Heeeyyyyy guys, thanks for clicking! This is the second time this story has been posted due to revisions, and I think it's a bit better than it was previously.

I was inspired by Leslie the Sorceress and her story 'On My Own', which is also a high school AU, and which you should totally check out if you haven't already. Also check out her other story 'Breathe' which is almost the same as 'OMO' but not quite. They're very good.

Anyway, I hope you like this enough to follow and review and all that jazz.

I own all characters except the ones you recognize.

Read on and please enjoy :)

I see your face in my mind as I drive away,
Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way.
People are people, and sometimes we change our minds.
But it's killing me to see you go after all this time.

Music starts playin' like the end of a sad movie,
It's the kinda ending you don't really wanna see.
Cause it's tragedy and it'll only bring you down,
Now I don't know what to be without you around.

And we know it's never simple, never easy.
Never a clean break, no one here to save me.
You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand,

And I can't breathe without you
But I have to.
Breathe without you
But I have to.

'Breathe'- Taylor Swift

I think I'll start this story on a crisp, cold morning in July. Imagine, if you will, a shopping center. It's Saturday, so the place is jam-packed with people, all of them rushing in every direction, intent on getting where they want to go, whether it be to work or the movies or to grab a bargain in one of the many shops that cluster the plaza. The corridors and aisles are pulsing and noisy with hundreds of voices talking over the top of each other. The sea of people is overwhelming. Everyone is moving... well, almost everyone.

In the midst of all these people, a girl stands outside a shop- Sanity, to be exact- ignoring the crowd that moves around her like a river around a boulder, focused instead on a figure inside the shop. She stands there for a while, just staring, before the figure disappears behind a shelf and she's jolted away from the sight by one of the rushing people. Mussed hair, wide eyes, quick apologies; then both of them are off in different directions, and the girl is looking behind to make sure she didn't miss anything.

"Mich!"

She looks down to see a young girl with crossed arms and serious expression, tapping her foot.

"Mum's been looking everywhere for you!"

She looks behind again, nodding absently. "Yeah, ok." Her eyes widen as the figure she was looking at before emerges from the shop and walks across the crossway, and she starts to back away, hoping she won't be seen. Halfway across, he's met by someone else, someone who walks coolly out of Supre and lets herself be caught up in his arms, someone who makes the girl's shoulders sag and turn away. The two of them kiss for a minute, ignoring the dirty looks the people around give them, and the little girl points to them, wrinkling her nose.

"Hey, isn't that-"

"Yeah." She pushes the pointing hand away and sets the girl in the other direction. "Yeah, it is."

The little girl rolls her eyes and grabs her hand. "Oh come on, you're not-"

"No, I'm not," she interrupts, but still she stands there watching the couple as they kiss and smile and talk and tease until they decide to go, walking down the center arm-in-arm and still she watches, until they're out of sight and the little girl is truly impatient.

"You're pathetic," she sighs, and pulls her away. The girl lets herself be taken, her mind occupied somewhere else entirely.

Another morning. The sun shines through the worn-out curtains of a small bedroom in a large-ish house in a small Australian town, illuminating a lumpy shape under the covers. On the nearby bedside table, a small electronic tablet vibrates, and a white arm slowly feels its way out of its warm cocoon, picks up the object, and retreats back whence it came.

I powered up my device, the bright light shocking my sleepy eyes under the stifling darkness of the quilt, and found the 'recent updates' tab down the bottom of the screen. Two likes and one comment on Intsagram and one Kik message. I tapped the Kik symbol.

'R U awake?'

Em. I yawned as I typed in a reply.

'I am now.'

'Wat r u doin?'

I smiled and shook my head. 'Looking 4 a dictionary.'

'Y?'

'So i can thro it in ur face.'

'wateva.' A pause as the words above the message read Emma Smith is typing. 'I tht u said u were goin 2 help me make a costume?'

'Soz i forgot.' I went to my homepage and sent two messages, then returned to find a new one.

'sum frend u truned out 2 B. i'm freaking out here.'

'its not until the end of the month.'

