An attacking zone is the opposing team's end of the ice. You of course want to get there and score the goal, but it's very hostile territory. Hockey, I've realized, has many lessons that apply to real life. Just like hockey, you have to go into hostile territory a lot in life. It's scary and there's lots of obstacles, but if you stick with it, you eventually get your goal.
Beacon Hills is louder than I remember. Whether that's due to the fact that I've lived in a town of four thousand for six years or due to the fact that my childhood best friend, Stiles, is chattering in my ear has yet to be determined.
"Don't worry about that locker not opening, it sticks." I grit my teeth as Stiles speaks up again. I mess up my combination once and he acts like I've never opened a locker before.
"Most lockers do stick, buddy." I finally yank it open and stumble back a bit from the force of the metal door. A pair of hands steadies me easily.
"Honestly, I can't leave you alone for five minutes without you almost dying." Scott McCall, one of my other best friends from elementary school, grins at me. I raise my eyebrow and smirk.
"And who said I wouldn't have caught myself?" Scott chuckles.
"The look of pure terror on your face said enough, Mer." I good-naturedly glare at him as I shove my books in my locker.
"So, which one of you is gonna show me to-" I glance at the schedule in my hands. "French?"
"That would be-"
"Me, actually." Lydia Martin, my third and final best friend from before I moved, walks up to my locker and interrupts Scott.
"And me." Allison, Scott's 'secret' girlfriend, chimes in. Apparently it's a long story as to why they have to hide their relationship, even though my money's on the simple 'parents don't like boy, boy and girl still date' cliche. I smile warmly at Allison. Even though moving back here from Belgarde Falls kind of sucks after making a life there, it's nice to be able to so seamlessly fit in with my old friends. Really the only thing that's changed about us is that everyone but Stiles, poor guy, lost our baby faces. Even Allison's accepted me into the group.
"Should we go then?" I ask. The two girls nod and we start walking down the hall.
"So, there's something you should know about our French teacher." I'm instantly intrigued by Allison's words. What, I love a little teacher drama every so often.
"Ooh, teacher drama. Tell me the latest scandal."
"She's a hopeless romantic. Which means that she's always getting in fights with her boyfriend for not 'loving her enough.' She usually hides behind a French textbook the whole time, crying and watching the Notebook," Ew. I crinkle my nose at the mention of that dumb romance movie every teen girl seems to love. "which means that we get to do whatever we want! So many kids try and sign up for the class, you're lucky you got in right now." I'm surprised that they would even still keep a teacher that acts like that. Lydia must have noticed my confused look, because she touches my arm.
"She's tenured. Trust me, it took us forever to figure it out too." We reach the door of the French classroom and walk in. Sure enough, the teacher's sitting behind a propped up French textbook. I walk up to her desk.
"Uh, hello?" I try and get her attention. A sullen looking lady with dull blonde hair sticks her head out and groans.
"Who are you?" She questions rudely.
"Meredith Maximoff? I'm new here." She moves her head once, almost completing a nod. "Oh. Go and sit down next to Isaac. Isaac!" A tall boy with curly brown hair and blue eyes glances up. "Move your stuff off that empty desk, the new kid needs to sit there."He makes a show out of moving his things, which makes me snort slightly before sitting in the now empty desk. I sling my bag around the back of the chair and glance at the boy next to me.
"Sorry for stealing your supplies' home." He raises an eyebrow at me. "Meredith."
"I'm guessing you already know that I'm Isaac, since Ms. Hemmings shouted it across the room."
"Actually, I thought that was your book's name. Imagine my shock when you ended up moving the book to your desk." He stares at me, fighting to keep his lips from quirking upwards.
"You're funny."
"And you're observant." I pull out my own French book only to realize that there's no assignment on the board and Ms. Hemmings is quietly crying. I lean back over to Isaac.
"So, what do we do in this class if there's no assignment?" Isaac looks at me and smiles.
"That's the point of being in this class, new girl." I glower at the nickname. "We don't do work. We just get automatic A's." I nod.
"That's certainly...different." I accidentally put my cheek in my hand and grimace.
"You okay?" Isaac asks, looking at me like I'm crazy.
"Yeah, I'm fine! I got hit in the face by a soccer ball last week. Left a nasty bruise, but apparently I'm better at makeup than you." I gesture with my chin to his matching bruise, sloppily covered with concealer. He stops and touches his own cheek before nervously laughing.
"I guess you are." I'm about to comment on how I covered mine up, hoping to maybe give him a tip or two, when a paper ball smacks the back of my head. I whip around and see Lydia sitting right behind me. I give her a befuddled look as she rolls her eyes and picks up the paper.
"What, never heard of note passing?" She asks. I shrug.
"We used to get away with sneaky texting at my old school." She passes me the ball.
