Chapter 1

The school bell rings. The rustle of students talking; the opening and closing of lockers.

I walk down the corridor trying to push my way through the crowd to get to locker 271; my own. Not seeing someone's foot out in the open; I trip. Paper flies, my books scatters and a loose leaf notebook falls open. I reach for it but a Nike shoe steps on it first. Then a hand picked it up.

"What's this, Scott, your new best seller; Confessions of a Queer?" He laughed; a long with everyone around him.

"Let go DeGraw…" Ethan DeGraw was King of Jackson High. He was captain of the football team, captain of the basketball team, he had a huge football scholarship to Yale, and he dated the most popular girl in school: Becky Johnson.

I wasn't jealous of DeGraw. Becky is, in my opinion, ugly, and I so do not want to go to Yale.

"Give it back to him!" I looked around to find… someone I didn't recognize. Not surprising, considering Jackson is a huge school, but I've seen at least everyone once. Even Ethan looked confused.

"And who are you?" he asked rudeness flowing through his voice. He seemed as if he was ready to hit her. No one stood up to Ethan DeGraw unless you wanted your ass kicked.

"My name is Jennifer Larson. Give him back his notebook." She told him as if she was giving him an order. Ethan looked her up, and so did I. she was kind of like… me. She had brown hair with streaks of red and amazing green eyes. She wore stripe checkered red pants with suspenders, a fish net shirt under a t-shirt with the British flag on it, and boots that looked a half size or so to big. She had a black and white scarf that hung behind her, two different arm bands, and… plugs; nice.

"Oh, heh, so you're sticking up for your own kind, eh? Well since you're new here I'll give you and sissy a warning." And with that, he left.

"Thanks… bastard…" she said the last word under her breath so only I could hear. "Here, let me help with that." I nodded. She picked up my notebook, pulled out a bandanna and wiped the mud off. "Do you mind?" she asked, indicating she wanted to look; I shook my head.

She flipped through the notebook, stopping every so often to gaze upon the page.

"You're an amazing writer" She said. She handed back the notebook.

"Thanks…" I said awkwardly. "I'm going to put my stuff away… you can come if you want."

"Thanks for the invite." She smiled. I walked over to my locker, opened it, and began to unload unnecessary things, replacing them with the necessary ones.

"Hey, you're my locker neighbor." She said and began to open locker 270.

"So what class do you have next?" I asked; hoping to let her skip off to it.

"You mean fifth period, after lunch?" I nodded. " Uh… fifth period… fifth period… oh, pre cal." Great, me too… I thought.

"Cool, so do I." I replied trying to sound enthusiastic. "You're in for a hell of a time though." She looked a bit confused. "Ms. Smith is a completely oblivious. This is one of the only classes you can do nothing and pass. Some kids smoke in her class and she notices nothing."

"Wow… stupid much." She said. I nodded in reply. "So where do you normally eat?" Is she going to fallow me around everywhere? I asked myself.

"Well…" I walked outside; Jennifer followed. "Over there," I pointed to a large set of cement stairs where Ethan and his friends were sitting. "Is where the "dumb asses" sit. Next to that by the big tree is where sophomores and juniors who don't really have a "classification" sit. In the corner over by the teachers lounge is the "crack head" area. Freshmen are separated by the friends they hang with. Finally, the "Emos and Punks" sit here." We arrived at a huge tree where I spent most of my school hours. The tree had branches everywhere; perfect for climbing.

"There's no one here…" Jennifer said, confused.

"Yeah there is; climb." So we climbed. Higher and higher and we began to see some people. "This is where we hang out. Even when we play hooky, we come here." All of a sudden, we heard blasting metal music. "Looks like Trevor brought his system today."

"Cool, Cannonball?"

"Sounds like it…"

That day had to be one of the best lunches I've had at the tree. Jennifer was so fun to hang out with, and it turned out that we didn't just have pre cal together. Four of our classes were the same, and the start of our relationship began.