Hello everyone! It has been a long six months since I last updated and I would like to thank all of you who stuck with me. So without further ado, here is the new chapter and I promise I will start updating faster now that summer is finally here.

Warning: The paragraphs in this one are a little long and the chapters a little short but I promise the next one is longer, it'll be up this weekend, I promise ; )

Disclaimer: I own nothing so don't sue…..all my money went to college anyway

New York, New York 1989

If anything, that first day grew progressively worse as the hours past. The tension from that morning exploded the last few hours. Every period till the end of the day had a fight in one of the classes, and I could not wait for that day to end.

Alexandria, Virginia 1971

I slumped against the locker next to Brenda outside our seventh period English class where we were told to wait. We had just left a surprisingly uneventful and empty psychology class. According to the teacher, Ms. Simmons, with all the new elective classes that the school opened the classics like psychology were forgotten, leaving anywhere between ten and fifteen people in a class. We had just left Rev and when we got to our English class; our teacher was standing outside telling us to line up so each student could get assigned a book before finding our seats. For an advanced class, the student turnout was surprisingly large for this subject. There were about twenty or so people lined up so far with another few minutes to go until the bell rang.

We finally got to the front of the line and received a book before I examined the seating chart and realized that Brenda and I were not going to be able to sit together. With a look of despair, I left her in the front of the room to go to my seat in the back. Looking around, I noticed that I was directly in between a very muscular and very tall black boy and a very angry white boy who looked like he played football; both of whom looked very upset. Class finally started and our teacher, Mrs. Price; a meek woman who looked very skittish, began class by assigning us a partner to work on prompts with. After everyone moved to sit next to or somewhat near their partner the entire class got an eerie feel to it, like the calm before the storm.

I was working with a very shy white girl named Sarah. We had just finished reading over the essay and began working on the multiple choice questions attached when a fight broke out directly behind us. The two boys I sat next to apparently were assigned together and not very happy about it. The desks around them were moved and the people who occupied them did too. Mrs. Price ran to the hall to get someone to help break it up, it was getting violent real quick.

I was up and out of my seat just before the large black boy was thrown into it, but I wasn't quick enough to escape it completely. The white boy was making another go for him and unfortunately I got in the way, which resulted in him shoving me to the floor with a sneer; stupid bastard.

When he hit me, I was sent flying towards the floor, but not before the side of my face collided against the desk. I laid there for a minute trying to get rid of the stars I was seeing before being pulled up by Brenda and ushered towards the hall. A few teachers from next door managed to get through and break up the fight, half dragging the two who started it to the dean's office. I caught the eye of the white boy who shoved me and sent him a glare that could kill. Our class was lingering in the hall and slowly started to make their way back in while I was leaning against the lockers trying to regain my focus get rid of the stinging.

" Annie, are you ok?" asked a concerned Brenda. " Oh my gosh, the side of your face is starting to bruise!" she said while pushing back my hair to get a better look. I winced when she accidentally hit a tender spot on my cheek, pushing myself away from the locker as Mrs. Price came over to see what happened.

" Oh my, did that just happen dear?" she frantically asked trying to inspect my head. " Why don't you go to the nurse's office, maybe some ice will stop the bruising" she said ushering me down the hall. I walked in to the office and with one look to the nurse she got me an ice pack and insisted that I lay down on one of the cots.

" What happened?" she asked while wrapping up an ice pack in a paper towel and placing it on the side of my head.

"There was a fight in class, and I got in the crossfire" I said while readjusting the ice to the spots that hurt. " Is it really that bad?" I asked looking at her hoping it wasn't.

"Well….Umm…Why don't you see for yourself" she replied while handing me a small mirror. I sat up to examine my face, gasping at what it already looked like. My left temple was completely bruised and was sporting a nasty purple and blue color. It extended down and ended right under my left eye, I guess I hit the desk a lot harder than I thought I did. Brenda came in about five minutes later to bring me my bag while I was silently freaking out.

"Oh wow, that's a lot worse than before!" she said while handing over my bag; great response huh?

" Oh my god, my father is going to freak when he sees this!" I moaned, trying to think of ways that I could attempt to hide it.

"I would be more worried about what Julius is going to do if I were you" she replied taking the mirror away from me. I hadn't thought about that, but she was right; he was going to explode!

"Oh no, what am I going to do! I can't let him see this or he'll blow up" I said beginning to panic.

"Well, you still have a full period to figure out a way to make it less noticeable" she replied with a small smile, hoping to get me to feel better.

" More like ten minutes class will be over soon and I have math with Rev and Louie next!" I said after glancing at the clock.

