The sound of my heart beats loudly in my head. I'm running down the hallway of my nightmares, but something is different this time. I'm no longer tormented by the ringing sound of Paul's cruel laughter. I stop running as soon as I realize this. Something must be wrong……..or maybe right, finally. I cautiously turn around and am surprised to see a strange face in front of me. Now when I say strange I don't mean weird or disfigured. Far from it, this face was kind and gentle and well, hot.

"You must be Suze." the guy said, reaching out to shake my hand. "I've heard a lot about you."

I stared dumfounded. I couldn't think of a single word to say to this guy. And wait a sec, did he just say my name?

"Um…H-how do you know my name?" I asked.

"Oh. I'm so sorry. I must have creeped you out. My name is.."

"Suze!"

"Suze"

"SUZE!"

I was abruptly awoken by my stepbrother. I sat up from beneath my covers and groggily rubbed my eyes.

"Hey Dope. What's with the early wake-up call?"

"Suze, mom says that you'll be late for school if you don't get ready in like five seconds." he said.

Stepmom, I corrected mentally.

I now noticed that he was dressed up in the new clothes that mom and I had helped him picked out for his first day at school. New clothes, backpack and all.

"Damn. Today's the first day of school. I completely forgot." I cursed as I got up from bed and walked to my closet.

"Um…Dopey could you tell my mom that I'll be ready in a flash."

"Sure Suze." He smiled at me and walked into the hallway.

I turned around and grabbed anything from my closet. I was dressed in less than 30 seconds, which is so unlike me. I usually spend an hour getting ready for my first day of school, but I did not want to spend my first hour in school getting lectured by Father Dom.

I grabbed my brand-new Kipling backpack and ran out of my bedroom. When I got outside my mom was already waiting for me.

'Suze, sweetie. What's going on? It's not like you to be late for your very first day of school." my mom said, looking at me in that way that parents do when they think you've got a drug problem.

"I'm so sorry mom. I forgot to set my alarm last night. I promise it wont happen again."

"Okay, well we need to get going. As you can see Jake and David didn't wait for you, so I'll be taking you and Brad to school today."

When I finally got to my first class, I couldn't help but notice a crowd of girls standing outside the door. Someone must be handing out free food or something.

"Well, well, well. We meet again, Suze." said a silky voice from right behind me.

That voice belonged to none other than Paul Slater. Jerk extraordinaire.

"We do go to the same school Paul, so it's not as big a coincidence as you'd like to believe." I replied coolly. Unfortunately, I was kind of surprised to see him. We hadn't seen each other all summer. My mom decided that it would be a nice idea to let me spend my summer in New York wirh my best friend Gina.

"How was your summer in New York?" he asked sincerely.

"Um..it was fine. Wait a sec. How did you know that I was in New York."

"Well, let's see. There's the fact that you're from New York and then there's that shirt that your wearing today. By the way, your ensemble today is quite different from what I'm used to seeing you in. However, it does nicely compliment your figure." he replied.

My face turn beet red. I looked down at my clothes and realized that I did look ridiculous today. I was wearing a black 'I Love New York' T-shirt, a pair of black pants that were just a tad too small and a pair of bright pink beach sandals.

"I woke up kind of late today, so I guess I didn't have much time to consider what I should wear today, but frankly Paul what I wear is none of your business." I haughtily answered.

"Jeez. Calm down Suze. I was just playing around with you."

"Look Paul, I don't have the time or patience today for your little jokes so why don't you just back off!" I said, maybe a little too loudly because all of a sudden the crowd of girls turn around and stared at the two of us. It was then that I saw what all the girl's attention was for.

"Susannah!" exclaimed the guy in the middle of the crowd of flirtatious girls.

It was the same guy from my dream. Except, no wait. This is impossible I thought.