be the class clown, perhaps you would've fared better in community college," he sneered, turning on his heel, and returning to the front of the classroom.

Selena's heart dropped. She knew she didn't belong. With her hand-me-down sneakers and frayed jeans, she stuck out from all the designer bags and Luis Viton sunglasses. Maybe she would've fared better at one of the local colleges in Kansas. But Maddox University was one of the best in the entire country, and she always strived for the best. And it wasn't like she was stupid or anything. Valedictorian of her class wasn't anything to look down at. It was just this stupid school code that said everyone needed to take a social studies course before they could graduate. She'd been putting it off for so long because, well, frankly, she sucked at it. And now it was her last year and the only thing standing between her and her degree was this psychology class with the professor from hell.

After class, Selena slid into her car and turned the key. Great, almost no gas. With almost no money. She looked into her wallet and found one lone $20 bill. Guess it's Ramen night.

The car ride home was a silent one. Selena didn't want to talk to anyone. They would all just want to talk about her douchebag ex-boyfriend. She didn't want to turn on the radio. All she would hear is either a whiny song by Carly Rae Jepsen or "news" about the New York alien invasion, which is all they've been talking about for five months. She just wanted to sit there in silence.

She stopped by her job after getting gas to see if they needed her to come in, but turns out, not a lot of people were buying books at Barnes and Noble on Halloween. Now there was nothing to distract her from her thoughts. She thought about going to see a movie, but thought against it. What if she saw Derek and Stacy out together, and they noticed her there alone? Pathetic, they would think.

"Guess it's just me and my books tonight," she sighed, pulling into her driveway. She couldn't even look forward to the company of trick-or-treaters, since she didn't have enough money to buy a bag of candy.

She walked up the pathway, daydreaming about when she could start replacing the old shingles, chipped paint, and perhaps design a new wing to the old farmhouse. The night was strangely quiet, even though she lived off the main road, surrounded by a thin border of trees. Usually she heard some birds chirping or a car or two. Maybe even a stray jogger. But today, nothing. It was like the whole world was holding its breath.

Selena stood on her porch, keys and hand, looking around. "Everything seems okay," she murmured to herself, unlocking her door.

She placed her keys on the coffee table in the small but cozy living room and flopped on the couch, staring at the ceiling. What a day. Just then, "Sexy and I Know It" went off in her coat pocket.

"I desperately need to change my ringtone," Selena said, fishing the flip phone out. "Hello?"

"Lena, are seriously still mad at Stacy?" asked a gruff voice on the other end.

Selena leaned forward and actually looked at the phone. "Did you seriously just ask me that, Jason?"

"Are you seriously gonna mope about this? You two have been close friends for almost four years now. Since you were freshmen."

"Which is why I'm gonna mope about it! She slept with my boyfriend!" She knew there was no point in arguing with him. Jason had had a crush on Stacy since she had accidently bumped into him in the hallway a few weeks after breast implants. She practically walked on water to him.

"Do you know that for sure?" he asked pointedly.

"She was naked and asleep in his bed!"

"Oh."

"Yeah."

A moment of silence.

"Well, maybe…" he started.

"No, no maybes, Jason. I'm done with her. She and Derek have been taking advantage of me since the day I met them. Always using me for tutoring. Always needing advice. Always making excuses of why they can't do stuff with me. No, I'm done with them both. And if you are gonna be like this and take their side, then I'm done with you too," she stated and before she could change her mind, she slammed the phone shut and chucked it into a pillow on the other side of the couch.

All of a sudden, Selena was exhausted. The events of the week just seemed to circle around in her head making her dizzy. She just needed sleep, even though it was only, according to her $5 Iron Man watch, 6:30. Friday night, especially Halloween Friday Night, is meant for parties, meeting cute non-cheater boys, and dressing up ridiculously with no judgment. But since Selena was virtually a social outcast, and, frankly, just didn't want to be bothered, she slowly dragged herself upstairs and down the hallway to her bedroom.

The first thing she noticed was the glass.

There were little shiny shards of glass coming from her bedroom door. She paused, all of her muscles tense. She couldn't hear anything, nothing at all, except the trees rustling outside. She took a step and silently cursed the old wooden planks for squeaking under her feet. She made it to her door, took a deep breath, and peered around the doorframe.

Everything was in place. Nothing looked stolen or moved. But Selena didn't take that into account. All she saw was the glass on the ground, the window with the gaping hole in the center, and slender, raven-haired man passed out on her Hello Kitty sheets.

Please Review! - SB