The next morning, Claire was up at five due to continuous nightmares. She brushed her waist-length blond hair and brushed her teeth before picking out her outfit for the first day of school. She decided on a simple pair of embroidered jeans and a light turquoise tank top.
When Kyleigh finally came downstairs, Claire was ready to go.
Kyleigh looked at Claire anxiously for a moment before saying, "Claire, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine!" she replied overenthusiastically. "Why do you ask?" she added as an after though.
"Well…" Kyleigh said hesitantly, "You… you were screaming again last night."
Claire cringed and looked away from her. "Sorry." she managed as her best friend put her arms around her.
"Don't worry, it's not a problem."
Claire looked at her sadly and said, "It's been four months… you'd think I'd be over it by now."
Kyleigh shook her head and was about to reply when her mom came running down the steps two at a time.
"Late for work!" she gasped out while grabbing her purse and car keys. "Have a nice day!" she yelled as she ran out the door.
Kyleigh and Claire looked at each other and laughed.
Just then Kyleigh's grandma came down the steps and glanced at the clock. "You two should be going, shouldn't you?"
"Oh, right." Kyleigh said and grabbed Claire's wrist and pulled her out the door.
They got to school after about eight minutes of walking and grabbed their schedules from the principal's office. Claire looked down and noticed that they were together in all of their classes except for Math and Science.
"Hey, we have Ms. Darbus for homeroom… didn't Chad, Troy, and Zeke say she was the crazy drama instructor?" Claire asked as she glanced down at the slip of paper with her locker combination printed on it.
She began to turn the dial when Chad poked her in the side and she screamed and dropped the combination. He grabbed her as she was falling and pulled her back up.
"Sorry, forgot how jumpy you were." He laughed.
"Ha ha, very funny." She remarked as Troy and Zeke walked up too.
"Soooooooo," Troy said, "How were the last five hours of your summer?"
Claire grabbed her books as Kyleigh wrenched open her own locker saying, "Peachy, how 'bout yours?"
"Oh it was good enough, my dad forgot to pick me up from the camp until about 10 o'clock yesterday so I had a grand old time hanging out with the mosquitoes and raccoons." Troy said blandly.
As they started walking down the hall, they happily found out that they were all in Darbus' homeroom.
They got to the classroom when Claire realized she had left her math book in her locker. She started heading back for it and Troy and Kyleigh stopped and waited outside of Darbus' room for her.
As she was walking back to the class, she accidentally bumped into Ryan, causing both of them to stumble backwards.
She apologized profusely and began walking towards Troy and Kyleigh.
They, however, were looking over her head at Ryan, who was staring at Claire as he walked forward. Claire passed them and walked into Darbus' room. Ryan turned too, thinking he was at the door.
Kyleigh and Troy both muttered, "wall" under their breath as he slammed into the wall. He fell to the ground, turning a deep shade of crimson.
Troy quickly helped him up and took a look at him. "Ryan… normal clothes?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah," he said, his face beginning to lose its color. "I finally convinced Sharpay to let me pick out my own clothes!" he replied as he gestured to his jeans and t-shirt.
The three of them laughed as they followed Claire into the room. Troy, Chad, Zeke, Kyleigh, and Claire all sat in a row together, and Ryan took the seat right behind Claire.
Gabriella and Sharpay walked in chatting amiably but Gabriella stopped when she saw her seat next to Troy was taken by Kyleigh.
She hadn't seen him all summer and she missed him, so she sat behind him and scooched her chair forward to get his attention.
Sharpay sat down in-between Ryan and Gabriella, behind Kyleigh. She began talking to Ryan but soon noticed he was completely ignoring her. She threw her pencil at him, but he caught it and handed it back to her, not taking his eyes off the back of Claire's head.
"What's up with you?" Sharpay asked.
He snapped his head back and once again turned a shade of red while muttering, "nothing, nothing"
Sharpay rolled her eyes and said, "mmm hmm. Whatever you say Ryan…"
She then turned to Zeke, who had come over to her desk bringing cookies.
After Ms. Darbus lectured them on cell phones and how important the upcoming musical would be, the bell rang and Ryan grabbed his bag and rushed to catch up to Claire.
He quickly reached her and asked her what class she was going to.
"Math, in room 307"
He glanced at his schedule and said, "Me too! I'm Ryan, by the way."
He extended his hand and she shook it and he felt a warm comforting sensation run from the tips of his fingers all through his body.
He tried to ignore it as Claire said, "Oh!" in surprise. "Troy told me all about you! I'm Claire, Claire Austin"
"You just moved here, right?"
"Yeah, from Boston, with Kyleigh and her family."
Ryan was about to ask about her own family when she said, "Could I see your schedule?" He handed it to her and decided against bringing up the topic of her family just now, it didn't seem right.
Suddenly he heard her squeal excitedly. "We're in all the same classes!"
"Oh good" he said with a sigh of relief. "I'll have someone to talk to during all the boring classes."
Claire began to laugh, but was cut off when a large boy pushed between her and Ryan, slamming her into a locker. Her head made a sickening crack and she slid to the ground, her entire world spinning before her dazed eyes.
She tried to focus on Ryan's face; full of concern right above her, but it was multiplying and swimming around in front of her.
As if from very far away, she could hear him calling her name.
As she closed her eyes, in her last moments of consciousness, she saw a bright flash of light and heard the squeal of tires, and then, there was nothing.