'im still freaking out.'

Two reply messages appeared, to which I clicked the button 'add people' and selected two names. 'Bex and Dez r here.'

'hi guys.'

'morning.'

'is it morning already?'

'afraid so.'

I left the chat room then, pulling up Pinterest instead. Monitoring the back-and-forth messages as they pinged into my updates box, I browsed through pictures of formal dresses and hairstyles- the formal wasn't until next year, but it didn't hurt to plan ahead- until I got a message that was obviously meant for me.

It was from Dez. 'hey mich.'

'what.'

'i saw P yesterday.'

My relatively happy mood dropped like a lead balloon, the way it always did when a certain name came up. 'were you the plaza?'

'yeah, he came in to maccas with E. they r disgusting together.'

I thought back to the sight I had witnessed yesterday and my stomach churned. 'i kno. i saw them 2. PDA much?'

'as if we don't have enough of that school.'

'ugh i kno. i hate them so much.'

'careful, ur starting 2 sound a bit jelly.'

'of who, Esme?'

'maybe.'

'plz tell me ur jk.' I was not, under any circumstances, jealous of Esme Azarola. Not one bit.

I should probably tell you who all these people are before I go any further. This Esme who I am soooo not jealous of? She's the meanest mean girl you will ever meet. You know all those cliche blonde chicks in the movies? She's waaay worse. She's gorgeous, of course- tanned, perfect skin; soulful, dark eyes; the longest, curliest brown hair I have ever seen; and a slender, toned body that was the inspiration to pretty much every girl in the school. She was Spanish, or Italian, or some European nationality, and her mother was filthy rich- well, compared to everyone else, anyway. We didn't live in the richest neighborhood, here or in the last place we had been. I had known her since primary school, so I think I'm pretty qualified to say that you did not want to get in Esme Azarola's bad books. I don't know how she did it, but that girl had a way of making your life a living nightmare if she didn't like you. She was queen bee and was not to be crossed.

And there was no reason, absolutely no reason at all, for me to be jealous of her. I mean she did have awesome hair and was dating my ex-boyfriend of 9 months, but I sure as hell wasn't jealous.

Ah, the ex. The mysterious 'P'. His name was Phoebus James, and we had gone out for about two months at the end of 10th grade. He was blonde and tall and adorable, and I had been crushing on him for nearly a year and a half when the girls I hung out with at that time decided to ask him out for me. They thought it was about time I got a boyfriend and 'grew up a bit', and being the impressionable, lovesick 15 year old I was, I agreed. He was my first real crush (unless you counted a brief obsession with an older boy when I was 12) and I thought he was wonderful. Of course I never thought he could be anything other than sweet, shy, nerdy Phoebus, the new boy who had no real status yet, so I happily entered the relationship without thinking of what the future might bring.

I think you can guess the rest of the story. Two months of happiness, then it ended one warm summer morning before school. I heard the news via my friends, one of whom had being messaging him the night before and was told that he wanted to end it but didn't know how. She had volunteered to tell me and that was that. It was over. He had broken my heart, and I had never gone out with a boy again. Even now, 9 months later, when some of my friends were easily going from boy to boy, I was still prone to occasional flashbacks and nostalgia for the only boy I had ever given my heart to. Pathetic, I know, but that's just the way I am. I love hard and fall hard, and I take forever to heal.

But I still wasn't jealous.

'i'm jk.' came the reassuring message, and I sighed with relief. 'so what were u doing yesterday?'

'helping mum find some shoes. and i found some cat ears for Em.'

'cool.'

A new message popped up, this one from Em. 'where r u guys?'

'im here,' i typed, shifting around under the covers. It was starting to get hard to breathe now, but I wasn't ready to enter the cold morning air just yet. 'just saying that i found u some cat ears yesterday.'

'wat do they look like?'

'black and pink with bows and bells.'

'nice.'

'so r u goin 2 wear the dress or the shorts?'

'idk yet.'

Here Bex popped in. 'i dont like the dress. its too goth punk, not wat ur looking 4.'

'i agree.'

