"Look, I know you're nervous for the first day of school. But this will be good for you, Avery." Her mother says gently.
"I'm not nervous. I'm annoyed." She picks up a shirt she thinks might look good but instantly puts it back down once she sees the price tag.
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Of course you are." She responds back her words dripping with sarcasm and resentment. She doesn't understand her parents. She begged and pleaded to stay home in LA, but did they listen. Of course not! And now that she's here they say stuff like 'I'm sorry' and 'it's for the best'.
"What about this one?" Her mom holds up something pink and frilly. "This could be first day worthy."
"Mom, I hate pink, and ruffles. I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that." Her mom flinches but turns around so Avery can no longer see her hurt face.
Avery knew better. She shouldn't have made any death references. Especially two weeks after her sisters funereal.
"How's Allison?" Her mom asks, obviously trying to change the subject, and Avery happily obliges.
"Good. I'm going to her house later." Avery glides her hands over the different types of fabrics and refuses to meet her mother's eyes. She has a hard time doing that these days. Her sister looked so much like her, and looking at her mom now just reminds her of a ghost.
"As long as you don't stay out to late. It's the night before your first day of school." Her moms usual motherly over protectiveness shows through, making Avery feel a little less uncomfortable.
"Ugh, don't remind me." She moans. Once she finally throws an outfit together, that she deems acceptable, they check out and head home.
Every time Avery is alone with either of her parents, a silent awkward tension grows between them. So when they pull into the driveway Avery jumps out of the car and practically sprints to the door. She grabs her jacket quickly before heading back out and down the street. No more then twenty minutes later she's knocking on Allison's door softly and in a matter of seconds is swooped upstairs into the girls' room.
"Good you're here. I don't know why I'm so nervous. This is going to be like my hundredth first day at a new school." Allison plays with her sleeve like she usually does when she's nervous.
"Don't worry Allison everyone will love you and if they don't I'll just have my mom force them to love you like she did with me!" Avery adds, jumping onto her bed.
"I think it was the other way around." She responds lightly.
"That sounds about right." Avery laughs half-heartedly. Her mind wanders back to there first encounter.
The truth of the matter is that Allison was going on a run a week ago. When Avery's strikingly outgoing mother stopped her to ask her where the high school is.
"You see I have a daughter around the same age as you and she starts there in a week and we have no idea where to go." Avery's mom gushed
"Um actually I just moved in a while ago so I'm afraid I can't be much help." Allison responded lightly.
"Oh, you have to meet my daughter Avery." And Allison did have to, especially because of this strangers ability to be so sweet to a girl she didn't know.
And that's it. After Avery's mom guilt tripped this girl into coming into their house and introduced them, they both knew that they were bound to be friends, especially since they really didn't have a choice.
"Well, luckily for both of us your mom was so desperate for you to make friends." Allison says with a sly smile before turning around to face her closet.
"Amen sister." She agrees pointing up to the ceiling.
After about an hour they manage to distract each other just enough for the big day tomorrow. And as she makes the decently long walk home her mind wanders to the events that transpired over the following weeks. As they usually do now a days.
"You're not listening to me!" She can hear her voice rising but people still give her this look. The 'just nod and maybe she'll feel satisfied' look. "Quinn wouldn't have killed herself!" She begs people to understand.
"Avery, calm down." Her mom gently puts a hand on Avery's shoulder. And normally that would bring her down from whatever crazy world her head was in instantly, but not this time.
"No! Mom you don't get it! None of you do!" She groans while shaking her hands in the air.
"Yes honey we do. None of us thought she could do something like that, but no one ever does." Her step dad talks to her like he's convincing her to not jump of the top of a building.
"You have to keep investigating…" She throws her hands in the air. "You can't just give up!" She turns to the detective full of desperation.
"Look after they ruled your sisters death a suicide. There was really nothing left for us to do." The handsome detective tries to be supportive but ends up sounding annoyed.