"Open it, write a note, and then send it back."
"I know how these things work, Lyd." I smooth out the paper and read her neat handwriting, shielding the message from my nosy neighbor for the rest of the semester.
Why are you talking to Isaac? It reads in her girly script. I quickly scribble a note back.
Because I can? Why do you care?
Let's just say that Isaac isn't the most popular street to go down...
Did you seriously just tell me I can't talk to him because he's not popular.
...That sounded worse than I thought it would.
You think? You're forgetting that Stiles isn't too popular either, but he's our friend. I scoff and toss the note back to her before pulling out my schedule again.
"What other classes do I have with you guys?" Lydia gingerly plucks the schedule from my desk.
"Allison and I in particular, or Stiles and Scott, too?"
"If you know theirs, then that'd be great." Lydia quickly scans through the list.
"Alright, so you have French with Alli and I, then you have chem with the four of us." She looks up at me. "Drama?" I shrug.
"Drama's an easy class. Besides, I was taking it at my old school and they made me finish it here."
"Well, none of us have that class."
"Oh, I do." Isaac speaks up and raises his hand slightly. "And I have chemistry with you guys." He looks at me and smiles slightly. "I can take you there after chemistry, Meredith." He says shyly when Lydia starts glaring at him.
"Thank you for that chivalry, Isaac. I know it must be hard for you to look up from the ground every so often." Isaac stares down at his desk and starts nervously tapping his fingers. He shoots up when the bell rings and walks quickly out of the room. I stand up and face Lydia.
"Lydia, that was kind of mean!" I exclaim, making room for Allison to stand next to us.
"Oh, don't worry about it, he knows I was joking." I huff and push my curly auburn hair out of my eyes.
"But does he really, Lydia? He didn't really look like it." She whirls around and grabs my hand.
"And why do you care, Meredith? You just met him." I'm getting really frustrated with Lydia right now. Yeah, I know that she's 'popular' but that doesn't mean that she has to be mean to other people. Besides, it's my first day, and I'm allowed to have more than four friends.
"I really don't want to get into a fight on the first day of school. Besides, you've been my best friend for years and this would be a really dumb thing to fight about." I'm lying through my teeth; of course I don't want Lydia to be mean. "Let's just go to Chemistry."We meet up with Stiles and Scott about halfway there. Stiles slings his arm around me.
"So, did you discover the joys of Ms. Hemming's French class?" He puts his other arm around Lydia and she wrinkles her nose before shrugging it off.
"Meredith also made a new friend." I roll my eyes.
"Can we shut up about that already, Lydia? I told you that I was just being friendly. Let's talk about, uh," I desperately search the halls for a poster of any sort, hoping to avoid a fight with my notoriously bloodthirsty cohort. "Lacrosse? I've never heard of a school that plays lacrosse."
"Well, you're hearing it now, sweetcheeks." Stiles says. I pick his hand up and remove it from my shoulder.
"Don't call me that."
"You got it." He says almost before I can get the sentence out.
"But we do play lacrosse here. I'm captain." Scott says proudly.
"Correction! Co-captain." Allison says.
"Oh, so mister high and mighty has to share captain duties? With who?" I shuffle through my bag and search for my Chemistry book.
"Jackson Whittemore." Scott says bitterly. "But don't you guys have weird sports in Minnesota? Like hockey and beaver hunting?" I lightly push Scott.
"Hockey, yes. Beaver hunting, no." I stop and think. "Okay, we actually do have beaver hunting permits, but it's not, like, a school sanctioned sport or anything. But hockey! That's the sport! Oh, you should've seen our hockey team! We're the current state champions. And I got a natural Gordie Howe hat trick last season." I smile and laugh slightly. "Proudest moment of my life, let me tell you."
"'Natural Gordie Howe hat trick?' What's that?" Lydia asks.
"Scored a goal, notched an assist and got into a fight all in one period." I count them off on my fingers as I verbally list them.
"Wait." Scott starts.
"So that means.." Stiles begins.
"You play hockey?" Isaac comes up behind me, finishing the sentence. I grin at him, pleased that he was able to guess so quickly.
"Yeah, actually! Only girl on the team." Maybe I do want to toot my own horn on that.
"What position?" He asks. I look at him, surprised.
"You know hockey?" He nods.
"I know hockey too." Stiles mutters sullenly before slinking off to sit in his seat. Lydia lightly taps my shoulder.
"While all this small talk is..." She searches for a word. "Enlightening, I would suggest talking to Mr. Harris right now before the bell rings." I look towards the front of the room. There's a man, harmless looking enough, sitting there and grading papers.
"Why? He doesn't look too mean or anything." Lydia smirks and walks me over to the teacher's desk.
