A/N: It's about time I update this thingie! Well, anyways, it's there.. So, yep :)

The Dog Days Are Far From Over

I paced nervously around the yard, where hundreds, thousands like it seemed to me, of students were chatting, reunited in groups, about how great was their summer. I heard some girl saying she had gone to Philippines for the last weeks of August, another rambling about how great his humanitarian experience to some far country in Africa was, and a last one saying he reached the highest level in some popular video game. Basically, they all had a great time, while I was stressing out for this scarily important day to me.

Those guys were the same age as me, so why didn't they freak out as much as me? We all had basically interests, and we never learned any of the things thy were going to teach us this year, but the ninth grade students I was seeing here had the coolest poker faces ever, if not sincere. I could see in the look in their eyes that they were ready, ready to try defying gravity.

I took a deep breath and I walked through the principal entrance's door, doing my best to avoid everyone's glare. To start off my day, I had to find something important first; my locker. Pacing in the hallway, I read and re-read the scriptures printed on the sheet I was holding, those indicating the emplacement of my locker, its combination and its number. A few people recognized me and greeted me, waving their hands at me or simple shaking their head. I greeted them back, but stayed out of their ways, not feeling comfortable with starting a conversation with them since they weren't close friends of mine.

Luckily, I found my locker in the first few minutes of my journey, striking it off my memory list. A turn to the right, one on the left and a last one again on the right, making sure to stop on the right number, was enough to open swiftly the narrow box. The space in it was pretty decent, and large enough to shove in all my stuff. First, I put in most of my school material, placing my books in order of the classes I would have today. My personal items, like a Kleenex box, a second plastic shelf and some pictures of my friends and family. One of my friends pictures included several pictures of me and Sadie, my best friend of forever. I always carried a photograph of her with everywhere I was going. No, I wasn't in love with Sadie, far from it since I was an absolute heterosexual female, but I and Sadie's friendship was special. We called it a 'best friendship'. She always had been there for me, and it was the same for me to her. Every single picture of Sadie was giving me hope when she couldn't be there for me, although she wished she could. She was a symbol to me, a symbol of ever-lasting friendship. Something that could never end.

The next thing I thought of was my small locker mirror. I took the item and installed it on my locker door, making sure it was perfectly straight. I looked myself in the glass, fixing my curly hair and my make-up.

And then, reflecting on the surface, I saw something beautiful as the moon but hot as the sun.

He was about a year older than me, sophomore, smiling confidently and wearing the school's red and white football jacket. He was talking to another really good-looking guy, laughing and seeming happy as hell. He didn't look like the typical teenage jerky jock; he seemed to be the kind of person up to start a conversation with anyone that talked to him.

I lost myself in my thoughts, still staring blankly at his reflection in my mirror. And then, without any warning, he looked in my way. Well, more specifically in the glass of the mirror.

His jade eyes met my onyx ones, and for a few seconds I felt like I was on the top of the world. He noticed my gaze, and as well noticed the way I blushed at the color of his eyes rested on me.

And he smiled.

He smiled at me.

And I couldn't help flushing even more before smiling at him back.

We stayed in the same smiling position for a long moment, until I felt a pair of unexpected hands put themselves on both of my shoulders. My heart almost jumped out my chest, turning this formerly perfect moment into ashes.

I turned around quickly, eyes widen of fear, but they naturally find their original width when I found myself facing one of the fewest people I really needed to see that day.

I caught her into a comforting hug, "You scared the crap out of me, Sadie,"

She giggled, "Sorry, I just found it so uncreative to just pass by and say hi."

I ignored her words, too relieved to see her here, "God, I freaking missed you!"

"So did I, BFFL!" She squealed, tightening me into the embrace.

When I was in Sadie's arms, it felt like I was in my sister's arms. It was comforting, it felt right, it felt familiar… And it did help through a difficult day like today.

Unthankfully, nothing could last forever. The bell of the first period rang, leaving me again on my own. Sadie squeezed me one last time before going away, "I hope we'll at least have a class together. Don't have too much fun without me."

She went away, sighing.

And I felt like my only family here let me there to die alone.

~.~.~

On first period, I had literature. At least, it wasn't a subject I was failing at. Actually, although people thought I was incredibly dumb, I was still kind of clever at some things. Well, I was good at things that interested me. Literature was an interesting subject since it wasn't that difficult to do. We were reading books, analyzing them, discussing about them… And that summed up our duty. Simple as that.

I stepped in the classroom, and looked at the pinned list on the board that assigned our seats. I was sitting in the back row, right next to the left wall and series of posters illustrating books I had never heard of. I waited for the next bell to ring, seeing other students getting slowly in the room one by one. Some of them were handsome guys, others were freaks and most of them ordinary people. I observed all of them; they seemed pretty calm. Creepily calm, like they were earlier in the yard. Still, I couldn't understand how they could remain as calm as they were.

I was lost in my train of thoughts for a few moments when I noticed a silhouette standing in front of my face. I blinked twice, looking up to the person.

It was a boy, as tall and old as me, with a tan skin and dark brown medium-length locks. He seemed Jewish, but particularly not really nice, and wore a long-sleeved sweater vest with a white shirt under. He frowned upon me, causing me to raise my eyebrows in confusion.

"What?" I inquired, causing him to sigh in annoyance.

"Honey, you aren't at your place."

"Yes, I am, why are you saying this?" I asked again, not having a clue of what he was referring to.

"No you're not. This is my seat."

"It must be a mistake," I said, attempting to defend my point. "I checked the list twice, this is supposed to be my place."

He sighed again, and scanned me detail by detail. He first looked into my eyes with fire in his, then looked at my hair and even at the book I had brought even though it was the same as everyone's. At a moment, he seemed to have stopped a few seconds at the sight of my breasts, which kind of embarrassed me since I was wearing a V-neck shirt.

Feeling violated, I was about to tell him to get his eyes off my chest when he spoke again, "You must be Katie Andrews."

I nodded.

"This place was attributed to me, Noah Panabaker. You have mistaken, your seat is right behind mine."

The board was far from my place, but I could still see my name written on the sheet, right under a name starting by the letter N.

N for Noah.

I flushed; that total douche was right. And I couldn't say anything against it.

"Sorry, my mistake." I mumbled, gathering my stuff and transferring it from desk to desk. I as soon sat at my true place, embarrassed of the situation. I apologize again to Noah, who flashed one last glare at me before I got up his seat, "Sorry again, I hope it won't happen anytime soon."

He turned around, smirking nastily, "It's okay, I bet Twilight books didn't teach you much about life than they did for sparkly fudge-packing vampires."

I could hint a lot of sarcasm in that sentence. Even more; it was mean. Really mean.

But it didn't hurt as much as when I heard him mutter one last insult, "Tweedle idiot."

And this was just the beginning of this painful freshman year.

A/N: Inspired by 'Fifteen' by Taylor Swift :)