She is rendered speechless. The rage makes her veins run hot and her head feels like it's going to explode. Her hands are clenched into fists with her nails digging into her palms. Tears start to pop up in her eyes but she pushes them down and storms out of the room. She had nowhere to go though… her room was off limits because she used to share with her sister. So instead of making the turn upstairs she took the one that would send her outside. And then she walks. Not knowing where she's going.
None of it made any sense. Her sister wouldn't kill herself. Quinn was happy. Sure she was acting different in the time before her death. But still Avery knew her sister wouldn't just leave her. So she took over the investigation. Some people might think she was absolutely crazy for investigating her own sisters 'suicide'. People like her parents for that matter. Causing them to uproot her form her life in LA and drag her here to Beacon Hills… Not that that would stop her though.
But for now, she at least had to make it look like she was moving on so she runs home the rest of the way. When she gets there she lays everything out for tomorrow and actually feels a ting of nerves. She grew up in L.A so she wasn't used to being the new girl. And when her alarm goes off the next morning she fly's into a frenzy of makeup and cloths. Luckily her big mess of curly brown hair is tamable. After putting on the little amount of makeup she uses to get her green brown eyes to pop, she's done and ready to go. She runs down stairs grabs an apple and her mom's keys and is out the door. First stop, Allison's house.
"Hey" Allison says jumping in the car.
"Hey. Pick a station and blast some music. Maybe I can distract my mind from school." Avery says grudgingly. She agrees and turns on radio, on the way to school Allison's mom calls twice. When they finally pull up and head to the office the lady behind the front desk tells them they can wait outside if they prefer. After handing them there schedules they gratefully accept the ladies offer. While they're waiting Allison's mom calls again, making sure she didn't forget anything. Bringing to Allison's attention that she forgot her pen.
"Do you have an extra?" she asks hopefully
"No, sorry I only brought one" Avery responds while mentally kicking herself
"Hello girls." The principle walks up to us and introduces himself giving them both a firm handshake. " Looks like you two are already acquainted. Come with me please, I'll take you to your first period English class" Allison and I do as we're told and fallow quietly behind him. When he opens the door to the class everyone turns and stares at the new arrivals. "Class these are our new students Allison Argent and Avery Mason. Please do your best to make them feel welcomed"
Avery stands there awkwardly and gives an unsure wave before fallowing Allison to two empty seats in the back. She takes the one behind Allison and watches as an extremely adorable boy turns around and hands Allison a pen. Avery kicks the back of her chair causing her to turn around and smile. She gives her a funny face and Allison rolls her eyes and turns back to the front of the class. She hears another chuckle and turns to see the guy next to Allison, who has amazing brown eyes but an extremely dorky hair cut, glancing back at her and smiling.
Great I guess I was bound to do something to embarrass myself at least once today. She thinks to herself
The rest of the day goes by as well as it could have. She didn't really know anyone in any of her classes, and she didn't bother to talk to any of them either. She did notice however, that the boy who caught her acting like a complete loser was in most of her classes, so yay to that. After school ended Allison and Avery agreed to meet at Allison's locker.
"Hey. So we survived." Avery says walking up to Allison while throwing herself against the lockers next to the burnet with a sigh.
"Yeah, I guess it wasn't so bad." Allison responds staring off into space. Or what Avery thought was space but once she fallowed her glance she saw that she was smiling at the same puppy dog eyed boy who lent her the pen.
"Ah, pen boy." She says with a nudge of Allison's arm.
"I have no idea what your taking ab—" But Allison never got a chance to finish her sentence before a strikingly beautiful red head cuts her off.
"That jacket is absolutely killer. Where did you get it?" The red head says oozing confidence.
"My mom was a buyer for a boutique back in San Francisco." Allison says with a small glance at Avery.
"Oh and I love your shoes." She says turning to Avery herself.
"Thanks I got them back in L.A." She replied lightly. There's not a lot she was confident about, but cloths, she could definitely figure out. Especially since her sister was a fashion major. Sure her style was… different but it always ended up coming together.