"Looks can be very deceiving, Meredith." She leaves me to fend for myself and I awkwardly clear my throat.
"Uh, hi! I'm new here. Meredith Maximoff?" I say unevenly as Mr. Harris stares me down. He sighs deeply and shuffles through a few more papers.
"Oh, I suppose I was alerted to a new student...I trust, by the looks of your grades and records, that you won't be too much of a nuisance in my class." He looks at me, the fires of hell within his eyes. No, I'm totally kidding, but he does have that scary teacher look down. I nervously laugh.
"Don't need to worry about me, Sir!" He looks around the room quickly.
"Go sit with Erica. She's right in the front, middle table." I nod again.
"Yes, Sir." I breathe deeply and quickly walk away from my intimidating Chemistry teacher, moving to place my books on the aforementioned table. A girl with wild, unkempt blonde hair and sweats on glares me down.
"Hello, I'm Meredith." She doesn't say anything, just huffs and turns to the front of the room. I quickly pull out my notebook once the bell rings and Mr. Harris stands up.
"Welcome to another day of your horribly boring lives, degenerates." My mouth is open slightly and I'm staring in shock at how horribly blunt the disgruntled teacher is.
"Now, as your little eyes that are used for texting and eye rolling can see, we have a new student." Everyone in the room shifts in their seats so they're facing my direction and I stare into my notebook, trying to burn holes in it with my eyes. "Introduce yourself." Mr. Harris prods. I glance up and cough slightly.
"Hi, I'm Meredith Maximoff. I used to live here, but then I moved to Minnesota. And now I'm back." I laugh dryly and look back down again. Mr. Harris claps his hands once, garnering everyone's attention, and moves to the front of the room.
"Now that we've got our dose of painful awkwardness for the day, it's time for painful pop quizzes." He smiles a sinister smile and gets a piece of chalk. The students all groan and I cast a confused look at Lydia. "Ms. Maximoff!" I jump at his sharp voice. "The atomic masses in the periodic table are not integral numbers. For example, carbon is listed as 12.011 amu instead of 12.000 amu. Why?" It's then that I realize that Beacon Hills is at least two, if not more, chapters behind then Belgarde Falls.
"Atomic masses listed in the periodic table are weighted averages of isotopic masses." I say confidently. Mr. Harris glowers before writing on the board.
"Correct. Stiles Stilinski! Oh, Stiles. How you disappoint me so." Stiles shifts in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with Mr. Harris' words. And so this continues for the rest of class. Mr. Harris would question people, they would either choke or get it right, and he would laugh at their misfortune. All in all, Chemistry does not leave a good impression on me.
Drama is boring. Isaac ends up darting out of class, so I get lost on my way there. We just watch some video about improv without actually doing improv. History is boring. Once again, my new school is far behind my old school. At least Allison is in this class, so that it's mildly fun. After the bell rings, we walk to the cafeteria together and get situated at the 'regular table.' Sure enough, Scott, Stiles and Lydia all show up within the next two minutes.
"So, I was thinking we could discuss Spring Formal plans." Lydia takes a bite out of an apple as I choke on my water.
"Spring Formal plans? Lydia, I just moved back, like, three days ago!"
"Exactly. This gives you the perfect opportunity to get back out on the scene."
"I don't even have my bed yet. I've been sleeping on a blow up mattress since we got here."
"Just because you've been sleeping on an air mattress doesn't mean you can't look good." She trills. Stiles and Scott both silently chuckle and I glare at them.
"Look, there'll be lots more dances from now until the time high school is over. I promise you that we will go to the next one." Lydia looks disgruntled, but she lets it slide. Thank God.
"So, are you going to go with anyone to the dance?" I ask, getting to Lydia's favorite topic; Lydia.
"Well, I was going to go with Jackson Whittemore, until he dumped me." I remember Jackson Whittemore. He was always super cocky and, by the looks of him tossing food across the cafeteria, he still is.
"You and Jackson were a thing?" Stiles makes a choking noise and laughs heartily.
"'Were they a thing?' You're lucky you didn't see them." Lydia stares at him and turns away.
"Anyways, Jackson broke up with me, so Stiles here is going to escort me to the dance." I pick at the pile of grapes on my tray, trying to find the least mushy one.
"Ooh, escort, sounds fancy."
"Scott's escorting me, I guess that's what we're calling it?" Allison smiles at Scott and kisses him quickly. The bell rings then, and we all stand at once, taking our trays over to the trash cans.
"Will you at least come over to my house after school and help Allison and I get ready for the dance?" I nod as Lydia stands with me at my locker.
"Sure! When's the dance?"
"Tonight." She says bluntly. I let out a puff of air.
"Jesus Lyd, you asked if I would come to a dance three days after I moved?" I giggle at the clueless look on her face. "Of course I'll come over. Same address?"
