My life's pretty hectic, to think of it. I'm Danielle Dafferentini. Now, I'm gonna start off by explaining how everything works here.
We're all separated into . . . clans, I guess. But we call them "tribes". We're not just picked off one by one to be in each tribe. We're separated by our powers. I'm in the Fire tribe. There's also the Wind tribe, who've been living in pure peace lately, the Weather tribe, who've seemingly abusing their powers and must remain incognito for a certain amount of time, and the Ice tribe. We've been in war with the Ice tribe for years now. When ever I think about what they've turned my life into, I get so mad that my hair lights on fire, literally. And the rest of the people, with no powers, are just regular human beings. Every person in a tribe is just called a being, because technically, we're not human.
Up until now, I've been going to an all Light tribe school. Now, since we moved, I go to a mixed school. I don't want to because if there's gonna be any Ice beings at my school, I'll burn the whole school down. Then I'll get expelled from nothing and I'll get in trouble by my parents. When my parents are mad, trust me, you do NOT wanna be there.
So I've pretty much summed up what my life is like. I'll start on the first day of school.
Almost immediately when I stepped in the classroom, I shivered. I knew there was an Ice being in my class. I tried my hardest not to do anything. I sat in my assigned seat, and looked around for the source of the chill. I could tell it was only one person, or else I would be shivering more and I would be breathing my last breaths. But I wasn't. So I'm glad. I thought I saw some regular looking beings, but that wouldn't be possible. They keep them in a separate school to protect them. Most regular people assume we're animals. They need to face it; we're different. But every teacher is a regular person to prevent any tribe trouble. As the teacher, whom I now know as Ms. Mikans, was doing attendance, I looked at every student I heard say "here" until she called my name. "Here," I said, in my soft, talking voice. I could feel the eyes of the Ice being burning into my skin. I looked back to see who it was. It was the person I would least expect by just looking at was staring at me. My anger flared, but I managed to hold in the flames. He wasn't giving me an angry look, more of a calmer look. I now knew him as Nick Costa.
After Ms. Mikans had finished attendance, she said, "Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna partner up into groups of two."
"Can we pick our partners?" Emily Campbell, a Wind being, asked.
"No, I've already chosen."
"Aww, why can't we just pick them?"
"Because I'm the teacher and you're the student, now listen," Ms. Mikans said calmly, and went on, "Anyway, so your partners are going to be your study buddies throughout the entire year. You'll partner up at the end of each class and you'll do the homework assigned to you in that class. This is for every class and every class has this. Okay so . . ." She announced all the partners and I think she's absolutely crazy when she announced mine. You can guess who. Yup, Nick.
"Are you freakin' crazy?" I yelled after she announced mine (the last one). "You can't make a difference in my life or in this 'war' by partnering me up with him. The only thing that'll do is burn the school down. Some people hate school, but you wanna leave it, not burn it down and kill everyone in it."
"I partnered up by last name. Not by tribes." Ms. Mikans answered.
I gave her a deep sigh, shaking my head. Turning to him, I sat a seat away from him, which was the closest I'd sit.
Nick gave me a weird look, smiling slightly. He sat in the seat I left in the middle of us. "Okay, so let's start off by-"
"I sat over here for a reason," I said, feeling my eyes turn bright red.
"Look, I'm not into the fighting going on between our tribes," Nick said, "In fact, all my friends are in your tribe. My parents don't know that though."
I thought for a second. "Well, I'll pretend you're not in the Ice tribe then."
And we went on doing what our teacher told us to and go over things from last year to review for what we need this year. He was pretty funny, and really nice to me. I suspected different, but I must admit, I was wrong. He's complete opposite of what I thought. I was actually . . . communicating with him.
Over the next couple weeks, we really bonded at the end of every period and he even came over to my lunch table for a little bit at lunch. Luckily, my friends are all Wind, so they didn't mind. Emily even became to be my best friend. But as I got to learn Nick, I learned he's one of the lucky ones with special powers. He can freeze time along with his normal Ice powers, but that's it.
Anyway, during our history study time, we already finished our homework so we were just talking.
"My parents would kill me then kill Ms. Mikans if they found out I was with you right now or at any time," I said. "It's annoying how overprotective they are."