"And I think I just found my new best friends." They all chuckle lightly when an extremely attractive guy walks up behind the red head and wraps his arms around her. "Well I'm Lydia and this is Jackson."
"Um I'm Avery and this is Allison." She says back with a nod to the beautiful couple
"Welcome to Beacon Hills." Jackson replies giving them both a dazzling smile. That Avery could have sworn was copyrighted from Ryan Gosling.
"So this weekend there's a party." Lydia says.
"A party?" Allison replies.
"Yeah Friday night. You guys should come." Jackson adds.
"Um I can't, family nights Friday. Thanks for asking though." Allison replies
LIE! Avery thinks to herself.
"Aw too bad. How about you?" The couple turns to Avery.
"Well I just moved here last week so my mom might force me to have an 'exciting' weekend of unpacking, but I'll try to get out of it." She lied.
Really she unpacked almost everything and her mom would be ecstatic to let her out, but Avery has never been to a really party before, or even had a drink for that matter. At her last school she was friends with a small group of girls, and there idea of a good time was a good movie and an amazing wifi connection. Sure she would try every year to bump up her fashion and attitude to 'rebuild' herself to get into the elite popular crowd. And now that she was the new girl she actually had a chance, and here she goes freaking out.
"You should definitely try, everyone's going after the scrimmage." Jackson adds in
"You mean like football?" Allison asks leaning against the lockers next to Avery.
"Footballs a joke here, are you kidding. The sport here is lacrosse. We've won state championship for the past 3 years." He says slyly.
"Because of a certain team captain." Lydia adds while ruffling Jackson's hair.
That or maybe it's because every other school is focused on football, because no one else cares about lacrosse. Hell, what is lacrosse… that's the net stick game right? Avery thinks to herself.
Allison and Avery look at each other and Avery throws her eyebrows up in a questionable look, Allison just shrugs and turns back to the conversation with a smile.
"Well we practice in a few minutes, that is if you don't have any where else to be?"
"Well we were going to—" Avery starts to offer.
"Perfect, you're coming." Lydia grabs each of there arms and swoops them away. When they get to the field Lydia leads them to the top of the bleachers and plants herself down between the two girls. Avery glances back at Allison and sees that a certain boy, who has a remarkable resemblance to a little puppy, AKA pen boy, has already caught her attention.
"Who's that?" Avery asks gesturing to pen boy who currently resides in the goal.
"Him? I'm not sure who he is." she looks stumped "Why?"
"Just wondering… he's in our English class and apparently has the eye for Allison over there." Allison leans back and hits her arm lightly.
"Yeah I don't know him." Just then puppy boy stops like 5 balls from passing him and making it into the goal.
"Seems good." Allison says with a smile
"Very good." Avery agrees. Just then Jackson moves to the front of the line with a determined look chiseled onto his face.
"This on the other hand doesn't look good," Avery adds.
And then Jackson's off running towards the goal. The tension builds and then finally he releases the ball and it goes flying into the net. But not the net everyone expected, instead it went into Scott's lacrosse stick net. All three of the girls let out and excited cheer, Lydia being the loudest and even standing to her feet. Avery looks at Jackson and sees he's not happy with Lydia. And instead of seeing the embarrassed look that Avery thought she would see on Lydia's face, when she looked back up at her, she sees a sassy ' I cheer for whoever does the best so you should fix that' look.
Puppy boy dominated the rest of the practice. And by the time it was over Lydia, Allison, and Avery all had a silent but mutual agreement of friendship.
"Well I guess we'll see you tomorrow." Avery says to Lydia as she walks off to the parking lot to go meet Jackson.
"See you tomorrow." She waves over her shoulder not bothering to turn around.
"We like her right?" Avery asks Allison.
"I think so… yeah." Allison says a bit confused by the whirlwind of friendship that was blown to them.