'i dunno, i think Em could pull off the goth-punk-fairy-cat-look.'

'tru dat.'

And it is true. The only one in our group who is actually my age, Emma Smith is considered- by me, anyway- the prettiest of all of us. She's South African, with dark-ish skin that I swear sparkles sometimes. Her teeth are crooked and her eyelashes are a little stumpy, but her eyes are large and brown, her features pretty much perfect, her ombre hair thick and tousled. Her fashion sense is sophisticated, and she can pull pretty much anything off if she wants to. If we weren't friends I think I would be insanely jealous of her, because she really is beautiful in an imperfect kind of way.

We were trying to put together a costume for her, for the annual mid-year dance that was happening at the end of July, about a month away. A 'Costume Ball', the posters called it. Usually there was a particular theme, but obviously they had run out of ideas because this year it was simply 'Cosplay'. Em was going as a cat, and since she was the only one of us going, she was trying to make up for it by enlisting our help with the costume. At the moment she was torn between shorts or a gauzy black skirt I had bought in a moment of insanity that one time JayJays.

'i'm not going 2 the dance in sum gauzy fairy crap,' came the final verdict. 'i like the shorts.'

'cool.' I was gasping now, so I reluctantly pulled the covers off my head and squinted at my bedside clock, noting as I did that the bed next to mine was empty and probably had been for some time. Oh crap... 'U guys, it's 8:15. we're gonna B late.'

'not me, i'm heading out in a minute.' I could almost hear Dez laughing at my lack of organization. "don't tell me ur still in bed?'

'guilty as charged.' I threw off the covers and winced as the winter air nipped at my arms and legs, shivering as I shuffled around my tiny room looking for my uniform shirt.

Dez- Desiree Jennings for long- is my best friend. Half-French, 15 years old, too clever for her age and obsessed with horses, she may be crazy but she's probably also the sanest one of us all. She's not the prettiest girl in the world but she makes up for it with her long hair and wide smile, and by being the voice of reason in more than a few situations. Constantly optimistic despite having problems of her own, she is an inspiration to me and one of the few people I completely trust.

Rebekah McKenzie is a different story altogether. 14, flame-haired and as giddy as Galinda Upland, Bex is obsessed with Paris, boy-bands and British TV to the point of not talking about anything else. The youngest in a large family, sometimes it seems like she's still just a kid- but then, her random childishness is one of the things I love about her.

I'm also part of a big family- 4 sisters, my parents and mum's mum in a 4-bedroom house, plus dad's parents in the granny-flat next door- but unlike Bex, I'm the oldest. I'm pretty average-looking- frizzy brown hair, brown eyes, big nose, a bit chubby all over. I'm creative, though. I love art, even though I'm not very talented, and I like to write stories (mostly fanfiction) which I'm not too bad at, if I do say so myself. I'm into sci-fi and theater stuff, and I'm an avid reader when I get some time to myself and a good book. That isn't very often, given all the homework and chores have to do, not to mention trying to squeeze in a bit of writing time in-between school-work.

You've probably also worked out that I'm not the most organized (or punctual) person.

I rushed around my room, pulling on clothes, grabbing my shoes and bag and hurriedly tidying up (read: moving everything from the floor to the bed) as I went, as comments popped up on my tablet from my friends, probably teasing me about my disorganization. After looking at the clock again and deciding I didn't have time for makeup, I grabbed my tablet and rushed out to the kitchen to make my breakfast and lunch and yell at whoever was there for not getting me up on time.

About 20 minutes later, I kissed Mum goodbye and joined the girls at the front gate, where they had been waiting for me. After apologising for being late and listening to their friendly teasing for a few minutes, I reminded them that there was another 20 minutes before the bell rang and asked them what they wanted to do.

Dez held up her clarinet case and told us she was going to practice, and Bex decided to go to class early, the swot, so that just left me with Em. We looked at each other, unsure of how to spend the next 20 minutes, before Em got an idea. "Hey, do you still have the key to the old art room?"

I grinned. "Yep. You wanna visit my secret lair?"

She nodded, and we headed off.