"Yep! See you after school." She saunters away and it's then that I notice that Jackson's locker is directly opposite mine. Lydia sure knows the ways of the male gender, as evidenced by his longing look towards her swinging hips. There are times when I envy Lydia. The way that she can hypnotize the male gender just by knowing how to walk is one of those times.
Every other class is a blur. It's basically just the teacher saying that I can 'take it easy since it's my first day' and then finding out that this class is a few chapters behind the class I was in the process of taking at my old school. Needless to say, it's an extremely boring day. I drive across town in my little beaten up Chevy truck that made the trek from Minnesota to California.
Our house is in the hills and it's absolutely lovely. It's made of what looks like logs on the outside, but the house is fully furnished on the inside. We have a really big wraparound porch and we even have an inground pool. It's definitely nicer than our old house, and Dad said I can even freeze the pool into an ice rink when hockey season comes around. I walk up the steps and throw open the cherry wood door.
"Mother, I'm ho-ome!" I sing out, sliding into the kitchen. Mom's home early from work, and I can only assume that she must have finished her cases early. She's a lawyer and Dad's a pilot in the Air Force. We got orders back here, and it was a unanimous decision between my parents, myself, and my four younger siblings to buy a house in Beacon Hills.
"Hey, sweetie, how was school?" She turns around, a spoon full of oatmeal in her hand. My nine month old sister, Paisley, reaches for me and I pick her up and spin her.
"Hi there, baby! And how are we today?" I bounce her up and down as I grin at Mom. "It was pretty good! I found Scott, Stiles and Lydia and it was basically like I never left." I quickly make Paisley laugh and spoon the oatmeal into her mouth. "Is that yummy? Yes it is!"
"Oh, that's great! Dad's working 12's this week." I grimace and sit in a chair.
"So I thought it'd be fun if we just got a pizza and watched a movie tonight."
"About that." I drawl out. "Lydia and another friend of mine, Allison, are going to the Spring Formal tonight and they wanted me to help them get ready. I'm not going to go, of course, we moved here three days ago. But I said I'd help them. Is that okay? I'll be home before seven." Mom ponders this for a moment.
"Meredith, guess what happened at school today!" My twelve year old brother, Camden, jumps into the kitchen, touting Sadie, my eight year old sister, on his back.
"Did you get into a fight?"
"Surprisingly not. I won the spelling bee today."
"Whoa there, hotshot, way to take the school by storm. " I look back at Mom. "So, can I just run over there real quick? Lydia's address hasn't changed at all." Mom looks at me, then my sisters and brother before smiling.
"I guess you can run over there. Tell Lydia I say hi, though, alright?" I nod and set Paisley back into her highchair before hugging Mom.
"Thank you, love you!" I back out of the house before she has a chance to change her mind, ruffling Hunter's, my fourteen year old brother, hair really fast since it annoys him.
"Why? Why do you always do this?" He groans, fixing it back into that spiky style that most middle school boys seem to love.
"I do it out of love." I say before driving to Lydia's.
"So, why did Lydia buy you this expensive dress?" I ask Allison as she twirls in the mirror. Lydia's in her en suite bathroom, changing into her own dress, but not before she presented Allison with a very pretty dress of her own.
"She made out with Scott. Who, by the way, can't go to the dance because his grades suck."
"Damn." I mutter, nervously pulling a string on my own blue and white checkered dress. "But you didn't seem pissed at her today." I point out.
"Please, if I acted like I was mad then Scott and Stiles would try to force us to make up." She puts her hands on her hips and smooths the dress out.
"It'll happen, I know it will. Lydia doesn't seem to realize that she can't buy her friends, though." Lydia then walks out in a very pretty light pink dress with a black belt.
"So who's taking you to the dance, Alli?" She looks down at the ground.
"See, that's the funny thing. Jackson's taking me." I throw my head back and laugh.
"Yeah, it's funny when it's not your ex." Lydia says sharply. She loops her arm with Allison's and forces her to look in the mirror. "There. We're ready to go face our not-so Prince Charmings." I glance at Lydia's ornate clock. Six forty-five.
"Yeah, I had better be getting home. Mom'll need help putting Paisley and Sadie to bed." I hug my two friends tightly. Something's not right. I don't know what it is, and I don't know why I feel like something's wrong, but I just know. Something bad is going to happen. "Have fun, okay? And be safe."
It's ten o'clock when my feelings are confirmed. I hear a car pull up into the driveway and I throw the door open before the late night visitor can wake my siblings. There stands Stiles and Allison, looking frantic and disheveled.
"What's wrong?" I say immediately, ushering them inside.
"Lydia. There was an accident on the lacrosse field, and she got hurt. She's in the hospital."