"OK just making sure. Come on lets go." Avery laughs a little and they both jump in the car. A couple of hours latter Avery is txting Allison in her room and is secretly working on the investigation.
The day before they left L.A. Avery had to take apart her sister bed to sell and as she lifted up the mattress she saw her sisters diary. Really it was a terrible cliche to hide her diary under her bed but Avery couldn't bug her about it anymore so she let it go. And since then Avery was reading every single page to see if anything might have been written to help her out. For the longest time it was extremely boring. There was a guy named Zeke she liked from the coffee shop and she would go to some amazing college party like once every month. But then there was this really weird entry a month before her death.
Dear diary,
I woke up today and had no recollection of what happened last night. I went to the bathroom to take a shower and saw a huge dog bite on my hip. I'm worried that the dog that bit me might have some type of disease because I feel weird. All my senses have been heightened and I think that might be a symptom. But it's not like I can just tell my parents. I mean they don't even know I drink. So I called the doctor and made an appointment for the day after tomorrow. Hopefully whatever I have can be treated.
Till next time,
Quinn
Avery sits up on her bed. She had no memory of sister ever having a dog bite. She reads on to the next entry. Which is a week later.
Dear diary,
Sorry I haven't written in a while but a lot has been going on. The weirdest thing happened, the next day after I got the dog bite. It healed completely. Like I imagined the whole thing. And then I was walking down the street the next night and I swear someone was following me. And then this guy comes out of nowhere and starts telling me something about full moon and my 'condition'. So I ran. I went to the library and studied all night with the scattered information the stranger gave me. And I think I finally figured out what's wrong with me. I cant' write it down incase anyone ever finds this. But I can say that I'm freaking out!
Till next time,
Quinn
Just then there's a knock at the door. I shove the diary under my pillow and answer.
"Dinner is ready honey it's downstairs." Her mom says peaking out from behind the door.
"Ok!" Avery replies a little too excited. " I'll be down in a minute." Her mom nods questionably and walks out.
Avery runs down stairs. Shoves the whole plate of food in her mouth in record time and runs off to her bed room to try and read some more of the diary but just as she sits down she her phone starts ringing. She answers and it's Allison. Saying something about hitting a dog and then having a date with pen boy and apparently his name is Scott Macaw.
Looks like she really is going to that party after all. But sadly all the friends she has in Beacon hills have a date to the party so looks like she's going to be flying solo.
By the time she hangs up with Allison she knows she should go to sleep. So she gets everything ready for tomorrow and lies down. She falls asleep almost instantly and has some weird dream where she was fighting with her sister. She gets those a lot these a days.
Her alarm is her worst enemy so she has no problem beating him every morning to get it to shut up. Really what kind of jerk would tear her away from the little time she still had with her sister every night. That damn alarm clock!
She rolls out of bed and checks her phone. Turns out Allison's mom is letting her barrow her car so she doesn't need a ride. Which means Avery can take her time getting ready and dress extra cute today. Hey, who knows maybe she can land a date to the party. That would make it her first party and her first date… great go awkward high school experiences.
She pulls up to school early. Dressed in a maroon skirt with a black and white patterned shirt that cuts off where the skirt starts and strappy black sandals, matched with a black cuff bracelet and black earrings. She sits on the bench outside and takes out the diary to read some more. The next entry is 2 weeks after the last, 3 weeks after the dog bite, and one from before her death
Dear diary,
Sorry it's been so long. But I've been busy being an actress. I found a group of people with the same…'condition' as mine. And I might have found the cure for my problem too. This girl in my 'group' said there was this rumor a while back that might have something to do with the cure. Except it involves something that I don't know I can do… I have to kill the leader of my group.
I can barely kill a spider and now I have to kill a person! I don't know if I can do it but I do know one thing. I'm not going to stay like this. I can't risk hurting Avery. I won't. The full moon is coming a week from today and I would rather die then hurt my family. But I would rather kill him before I die. So looks like I'm going alpha hunting.
Hopefully I'll write again,
Quinn