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This is a new story that I've been working on. Give it a try!

Chapter 1

"Ms. Hathaway, are you paying attention?" My teacher, Mr. Alto, asked me.

I looked up from my phone which I was hiding under my desk. I had been texting with friends and playing games and doing my best to not listen to anything that Mr Alto was saying. Or as my friends and I call him Old Man Stan.

I smiled sweetly at him and say, "Of course I am. I always love listening to your beautiful voice Stan!" Everyone in class snickered. I watched as Stan's face turned tomato red. To say we didn't get along would be an understatement. Then again, no one got along with him.

"Then what did I say?" He asked.

"You said that you had sex with Principal Kirova in the teacher's lounge yesterday. To be perfectly honest I'm shocked you slept with her because we all know you are gay!" I said with a straight face. Stan turned from red to purple, the vein in his forehead pulsing from his rage. One of my friends who sat across from me, Mason Ashford, slumped over in his seat laughing silently.

"Get out and don't return until you clean up your attitude." Alto said in a low and dangerous voice. Like that will ever happen I thought. I gathered my things and got up from my desk. Mason got down on his knees and bowed to me. I smirked at him. When I got to the door I turned back and winked at Stan and then left the room with a flourish.

I ended up going to the library. I grabbed a magazine and sat at an empty table and read in silence. Having read the magazine before I quickly got bored of it and threw it aside. I put my head down on the table and closed my eyes. Its nice and quiet in here, just the tick of the clock in the background...

Someone shook my shoulder. Disoriented I opened my eyes and saw the school's librarian, Mrs. Jones looming over me. Her hands were on her hips and she had a disapproving look on her face.

"The bell has rung missy. Get to class!" She reprimanded me.

I shot up from my chair like a bullet and looked at the clock. She was right. It was noon and the bell had just rung. I must have fallen asleep. I suddenly got excited when I realized it was lunchtime, which was my favorite time of day. I gathered my things and ran to the cafeteria.

When I got there, people were already getting in line and meeting up with their friends. I got in the pizza line and waited my turn. Once there I grabbed three slices of pepperoni pizza and two brownies. I paid for my food and then walked over to the table I shared with my friends.

"Hey!" Lissa said as I sat down next to her. Lissa Dragomir was my best friend. We have been inseparable since we met in kindergarten. Our teacher wanted us to spell out our full names and I thought that was so unfair and I threw a book at her head and called her a fascist bastard. Not that I knew what that meant at the time, but still, I knew how to throw.

"What's new?" She asked.

"I got kicked out of Alto's class again." I replied.

"Rose! What did you do now?" She asked me. Disapproval was written all over her face.

"I made up a rumor that he had sex with Kirova in the teacher's lounge and I also said that we all knew he was gay. Don't look at me like that!" I told her as she looked at me with her eyes narrowed and arms crossed.

"I just don't want you to get expelled or in trouble with your mom." Lissa said.

I snorted. "Please! My mom won't know! She barely is home anymore. And when she is she spends all her time with her stupid husband. As for Kirova, I'm not afraid of her." I finished with a smile.

Before she could respond our other friends, Mia and Sydney, sat across from us with eager looks on their faces. Lissa and I became friends with them in middle school when we were all stuck in detention together for being late to class.

"So what happened with old cranky pants? Rumors are flying around like wild fire! One guy said you punched him in the face. Another guy said you fell asleep." Mia said.

"I heard you flashed him. I really hope that's not true!" Sydney shuddered.

"Ew no! I would never do that Syd. I'm shocked you even think I would." I replied.

"Well, what really happened then?" She asked.

As I ate I told them what I said. In the middle of my story my other friend Eddie and Mason sat down with us. They helped tell the story, giving their perspectives on everything. By the time I was done everybody had tears in their eyes they were laughing so hard.

I was just about finished with lunch when a voice whispered in my ear. "Hello Roza!" I turned around and saw my other best friend Dimitri Belikov smiling down at me.

"Hey! How was your football meeting?" I asked him as he sat down on the other side of me. Dimitri was the star quarterback on the school's football team.

"Pointless and boring. Coach Croft was just talking strategies which he's done fifty times already." He rolled his eyes.

"That sucks! You should have hung out with me in the library instead. I got kicked out of Stan's class again." I told him.

"Oh oh. What did you do this time?" He asked, his eyes dancing with amusement.

Once again I explained the events of Stan's class. By the time I was finished, Dimitri was shaking his head.

"Honestly Rose I'm surprised you haven't been expelled yet. How many times can you get in trouble before its too much?" Dimitri commented.

"Have a little faith Comrade!" I said.

"I just want you to be careful. You're my best friend Roza. Who knows what your mom would do with you if you got into serious trouble." He said with a serious expression on his face.

We locked eyes. I looked intently into his chocolate brown eyes and got lost in them. I could feel butterflies in my stomach as I stared at him and everything around me seemed to disappear. It was just the two of us. I could see something shift in his gaze as he studied me. I looked at his lips and started to lean in...

We both jumped as the bell rang. I looked down at my food that I hadn't finished and stared at it for a minute. I jumped up and threw it away and went back for my things. When I was almost to my table I froze in my tracks. Tasha Ozera, Dimitri's girlfriend, ran to him and jumped in his arms. My heart dropped and my stomach tightened which happened every time I saw them together. Tasha and I didn't get along at all. She was a spoiled bitch who felt threatened by me. She has tried to sabotage mine and Dimitri's friendship many times, but Dimitri was smart enough to not fall for it. I walked up to them with a fake smile plastered on my face.

"Hey Tasha! We missed you at lunch!" I said with false cheer.