" Maybe they won't notice?" she said, receiving a look of total disbelief from me.

"Alright so maybe they will, but maybe they won't tell Julius and then you can have more time" she offered. I attempted to roll my eyes, but the pain in my head stopped me from that, guess that's my punishment for being petulant.

"Yeah ok, like that'll really happen." I replied after standing up and heading over to the mirror. Don't get me wrong, I love my boys and all but I doubt I could keep them from not telling Julius, especially Rev. Louie would flip out on his own but Rev would get concerned and make me feel bad for trying to keep it from them. I stood playing with my hair for a few minutes until I finally managed to get it to fall to where it was hiding a majority of the bruise, all that was left was the markings around my eye.

"Hey Brenda, do you carry any cover up on you?" I asked, her shade darker than mine, but if I used just a little it should cover it up enough so that no one would really notice. After applying a small amount of what she grabbed from her bag and readjusting headband she loaned me to keep my hair covering my left temple, the majority of the bruise virtually disappeared.

"Nice work, you can barely see it now" Replied Brenda after coming over to see my progress. " That should defiantly last until you get home, just try to keep your head down as much as you can and you may be able to pull this off."

Glad with my results, I grabbed my bag and returned the ice to the nurse just before the bell rang and began heading down the hall towards my last and final class. Brenda and I split up just before her classroom, planning on meeting in the library while the boys were in practice. I got to my last class and wandered over to where Louie had a seat waiting for me next to him and behind Rev just before the bell rang. After saying a quick hello I kept my head down, pretending I was doing something in my notebook, but not before I noticed that the boy Alan from lunch was also in this class.

Our teacher, Mr. Shay who looked every bit of what a geeky math teacher should look like, began class shortly after, handing out packets containing all our daily work. I looked up quick to grab a packet from Rev and nearly dropped them all when I saw him staring at my eye. Shooting him a questioning look I went back to my packet, inwardly groaning when I saw the extensive algebraic equation I was supposed to solve, and hoping that he hadn't seen anything.

After struggling through ten minutes of hell trying to solve the stupid problem, I finally got it feeling quite pleased with myself. After everyone had finished the problem, Mr. Shay showed us a shortcut to solve the problem that would have been nice to know BEFORE we worked on it. I heard Louie softly chuckle at my string of quiet insults I was throwing about the stupid class and its stupid shortcuts that would have been nice to know before the stupid problem.

The next thirty minutes dragged on FOREVER! I tuned out so much that I was positive that I was going to need an extensive date with my text book to even begin to understand our homework. Once the bell finally rang, I slowly packed up my stuff telling Louie and Rev to go ahead so I could try to avoid Julius for as long as possible. I left the room, going over all the homework that I had for the night walking past Alan, who was apparently waiting for me.

"Hey your, Annie, Julius's cousin right? I thought I should properly introduce myself" He said after grabbing my attention.

"Yeah I am, and you're…Alan, right?" I replied hoping that his name was actually Alan, I was never good with names after all. After gaining a nod of confirmation, we walked down the hallway in an awkward silence until he spoke up again.

"This probably isn't any of my business, but how did you get that bruise on your face?" I swear I froze in my steps, if he had seen it who else had?

"Oh it's no big deal, I fell in one of my classes" I replied settling for a mostly true statement. " I'm kind of I big klutz" I said attempting to laugh it off.

"Got it, to be honest so am I" he replied laughing in return. He seemed like a very sweet guy, a little too scrawny to be playing football though. Figuring Julius would probably be waiting for me by my locker, I managed to catch Alan again right before he was about to disappear into the locker room.

" Hey Alan, not that it's a big deal, but can you keep this between us?" I ask motioning to my face. "it's really not that bad but my cousin can get kind of protective, which is something I like to try and avoid" I finished, hoping that he would understand.

" I got it, no worries" he replied. " To be honest it's not that noticeably with your hair like that, I only noticed cause you were pulling at it" he said with a quick smile before disappearing into the locker room. I wandered back down the hallway and turned to find Julius standing against my locker just as suspected.

" Hey how was your day?" He asked while moving off to the side so I could get into my locker.

"Not that bad I suppose, I was right in my assumption that math would completely and utterly suck though" I replied shooting him a quick smile in response to his laugh. " But I have found a solution that will keep me alive"

"Oh really? And what would this solution be?" he questioned while taking my overtly large history and math book for me.

" I am simply not going to do the homework, and when a test rolls around I will beg and whine until someone takes mercy on me and helps me study" I replied with a grin, stuffing the last of my books in my bag.

