I stared out the window, fingering the touchscreen buttons on my CD Player. Old School. I know. My mom took a drag of her cigerette, while one hand was on the steering wheel. I could see my stepfather's Lexus in front of the minivan. We had all the boxes in the back. We were moving...again. My mom never stopped moving, ever since Dad died it seemed that we moved all the time I've gone to 15 schools, 18 cities, and 3 little towns, and I'm only 15, a freshman. Mom promised this was the last time.

My dad died when I was three, him and I were in a car crash, a Dodge decided to run a red light. I went into the hospital in critical condition, Dad...well, I'd rather not talk about it. My mom never forgot about him. She cried the whole time I was in the hospital, I remember vaguely. She's been in and out of marriages ever since then. And the guys she does pick, aren't that great of role models for me. My stepdad beats my mom and me. His name is Cory. She just pretends it doesn't happen, so she never changes anything. I try to stay away from the 'jail' house as much as possible, but, that's hard to do considering I have only two friends, and that's because I'm not much of a people person.

One is Alan. He was gorgeous, funny, and laid back. And Deena, who was the most religious person I ever...EVER! knew. Before I left, Alan decided he wanted to sleep with me, so I did. A month later, I found out I was pregnant. When I told him, he said that he didn't want the baby, but agreed to stay friends with me, and be a distant father towards the baby. I looked towards my stomach. I remember that Alan cried some and said to not tell his family. I agreed. That night, Alan and I told my mom. Mom was happy, but disappointed in me. She wanted me to keep the baby, but I had other plans, I was wanting an adoption, I didn't want my baby to go through the pain that Cory inflicted on the house and on us. The night Mom told Cory, I thought me and the baby were going to die. There were still bruises from that night on my arms and legs.

Mom patted my shoulder and yanked out the earbud headphone that was stationed in my ear. "We're almost there." She soothed in her calm voice. I guess I couldn't be that mad at Mom. It's not all her fault our lives are turning to shit.

I looked ahead and read a sign that said: Forks 5 miles ahead Mom's eyes looked tired, and had bags under them. Poor Mom. I wanted to hug her, but then again I haven't hugged her since I was 4. I stared back out the window on the passenger side, and saw a huge wolf, the size of our minivan!

"Awesome..." I whispered to myself.

"You'll love it here, Melinda!" Mom smiled.

"Yeah..." I breathed, then thought, 'Dad would've too.'

...

Not fifteen minutes later did we arrive at the abandoned street, which our house was located on. The tiny population was probably in school or at work at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. I started school the next day. Cory had already been in the house two minutes before we hopped out of my mom's minivan ourselves. As soon as I got into the house I escaped to my room. Cory entered.

"How do you like it? You have your own bathroom, too." I looked to the door connected to my room.

"Yeah, thanks, that's awesome, I'm going to start getting ready for tomorrow, it's been a long trip so I'm going to go to sleep in a few hours." I smiled.

"Okay, there's some soup we brought from home on the counter if you want it." I nodded toward him.

...

I woke up the next morning refreshed and looked for my first-day-of-school clothes. I chose my Tripp pants. They would scare more people. I love my Tripps.

I ran down the stairs and grabbed my prenatal vitamins off the counter.I drank them down, washing it out with water. I grabbed a granola and savored the chocolatey-nutty goodness. I said hi and bye to both Cory and Mom, and headed outside to ride to school on my bike. I didn't bring a backpack or anything, so if I did need something I was screwed.

...

I finally arrived at Forks High School at promptly 8:00 a.m. Not a lot of people had shown up yet and I decided to jump into the office for a spell. When I opened the door I saw a red headed woman with a Barney-purple t-shirt on.

"Hi!" She greeted.

"Hi..." I replied.

"You must be Melinda! So nice to meet you, let me get your schedule, and information packets...and a map of the school..." She carried on as she was shuffling the papers on her desk, finding the right ones. She handed me a few things like, my schedule(duh), a map of the school(another duh), my locker and combination, a piece of paper that all my teachers needed to sign, and packets for my parents. I smiled and walked out the door. When I stepped outside, all eyes turned in my direction. I shrugged. I folded the papers and stuck them in my pockets. I sat down ona table, not the seat, the table, of a picnic table they had at the front of the school. I looked up in the drizzle that was turning into actual rain. Oh, yeah, I heard it rained here often. I looked back down the ground. The bell rang, and still people were looking at me. Wierd, guess they weren't too used to new people. I pushed off the table and landed on my feet. I pulled out my schedule.

Name: Hawkins, Melinda Social Security: 5-555-55-5555 Birthdate: 11/03/92 ID: 555555 Period 1 G142 Paffton English 1 Period 2 K256 Dais Math 1 Period 3 F103Banner Science 3 Period 4 J211Barret Geography Period 5 D110 Pina Creative Writing Period 6 CAFE Lunch Period7 GYM Garcia Physical Education Period 8 F230 Alan Health

I looked everywhere for the stupid building, it was complicated, but I finally figured it out. I made my way to the classroom and saw Mr. Paffton speaking. I opened the door and it squeaked. He smiled my way. "Ah, Ms. Hawkins, I see you've joined our class, may I see your documents?" He put out his left hand, motioning for the papers. I handed him my schedule and the signing paper. He checked off his class on my schedule, and signed the pink slip with his signature. "Have a seat next to Chester, please. Chester raise your hand." A boy with orange hair with freckles and glasses raised his hand. Just my luck, a Chester that looks totally like a Chester. Brilliant. I made my way over to the desk, and completely ignored the guy. I ignored everyone really, people were passing notes, staring at me...STILL! And this one guy in the back looked like he was about to punch the walland blow it into smitherins. Now that's my kinda guy. He was buff for a 9th grader, and more looked like an 11th grader. He had all black leather on, which had to keep off the rain, he looked over toward me and signaled a peace sign towards me. Cool. I'm in league. Cheeto Chester gave his attention to me and asked me, nasally, "So, where are you from?"

"None of your business." I stated bluntly.

"Now kids, for the next few weeks we are going to be working on a fiction paper, I haven't set a due date, but we will be working on a collaborative, that means, two or more people working on the same story, now I'm trusting that everyone will pick partners that you will work with, more than you will talk with. So, get up and sit next to your chosen partners." Most of the class had their partners, even Cheeto Chester (his new nickname). I didn't have anyone come over to me, and the guy in the back didn't have anyone either. "Melinda, Turk, will you two pair up? Or would you like to both work with me?" None of us moved. "Well then, come over to my desk, we'll be the examples of how this paper should go." The guy, presumably Turk, started for the front of the room, I got up after and made my way up there as well. "Okay guys, now this will be fun. Teacher and students. So, Melinda, have you had any experience in writing fiction essays?"

"No, but I love writing stories." I smiled.

"Well that's the same thing." He chuckled. "You should be honored to be writing with Turk, he loves to write and is very good at it, but he lacks in other things. He is supposed to be a sophmore but was held back because of Math and Social Studies."

"Thanks for giving her a background check of my life, Paffton." Turk smirked at me, and his brown eyes didn't leave mine. "What are we going to write about?"