CHAPTER 1

(this is my first story ever and there will be more chapters to come I hope you enjoy!)

"I can't fucking fall asleep," Ruby whispered to herself as she scrolled through Facebook at 4:18 a.m.

"Shut the fuck up," her sisters whispered to her from their beds. In two hours, Ruby and her sisters would have to wake up to start getting ready for their first day of their senior year in high school. Ruby, Scarlett, and Marsala- none of them were tired, nor would they end up getting much sleep.

When it seemed as if Ruby was finally feeling tired, the alarm clock went off, and everyone in the room groaned. One by one, the sisters forced themselves out of bed and got ready for the day.

Ruby had a strange feeling in her stomach; anxiety, exhaustion, and excitement all mixed into one began getting ready. She didn't bother brushing her afro of tight curls, choosing to just pull her bangs back with a red headband. Normally on first days of school, everyone wears their nice new clothes they've bought over the summer. Not Ruby, though. She threw on whatever she could find (which were workout clothes). She didn't even bother with breakfast, opting for a single slice of plain toast and a small cup of water. She also didn't bother joining in on Scarlett and Marsala's antics, which were surprisingly calm and not disruptive (probably because they all got around 15 minutes of sleep). They all headed out the door after taking hundreds of "first day of school!" pictures for their emotional, proud mom, and looking dead tired in all of them.

They all arrived at school, too tired to say much to each other on the way there. Ruby separated from her sisters when they arrived to go to her new homeroom classroom.

There was Pearl and Amethyst sitting in the front; unusual for Amethyst but usual for Pearl, looking as if she was about to burst into tears as she avoided looking over at Rose. Rose, on the other hand, was sitting on the other side of the room; she seemed fine. Amethyst awkwardly patted Pearl's back in an effort to comfort her after her ugly breakup with Rose over the summer. Rumor had it Rose was already dating someone new, a boy named Greg who moved to Beach City over vacation. After a month, things looked preeetty serious.

Ruby normally would've sat in the back, but Jasper was sitting there. And she had BEEF with Jasper. They had this beef with each other for so long, said beef was already cooked. What cooked this beef was a particular event over the summer. An event Jasper still was not over, forever holding a grudge against Ruby. She smirked as Ruby walked past her and tried to ignore her.

"Bitch," Jasper growled behind a smile, hoping to evoke a reaction from Ruby. Ruby ignored her still, but was boiling as she sat behind Amethyst and Pearl.

Amethyst turned to her, grinning. "Ooh, drama! Are you just gonna take that?!"

"It's not my fault she can't get over what happened and accept that I won." Ruby frowned. She crossed her arms and crossed one leg over another, furrowing her brows in annoyance.

"Yeah, you totally fucked her up. I hear her nose is still broken and hasn't healed at all!" Amethyst spoke excitedly.

"Oh I can't believe you two. Promoting this violence." Pearl gave them a sideways glance, looking miserable.

"You mean justice," Ruby replied, grinning a bit. "She's lucky Lapis was the one who finished her off and not me. Though I would've liked to."

"Ugh that was my favorite part! I still have the video of the fight on my phone. It's like, bam! You punch Jasper square on the nose. Bam! She kicks you down! And then bam! Lapis comes out of nowhere and drags her off you by the hair and throws her into the pool. She's petite and all but she's scary!" Amethyst said, practically bouncing up and down in her seat. Said video gained 63 likes, 49 comments, 247 views, and 13 shares on Facebook.

"The whole thing was appalling." Pearl added. She was there when it happened; all she wanted to do that day was spend some time with her friends, but of course Ruby and Jasper had to pick a fight with one another.

"Well enough about that," Ruby said, secretly basking in all the glory of her triumph but trying not to seek too happy about it, "how have you uh...been?" She was also really just being nosy. She really wanted to know if any more drama went down between Pearl and Rose.

"I'm fine…" Pearl answered quietly, turning back to face her desk again.

Amethyst interrupted, "Uhhh, I'm great! I'm so excited this is our last year. Then I don't have to worry about all this stupid work anymore! Actually, I don't care about this work anymore. It's our last year so I'm gonna enjoy it!"

Pearl scoffed, "oh honestly Amethyst. Have some respect for yourself!"

"Respect?! I do have respect for myself! That's why I'm giving myself a vacation from all this hard work! To preserve myself!"

"Ugh, you aren't thinking about your future! No college will accept you like this!"

"Oh and I bet you'll get accepted to every college you apply to!"

"Yes, because I work hard!"

Ruby tuned out Amethyst and Pearl's arguing, daydreaming. She didn't want to think of more school work, more school drama, college, the future. She wanted to think about going to the gym, baseball, what club she should join this year. She wasn't paying much attention to anyone or anything until a new face walked into the room. Was this another new student? Ruby had never seen her around school, after school, or even around the boardwalk. The new student was almost as short as Ruby was; a lot of students at this school were very short, though. Either very short or very tall. This new girl had beautiful deep dark skin that contrasted her almost platinum blonde hair, and was dressed almost elegantly, in a pale blue summer dress with a blue cardigan over it. Ruby found herself staring. She wondered what a rich girl was doing at a public high school. Ruby quickly looked away when this new student looked up and directly at her, then turned back to Amethyst, slightly embarrassed that she'd been caught staring.

Amethyst squealed, "oooooh! I saw thaaaat!"