"Let me know how that works out" he laughed as we made our way down the empty halls as I made sure that my hair still hid my left side.

"I'm going to meet Brenda in the library" I said after we got to the locker rooms. " Do you want to meet me in the parking lot?" I asked already making my way down the halls.

"No that's fine, I'll come get you when practice is over, come on by if ya'll get bored" he replied, disappearing into the locker room.

I met Brenda at a table in the back of the library and began working on homework. Skip to an hour and a half later and we had effectively struggled through our Spanish and I had managed to finish the history reading and packet. Switching out my history book for my math book I began to attempt some of the problems assigned. After reading and re-reading the examples on how to solve them I managed to finish two before slamming my book shut.

"I seriously don't get this stupid problem!" I said, startling Brenda out of her reverie.

"What's the matter?" she asked, grabbing for my notebook and looking over my work. " How did even get this answer?" she questioning trying to figure out where I started to go wrong. I was saved from trying to explain my process when Julius and Petey walked into the library to collect us for the night.

"Hey girls, you missed out on an exciting practice" said Petey while spinning a football around in his hands.

"Why's that Petey, did you actually do something today?" asked his twin with a quick laugh at his expense.

"Hahaha, oh my you are soooo funny" he replied shoving her lightly.

"To be honest all you missed was this fools poor attempt to do math" jeered Julius, explaining the 'how many feet in a mile' story, "Petey here ain't that great at keeping hold of the ball" He laughed, slapping him on the shoulder while Petey just rolled his eyes.

After grabbing our stuff and making our way out to the hall, fate threw me another blow and I found myself colliding with the floor for the third time that day; apparently me and the tiles have not had enough of each other.

"Oh god, Annie I'm sorry" he replied, grabbing all of my stuff off the floor while Julius helped me up. "I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm really…" he said before faltering, his eyes wide. I didn't realize what he was looking at until I realized my hair band had slipped leaving my left side completely exposed. I shot him a quick panicked look, trying to stop the words from coming out.

"Oh no! Did I do that?" he asked while I tried to wave him off.

" What are you talking about? There is nothing wrong" I ground out staring at him hoping he would get the point to shut up. My efforts were pointless though, the next thing I knew Julius had snapped to attention and rounded on us to see what was going on.

"What the hell happened to you?" He yelled while moving my hair away and turning on sunshine. "What did you do?"

"It's fine! I'm fine, it was just an accident" I said in as soothing of a voice as possible, I knew he would freak. I felt really bad for Sunshine though, he was still sputtering out apologies and thought it was his fault.

"Accident my ass! What type of accident leaves your entire face bruised?" He raged, effectively getting the attention of everyone in the halls. I looked back to Brenda in an attempt to get some help but she made sure to look everywhere but at me; my stupid cousin intimidates everyone.

I attempted to explain while trying to calm down Julius but every time I did either he would go off on another tangent, Sunshine would begin profusely apologizing again, or Petey would make some comment about how bad it looked which only cause Julius to get more upset.

" Alright everyone SHUT IT!" I yelled into the commotion, managing to shut everyone up. "Ok, first of all Sunshine no you didn't have anything to do with this so please stop apologizing," I begged, feeling slightly relieved when he began to visibly relax. " And second, Julius chill out. I promise it's not that bad, I just fell is all. You know how klutzy I can be" I said, settling for a half truth. I did fall after all, I just don't see the need to mention that I was pushed; the less Julius knows the better.

After he managed to cool down and Sunshine stopped feeling guilty we left the school, splitting up after we got to the parking lot. With a quick goodbye to Brenda I followed Julius to his car, silently laughing while I watched her scold Petey for not being able to keep his mouth shut and being insensitive. After ten minutes of an awkward silence we finally pulled up to my house and I jumped out of the car only to be stopped by Julius.

" Annie, meet me in front tomorrow again ok" He told me while leaning over the passenger seat. "All after all we don't want you to have any more accidents" he muttered as he drove away, not really sure whether I was supposed to hear it or not. I could tell he didn't believe me, I always sucked at lying to him after all, but that's a battle for another day.

I wandered into the house and made a bee-line for my room where I collapsed on my bed before discarding my bag on the floor. I decided a nap was in order and told myself that I would finish my math homework later. Today was the absolute definition of hell and until these stupid race wars ended it wouldn't get any better, and with that final thought I drifted off to sleep.

Hurray, I have officially updated! Remember to tell me what you think and review and a big shout out to all of you who haven't given up on me or this story, I thank you!

Peace out ya'll!