Tasha sneered at me. "My father took me out to lunch. To Spiaggia. Some place I bet you will never go to because of how poor your family is!"

My eyes grew wide. Spiaggia was a very expensive italian restaurant. Tasha was right. I will probably never go there because my mom is working all the time just to pay for our house and living and her ass of a husband is a lazy bum who doesn't work but gambles away the rest of our money. I clenched my fists out of anger and was about to open my mouth and say something rude, but Lissa spoke before I could.

"C'mon guys, we should get to class. See you later Dimitri." Lissa, Mia, and Sydney grabbed me and pushed me away from Tasha. Dimitri shot me an apologetic look as I was ushered out of the cafeteria.

"I hate her!" I fumed as we walked down the hall to our biology class. "She's not right for Dimitri! I don't know what he even sees in her."

"I know! She's such a bitch." Mia said with distaste.

"She just is taking advantage of him. I bet you she doesn't even love him." Sydney added.

"We all know you're in love him, so why don't you do something about it." Lissa said.

"Is it that obvious?" I asked.

"To everybody but Dimitri. Even Eddie and Mason know." Mia answered.

"I don't know. What if he doesn't feel the same way" I sighed.

"Rose, you can totally tell he's head over heels in love with you. Why do you think Tasha is so jealous of you?" Sydney pointed out.

We got to class then and took our seats side be side. Before we could continue our conversation the bell rang and Ms. Karp started class. I thought about what my friends had said. They were right, I was in love with Dimitri. I met Dimitri when we were six years old. His family had moved from a small town in Russia to America after his parents got divorced. Dimitri was the new kid on the block and I befriended him right away. We have been inseparable ever since. My feelings for him changed two years ago. I was going through a hard time with my mom and Dimitri was there for me the whole time. He let me crash in his room as long as I wanted and I felt like I could tell him anything. We have no secrets. I've never felt this way about a guy before. And it scared me shitless.

"Please listen to what I have to say Rose." Ms. Karp said, interrupting my thoughts.

"Sorry." I mumbled.

The rest of the day went by slowly. By the time I walked into my last class I was exhausted. I kept thinking about Dimitri, not knowing what to do about my feelings. Should I tell him how I feel?

The phone ringing interrupted Ms Voda's lecture of mathematical equations. She always drones on about the importance of math in every day life which I never understood. Unless I would become a mathematician I seriously doubted I would be using any of these skills again.

"Ms. Hathaway, you have to go down to the Principal's office." Ms. Voda said after hanging up.

Word must have reached her about my incident with Mr. Alto this morning. People snickered at me while I packed up my things. Walking to Principal Kirova's office took me only two minutes. I've been there so many times that the ladies who work in the front office know me well.

When I arrived and sat down in front of Kirova she was looking intently at some papers. I waited patiently for her to see me, not wanting to push her buttons further.

"Ah, Ms. Hathaway, good you're here." She looked up from her papers and took off her glasses. "I had a little chat with Mr Alto and he said you two had a spat. He told me you accused him of being gay. And before that you made up a nasty rumor including me. That the two of us had sexual intercourse in the teacher's lounge." She had a dangerous glint in her eyes which would probably scare most people, but I wasn't most people. I was Rose Hathaway, she didn't scare me.

"Now..." By that point I tuned her out. This is point where she launched into her typical speech. I knew it by heart. Something about that I was totally out of line and it was hurtful to some people when I made these rumors...blah blah blah. I snapped my attention back to her when she threw out the word expulsion. My face paled.

"What? Expelled? No! I can't be expelled, my mother would absolutely kill me." I shouted at her. If I ever got expelled my mother would ship me off to boarding school and make sure I never saw my friends again. I couldn't do that, my friends were the only people who kept me sane. They were my family.

"You should have thought of that before you acted out like you did." Kirova said.

"Please Principal Kirova, I'll do anything." I begged her.

She studied me quietly over her glasses. I wondered what my face looked like to her, if I looked pathetic and immature or desperate and determined. After contemplating for a minute she sighed.

"Here's the deal, I will let you stay in school if, and only if, you follow these rules. You will have detention everyday after school for a month and write a ten thousand word essay to be handed in to me about bullying and the negative effects it has on society. If you step out of line once during that time you will be expelled. Do we have a deal?" She asked.

I shook my head yes and breathed a sigh of relief. Even though I knew my punishment would be unpleasant it was still better than getting expelled.

"Very well. Come in first thing on Monday morning so we can set up your detentions. I would like your essay turned in to me by Wednesday of next week. If you turn it in late I will add another month of detentions. Is that clear? Oh, and I will also be calling your parents. You may go now." She dismissed me.

When I left her office I didn't bother going back to class. I walked out the doors of school and headed to my run down car in the student parking lot. When I got in my old Chevy I cranked up the radio so that it was screaming in my ears.

I lived in a nice two story house with my mom and snotty husband in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago. I pulled in to the driveway and noticed no one else was home. Perfectly fine with me, I preferred it that way. Getting out of my car I walked up to the front door and unlocked it. When I got in the house I put down my bag and headed to the kitchen for a snack. I noticed the phone was blinking with a voicemail so I pressed the button to hear who it was. As promised, Principal Kirova called the house phone informing my mom of my latest 'discretion' as Kirova called it. Lucky for me, I caught it before my mom did. When the message was finished I made sure to delete it. Grabbing a snack I went in the living room to watch tv.

A half hour later I got a text from Lissa asking if I wanted to do something tonight. I responded:

Hell yeah!
-R

I jumped up and ran to my room to get ready for tonight.


Hey guys I know this probably isn't my best writing but I hope you stick with me on this! Also check out my other story Playing With Fire. Please review! Thanks!

XBeautifulChaosX