The semester before, Park Ridge High had had a bit of a makeover, and as a result there were now a few unused rooms left over. One of those rooms used to be an art room, and it was still full of broken easels, dried up paints, stiff paintbrushes and books and paper shoved in every corner. No-one had bothered to clean it out and no-one ever went in it. I had stolen a key from the janitor one afternoon and had a copy made, and claimed the room as my own little hideaway. Em had never been inside, but she knew that if I wasn't with the girls, I was in there, writing stories or making use of the few usable art supplies that were left.

On the way to the art room, I ran to my locker and shoved all my stuff in except my black shoulder-bag. As I slammed it shut and got ready to leave, Em nudged me, and I looked in the direction she was pointing. On one end of the hall was a limping figure, bent almost double it seemed, clad in a green jacket and walking slowly. I knew who this was. He was a new student, a boy in my year, who had arrived in the last week of last term, giving everyone just enough time to form an opinion of him before the holidays arrived. His name was Quasimodo Frollo, he was 16, and he was the ugliest person I had ever seen.

His face was impossibly twisted, a bit like squashed play-dough, and his reddish hair flopped over one side, hiding what looked like a giant lump just above his right eye. His eyes were green, ridiculously green, and he was about my height or a little shorter. You would think that having a facial deformity would be his only problem, but no. He was hunchbacked. Yeah, that's right. Really, properly hunchbacked, with a giant lump on his back and his head squished between his shoulders like her was trying to hide. Oh, and he also had one leg shorter than the other. What a combination, right? He looked like someone had tried to fix a broken toy and failed miserably.

I remember thinking as soon as I saw him that he would get picked on a lot. I hadn't been paying attention the term before, but as I watched him shuffle up the hallway towards me, head down and eyes on the ground, I could already hear the whispers and giggles. The students of Park Ridge loved a bit of gossip, and they loved a bully's target even more. Oh yes, he was so a target. No-one that ugly could be ignored for long. There was always someone who felt they needed to pick on someone else to make themselves feel better.

Em nudged me again and this time pointed at the other end of the hallway, and my heart sank a little. Speak of the devil...

Esme, Phoebus, and Phoebus' two friends, Andrew and Brett, stood in the door way, all of them staring with rapt interest at the boy down the hallway. They were always together, those four, and they were always making trouble for unpopular students. I watched them talk quietly among themselves; then Esme smiled her beautiful, evil smile and nodded at them, and the boys started walking down the hallway towards Quasimodo.

Everything seemed to slow down. Quasimodo kept his eyes on the ground, no doubt aware that everyone in the vicinity was looking at him. As he came closer, Andrew, Brett and Phoebus sped up, and I watched as they 'accidentally' collided with him, causing him to drop his bag and making everything fall out. Books and papers were scattered over the floor, and the sound of laughter followed the boys as they high-fived and headed for the door at the other end.

I was about step over and help him when Em grabbed my arm. Standing in front of him, holding a book and looking for all the world like a kind, caring person, was Esme. She crouched down to help him pick everything up, then smiled brightly and patted him on the shoulder before skipping out the door. Quasimodo stared after her, as everyone started murmuring to themselves.

Em and I exchanged bewildered looks, then she glanced at the clock and started heading in the direction of the art room. I started to follow, still looking at Quasimodo as he stood up, looked at a piece of paper, and approached the empty locker next to mine. His eyes flicked in my direction, and our gazes met.

It was strange, but in those few seconds when the greenest eyes I had ever seen were locked on me, I felt like everything had come to a halt. We stood there, him and me, not moving, not saying anything, just staring; and when I realized what I was doing, I tried to back up, apologise, anything, but I couldn't. It was like I was frozen, help captive by those iridescent eyes that had to be the most beautiful things I had seen in my life. Again I tried to say something, but my mouth seem to dry up and my tongue seemed to stick to my palate, rendering it useless. I was shy and introverted at the best of times, but this was ridiculous. With mouth dry as a bone and feet stuck to the floor, I felt like a tongue-tied idiot. God knows what he thought of me, this weird rude girl who couldn't stop staring at him.

