You took my hand, you showed me how. You promised me you'd be around, uh huh, that's right. I took your words and I believed in everything you said to me, yeah huh, that's right.

Pink (who knew)

2007

I always thought my dad was invincible.

Like, in the movies, when the main character somehow always gets out of all these horrible situations without a scratch. I thought, if James Bond can survive, it must be easy for Dad, right? My dad had people who loved him. People who couldn't survive without him. He wouldn't do that to us, would he? He wouldn't let us down like that.

Because, he was my dad, right? Dads don't die. Dads watch you live, they're there for you, they support you and they tell you off when you stay up too late. They don't die.

They don't.

Maybe I never stopped believing that. Maybe I couldn't accept the fact that we're all mortal, so I blocked it out, but I can't block it out any longer because I'm sitting in front of my father's grave.

David Ride. 1966-2007. He will be missed.

I lay the bouquet of flowers on the ground before the headstone and sniffle. They're roses, faded red ones. My dad would've hated them. He always loved lilies... But the lilies were fifty dollars for a bouquet.

I only had thirty.

"Sorry Dad," I murmur. "Mom and Dylan can't make it. Mom has been hiding in her room all week... And Dylan's out with some friends again. But don't worry. They still love you, they're just busy."

I thought maybe Dad wouldn't want to hear all the bad things, like the fact that Mom wasn't getting groceries anymore so I had to walk to school without any lunch. Or the fact that I saw Dylan yesterday, and he didn't even talk to me. Or the fact that now I don't have anyone to do my hair, so my friends laugh at my messy pigtails.

"School's good," I say. "I got eight out of ten on my spelling test."

I imagine him ruffling my hair and saying, 'good job'.

"I have to go now." I say sadly. "I should be back before it gets dark."

I stand up.

"Bye Dad. I'll come again tomorrow."

I never did go back to my fathers grave. Maybe it was choice... Or maybe I just couldn't bear telling him that Mom and Dylan didn't want to come anymore and that maybe I was wrong, maybe they didn't love him anymore.

...

2013

"Ari!" I yell. "We need to get to school, hurry up!"

"I'm coming!" He appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, pulling on tattered Velcro sneakers and lugging his too-big backpack.

"Do you have your hat?" I ask.

He nods.

"Do you have your jacket?"

"Yep,"

"Do you have your lunch?"

Ari stares at me.

"No." He says.

I repress the urge to curse and rife through the cupboards, hoping that somehow Ari's lunch will appear out of thin air and all will be well. Maybe the food fairies will have finally paid us a long-needed visit.

Nope. All that was in our entire kitchen was some stale crackers, a half-way rotten apple, an old vegemite sandwich and some chicken leftovers from the night before. I quickly pack it all up into plastic bags and stuff them in Ari's bag.

Unfortunately, there's nothing left for me.

That's alright. I haven't eaten in two days; I can survive another twenty four hours.

I check the time. Once again, we're late by about ten minutes, and by the time we get to Ari's primary school, five blocks away, the bell has already rung and class has started.

"Great," I mutter under my breath, just as Ari looks up at me with adorable blond hair and greenish-blue eyes.

"Maxie," he says seriously. "I can't walk in there alone. Mrs H will kill me." I sigh. It's true- Ari has already gotten two detentions for tardiness this past week.

"Ok," I say. "I'll walk you in, and tell Mrs Hawkins that our mom couldn't bring you to school again 'cause she is extremely sick. Thus I, being the rebellious and grotty seventeen year old that I am, totally forgot about you until about five minutes ago and we had to run all this way and I am extremely sorry. Sound good?" Ari offered an obedient nod and smiled happily.

Unfortunately, our plan did not go as well as we thought it would. We had barely made it two steps into the school property when the principal's voice rang out and stopped us in our tracks.

"Adrian Ride and Maximum Ride. How lovely to see you."

I turned slowly, dread clenching my gut.

"Mr Dean-"

"Miss Ride."

"I'm very sorry that Ari is late for school-"

"Once again."

"But, I promise, he will never be late for school again-"

"And your mother will attend a meeting with me on Friday evening. I would like to have a word with her."

"Of course, Mr Dean-"

"And don't you have somewhere to be?"

"I was just taking Ari to his class-"

"Don't worry about Adrian. I'll escort him."

"Thank you, Mr Dean, really-"

"It was my pleasure." He said, sounding as if 'pleasure' was the very last thing on his mind at the moment.

I scrambled away, eager to get far away from the tall, old man. Not only had he just made it extremely complicated for me on Friday night, but he had also used up five precious minutes of my time.

And the torturous thing known as 'high school' that I sadly had to attend started thirty minutes ago.

...

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a nerd, or any type of goody too shoes. My grades slip between Cs and Ds, and the only real thing I'm good at is PE, which I fail at because of my often inability to move, caused by various injuries and bruises on my body.

The only real reason I come to school at all is Social Services. If I stop attending, they'll call my mom. If I get in trouble too many times, they'll call my mom. If I pull Ari out of school, they'll call my mom. Now, that wouldn't be a problem if my mom wasn't addicted to cocaine, nicotine and heroin, among other various deadly and horrifying drugs.

Now where, you might ask, does my dear mother get all the money to pay for the drugs, if I can barely scrape together a six year old's lunch?

You might be surprised to hear I street fight for money.

Then again, you might not be.

My mom gets half of what I earn off of the fights every week. She's my mom, crack addict as she is, and when she doesn't get her weekly supply of drugs it gets ugly. Uglier than usual.

I arrive at the door to my homeroom class panting.

"Maximum Ride," comes the stern voice of the teacher, Mrs Heart, and I know I'm in deep crap.

"Yes, Mrs Heart?" I reply sheepishly. I feel the eyes of the whole class on me, judging, disgusted with my rumpled appearance. I instinctively run a hand through my tangled hair and pull my leather jacket tighter around me.

"This is the third time you've been late to my class in a week. I think we need to have a little chat after class."

I'm too relieved she hasn't threatened to call my parents yet that I forget to talk, instead nodding meekly and making my way to my seat in the back.

For the first few minutes I try to listen. I really do. But then the whole 'no rest in thirty six hours' thing catches up to me and I doze off into a fitful sleep.

It's halfway through the lesson that I notice the eyes on me. I tense, eyes popping open, and swivel my head to find the culprit.

He sits a few seats away from me, and his calculating eyes are on me. Like everything else about him, they are a dark brown or black. His coal-black hair shines an almost blue-like colour, and his skin is a dark olive. He wears a black jacket and black jeans, and I glare at him.

I needed that sleep, I want to say. How else am I going to scrounge up the energy to live life?

I try to communicate that sentence with my eyes, which starts an intense staring match that continues until the bell rings for the end of class.

...

Hi guys. My names Alena. I'm trying to write a fanfic. :) Sorry if any of the slang or anything in it didn't make sense to you, I'm from Australia. And I have no clue how American schools work. Yeah... I'll try my best to get it right. Just tell me if I'm doing something wrong. This is my second go at the first chapter, and I like it a lot better than the first attempt. That's good, right? Anyways. Please comment and give me advice and suggestions and ideas and all that. I hope you enjoy this fanfic.

SS