"Yeah," Nick replied, "mine are too. You know what would be hilarious? If either of our parents caught us making out or something, but then I would be dead."
I smiled, and didn't mean to say it but, "It would be great if we could kiss." I paused for a second before realizing what I said, "Oh my god, did I say that out loud?"
"No, it's cool," Nick said, making me feel a little better, "It happens, some things just kind of slip out." He smiled before saying, "It would be nice if . . ." his voice trailed off.
"If we could kiss?" I finished his sentence. "Well . . . maybe we could, if you froze time along with everything else, we could." I began to hope I wasn't sounding pushy or too "rushy".
"Okay," Nick whispered. He grabbed my hand, to keep me from freezing, too. He stuck out his other hand and closed his eyes and before I knew it, everything was frozen. He let go of my hand and turned towards me. He slowly leaned towards me, his lips puckered. I leaned too and kissed him finally. His lips felt very cold against mine. I curled them inward, beginning to feel cold. He pulled away after almost a minute. "Are you okay?" he asked, worry clouding his eyes.
"Yes," I replied, "But your lips are really cold."
"I know," Nick said, "I wish they weren't, but I have no control of that."
"Um . . . so," I stammered, knowing I sounded like an idiot, "I guess we're boyfriend and girlfriend?"
"Uh, yeah, cool."
After a few weeks or so, we became more kiss-comfortable and we're more boyfriend-girlfriendish. We even hang out after school and talk on the phone. We tell our parents that the other one of us is wind so they don't get mad. It was a weekend and it's my birthday.
Nick was over for my birthday. It's not really a big thing. No one really comes except for my closest friends, so Emily was coming over too. When I opened the front door and saw Nick, I felt so much better.
"Happy birthday!" he said, stepping in. He handed me a wrapped box.
I stepped back to let him in. "Thanks," I said looking at it. I set it down on a table.
"C'mon, Danielle, I have a special present for you," Nick said quietly. He led me into my own room and sat down at the bed. After I sat beside him, he leaned forward and kissed my lips with his ice cold lips.
Before I knew it, "it" was over. I felt sort of relieved and disappointed at the ending.
"I can't believe we actually just did that," I said quietly.
"Me either," Nick replied with the same tone.
"I-I hope it doesn't cause anything like . . . I just hope I'm not . . . you know, the P word."
"Wow, which would suck," Nick said a little louder, "What if you did? What would your parents do?"
"I just hope not, because if they did, they would seriously kill me. Whenever I make a mistake, they beat me.
"Same here," Nick replied. "Let's just get dressed."
After we were dressed, I heard a knock on the door. "That must be Emily," I said and came out of the room. Nick followed me into the living room. I opened the door and saw Emily standing there with a gift. She handed me it and stepped in. "C'mon, let's get this party started!" She shouted.
"Let's go to my room, Emily I have to tell you something," I said quickly and led her into my room. She sat on bed and Nick shut the door behind me. I sat next to Emily before looking at Nick. "Should I tell her?"
Nick nodded, "Go ahead."
"Well, okay," I said and turned to Emily, "Emily, Nick and I just got done . . . you know, 'doing it'."
"Are you serious?" Emily replied quietly. "You seriously . . . did it?"
"Yeah," Nick and I said in unison.
Emily suddenly became curious, "Well? How did it feel?"
My eyes widened at her question. How was I supposed to answer that? "I don't know . . . I can't really describe it." I didn't wanna say it, but I really liked it. It was the best pain I've felt in my life.
"Well, I had a lot of fun," Nick said, jumping in.
I laughed at his comment. "I have to admit, I liked it," I said.
"And I'm glad," Nick replied, grinning. "You weren't faking, were you?"
"No, I swear," I replied.
"Good."
Emily sighed, "I can't wait until I find 'the one'."
"You'll know when you do," I said, looking up at Nick, "And you'll love it," my voice softened by a lot when I said, "trust me." I leaned forward and kissed his icy lips gently. When I pulled away after about 30 seconds, Emily began to clap.
"What?" I said, giving her an awkward look.
"Nothing," she replied, "you guys are just so cute together!"