Half an hour later (actually only 7 seconds) my feet finally decided to obey my brain and the world un-paused itself. Recovering myself, I shook my head, spun on my heel and hurried out after Em, wondering what hell had just happened.

"Well, that was weird."

I nodded vaguely as I dug in my bag for the art-room key, my thoughts preoccupied with what had just happened. "Freaky-weird."

"Esme Azarola doesn't just stop and help someone, especially not people like him. It must be a joke or part of a plan or something... Oh!" She snapped her fingers, eyes lighting up. "I've got it! She's chosen him!"

"Chosen him for what?"

"The prank thing, idiot. You know, the big event, when Esme chooses some poor, unsuspecting mortal to humiliate at the dance?"

"Oh, that." It was a long-standing tradition of sorts, which had been started about 7 years ago by another girl who loved a bit of drama. Every year, one person, usually some kind of outsider, was chosen to be pranked and humiliated in front of everybody at the annual costume dance for a bit of a laugh. Esme had decided to carry on the tradition when the original organizer graduated, and it had recently become more common knowledge when videos of the pranks had been uploaded to YouTube for everyone to watch.

Of course. The strange scene at the lockers was beginning to make some sense now. Quasimodo was definitely the most obvious choice for this year's prank.

But as Em continued to speculate, my mind went back to what had just happened to me back there. I got tongue-tied- I never do that! Sure, I'm shy and don't usually talk to people anyway, but I couldn't speak a word! That never happens to me- unless it's someone I have a crush on or something. But why couldn't I speak to Quasimodo, of all people?

"Hey, Mich! Earth to Michigan!" Em poked my shoulder impatiently. "How about spacing out when we've got time for it, ok?"

"Oh... yeah..." I shook my head to clear it and unlocked the door. "Here you, the art room. Nothing special, just a nice place to hang out."

We stepped into the room, and I breathed in the familiar smell of dust, musty paint and goodness-know what else- probably dangerous chemicals, but I didn't really care. This was the one thing I had missed about school during the holidays, and as I gazed around the dark classroom, I felt my spirits begin to lift. It was really only a normal classroom with a few more cupboards and a blackboard, but it was a safe haven.

Em wrinkled her nose at the smell and gingerly perched herself on the corner of a desk. "So, what do you do it here?"

I dropped my bag- containing my paintbrushes, art book and pencil case- in a cupboard and reached behind a shelf, bringing out a pile of canvasses. "These, mostly."

She browsed through the paintings, tilting her head to the side as she examined them. The top one was an almost abstract portrait of a girl underwater, eyes closed and hair floating like a halo. There was a simple red, orange and black sunset, and a bright reproduction of Monet's 'Sunrise'. A foil-and-shellac butterfly on a purple background was at the bottom of the pile, and as I reached behind the shelf for one last canvas, Em gave an impressed nod. "I knew you were arty, but I had no idea you were this good."

"Yeah, everyone seems to love the blue one." I snorted, brushing the dust off the last painting- the small palm tree in my backyard. "No idea why. I think it's the worst of the lot."

Em opened her mouth to argue, but closed it again as she realized arguing was futile. I'd always been known for undervaluing my own work- and it wasn't false modesty, either. I honestly had no idea why people praised my work- in my eyes, my paintings were nothing special.

Em handed back the paintings and eyed me, suspicious. "So how exactly did you get that key? As far as I know, it's kinda against the rules to be in a classroom after hours."

"Copied the janitor's."

"How much time do you actually spend in here?"

"I spend Ancient History in here, and some lunchtimes."

"You skip class?"

I winked. "Don't tell anyone."

She shook her head, looking amused. "Wow, you're really serious, aren't you?"

I shrugged, then jumped as the bell went off. "Oops, gotta go!"

We quickly put everything back in it's place and hurried out. Locking the door behind me, I waved as we separated and made our ways to our first classes of the term.

Finally finished! It's taken me forever to rewrite this chapter. I'm happy with how it turned out though.

Review, and tell me what you think!