"Shh! Shut up! You're making a big deal out of nothing." Ruby rolled her eyes but blushed anyway. "Who even is that?" She whispered.

"Pffff! I dunno! You go ask her!"

"No! That's weird. I'll just ask someone else."

She looked around the room and noticed Peridot had arrived. The dork was talking to the new girl, and after a minute she walked away. Ruby and Amethyst looked away so they wouldn't be caught staring, and pretended to talk about something else. Peridot took a seat next to Ruby, pulling out her notebook, pen, and pencil, with her lunch box next to her school supplies.

"Good morning delinquents. I'm surprised to see you all here. Especially you, Amethyst." Peridot didn't look directly at her, but talked anyway, half joking and half not.

"Nice to see you too, Perry!" Amethyst grinned and turned to face Peridot and Ruby fully. "Hey, do you know who that girl is over there? I saw you talking to her."

"You know her?" Ruby asked.

"Oh, um. Yes… That's actually my cousin." Peridot replied.

"WHAAAT? How are you two cousins?! You both look nothing alike!" Amethyst almost screamed as Pearl shushed her.

"Shh! You don't have to be so loud. And that's a rude thing to say."

"Pearl's right," Peridot said, "and anyways, yes, she is my cousin. We're both adopted though, so not really related."

Amethyst prodded. "What's her name? Ruby wants to know." She wagged her eyebrows. Ruby stiffened.

"Augh! I looked at her once, calm down! Just because I was looking at a new student no one's ever seen before doesn't mean anything!" Ruby said through her teeth as she began to grow slightly annoyed.

"Geez. Her name is Sapphire. Her mom- er, my aunt- is really rich. She previously was homeschooled, but she wanted to experience one year of like, real life. Soo, my aunt called my mom since my mom is the principal here, and-"

Amethyst interrupted Peridot. "Yeah I know! Thanks to you I've gotten off the hook with Yellow D sooo many times when I was like THIS close to being suspended." Amethyst winked at Peridot and Peridot blushed.

"Er, yes, um… And so… My mom made sure Sapphire got in this school. And here she is, at this stupid school filled with stupid students…" She gulped. "I just hope this year is the year Jasper stops stealing my juice boxes from me."

Amethyst laughed. "Don't worry girl I got you. And so does Ruby. We'll beat Jasper up if she tries to mess with you. I know you saw that video of the fight, girl!"

Peridot blushed and looked down at her Camp Pining Hearts lunchbox. "I did. And, th-thanks."

"Alright class, welcome back," Mrs. Maheswaran sighed. She got up and wrote her name on the chalkboard, then turned to face the class. "I'm glad to see you all again. I wish I could say 'I hope none of you got into any trouble over the summer,' but I can tell that's not true." Everyone awkwardly looked back and forth between Ruby and Jasper. "You should all know better. You are soon going to be adults, off to college. I'm very disappointed in your behavior; this behavior does not meet our standards at this school." Ruby sank into her chair. She almost regretted getting into a fight with Jasper over the summer. But only almost. "I want us all to take this time to reflect and prepare ourselves for adulthood and the year of work ahe-" Mrs. Maheswaran was interrupted as Lapis walked into the room, messy hair, eye bags and all, uncaring. She plopped down right next to Sapphire. "Miss Lazuli. You are nearly thirty minutes late."

Lapis shrugged. "I was tired."

And for the rest of the period, the class was lectured more than they were welcomed back. When the bell finally rang minutes later, Mrs. Maheswaran called Ruby to talk after class. Ruby knew this was coming but didn't want to believe it. She didn't even know why she was in trouble; the fight happened over vacation after all, school had nothing to do with it. She gathered her things anyway, picking up her bag and walking to the front of the emptying classroom.

"Good luck," Amethyst whispered as everyone else left class.

"Y-yes…?" Ruby asked as she approached the teacher's desk.

"I heard about the little fight you started over the summer." Mrs. Maheswaran spoke sternly, "In fact, it didn't go unnoticed by the school. Ms. Diamond would like to speak to you about an apology to Jasp-"

"An apology?! The fight happened months after school ended! And I was only fighting in self defense!" Ruby spoke fast, her voice getting high and squeaky as it did when she got nervous.

"You committed the first act of physical violence," Mrs. Maheswaran said as she raised an eyebrow.

"I was defending myself against her...verbal bullying! Why isn't she being called to talk to you?!"

"Oh she will be. But Ms. Diamond wants to speak to you first."

Well, this was it. It was only second period into the first day back and Ruby was already in deep shit. She trembled a little and clenched her fists.

"Um, excuse me…?" A quiet voice interrupted the confrontation. Ruby and Mrs. Maheswaran turned, and there was Sapphire, standing in the doorway.

"Excuse me," Mrs. Maheswaran turned away from Ruby. "Yes, miss...Sapphire is it? A pleasure to welcome you to our class. I apologize for what happened first period."

"Oh no, it's fine. I was just, well, lost. I don't really know my way around the school yet." Ruby looked at Sapphire. She was very pretty. Ruby wondered why her bangs covered one eye though. Was she emo?

"Of course, you're new! It's no problem. Hm...Ruby, I'll write you a late pass to second period. Would you mind showing our new student Sapphire around the school? You can head to the principal's office afterwards." Mrs. Maheswaran raised an eyebrow again and began writing a late pass.