CHAPTER 3

Karin and I walked down the hallways of Jump High.

"Thanks for showing me to my first class." I said in a monotone voice.

"It's nothing. We have the same first class, science." Karin didn't even look up from the floor.

We walked in silence for a little while and then finally we reached our destination.

"Here we are…" Karin held the door open so I could step through. I nodded my head in thanks.

The room was mostly white. The teacher wore a lab coat and had safety goggles around his neck. There was a dry eraser board at the front of the classroom and the periodic table poster at the back. In rows where lad tables that fit two people and had an assortment of science equipment on them.

We proceeded to an empty table and sat down, placing our books on the tabletop. As soon as the room was filled with its students, the teacher began.

"Good morning boy and girls. I hope we brought our swim suites today!" The teacher smiled as the class yelled yeses. I didn't say anything. And surprisingly neither did Karin. She sat there with her arms crossed on the desk and eyes on the floor. 'Gee, she doesn't look like sunshine.'

"Settle down my students. We leave for the lake in a matter of minutes and when we come back, don't pack up because I'm going to assign lab partners." The teacher turned towards the board and began to write down something. But I didn't know what it was because I wasn't paying attention.

"Hey Karin…" I asked lightly tapping her.

"What?" She whispered back to me.

"What the professor's name?"

"Mr. Michael."

I looked up at the board noticing he had drawn some sort of chart. I could care less what it said so I opened my notebook and began to write. I started to write whatever came to mind. And what came to mind was my crapped up life. My sister.

"What're you writing?" Karin asked in a curious voice. "If you don't mind me asking…"

"Poetry." Was my simply reply.

I sat there with my hand jotting down whatever words my hand felt like writing.

"Ok, the buss is ready for us!" Mr. Michael said slipping into his out door coat and turning off the lights. The class jumped out of their seat and ran for the door with their towels and goggles and whatever other stupid thing they could think of bringing to the lake. That included non-air filled rafts and sharks and tubes that they'd blow when they got there.

I waited there with Karin until most of the pushy students had made there way through the door. Moments later, we were on the bus headed to the lake which we had to hike to. Karin had fallen asleep next to me. And since I had nothing to do but be bored, I became bored. It's not a good thing for me to be bored because then my mind drifts and my mind drifted to the dark place in my mind that held my sister's death and my ex-boyfriend, and my situation with my father and the fact that I'll probably never see my mother again. 'Why does my life just go from bad to worse?' The truth is, for the past month I've been tormented with the solution of my problems, suicide. The idea keeps coming back to me. 'I mean, I have lost my mom, my sister and best friend, my dad and my life in the Angels' Realm.'

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the tears that threatened to spill from my eye. I felt the pain in my throat that I had felt when I first saw Sarah dead.

"We made it safe and sound!" Mr. Michael yelled from the front of the bus.

We had turned off onto a dirt road and had parked somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Everyone began to demount the bus with their backpacks filled with their lunches, beach crap and who knows what. I leaned over and gently shook Karin awake. She looked up at me then the people getting off and then the out the window and the scenery.

"We're here?" She yawned and stretched.

"The bus is stopped, isn't it?" I raised my eyebrow.

Karin stood up and followed me off the bus. Mr. Michael was gathering the students around him.

"We are going to start at that trail over there…" He pointed to a path leading into the dense forest. "And we'll end up at the lake. While we're hiking, our bus will be driven to our lake so that we can jump on it after swimming and go directly back to school."

He then unzipped his backpack and stuck his hand in it, rummaging through it until he pulled out a handful of bunched up strings with something at the end of them.

"These are whistles. Each of you will wear one around your neck so that incase you get lost you can blow them so we can find you." Mr. Michael explained.

The teenagers all took a whistle and hung it around their necks.

"Ok, now that we have that done, let's head out…and no straying from the path." The teacher said leading the group to the beginning of the pathway. The forest was a mixture of greens and yellows, and the ground was moist. I could hear a bird's call echo through the trees.

It reminded me of sitting in that tree…the night I heard Sara's scream. The night she died. 'Crap! Stop it Rachelle!' I mentally slapped myself for letting my mind drifted.

"Gross! My feet are getting muddy, and there's strange sounds!" Some prissy princess type girl whined.

"She's the popular girl at our school. You know, the queen bee person." Karin whispered to me as some stupid guy swooped Ms. Prissy Princess off her feet.

"Don't worry…I'll protect you." The idiot crooned to the queen bee he had picked up.

I rolled my eyes.

"Does that mean you want to be picked up too?" Someone said from behind me.

I turned to see a guy staring at me. He had black hair that actually seemed to have a hint of purple in it because it was so black. He had it somewhat spiked up. He had green eyes that looked like the forest's leaves. One thing that I noticed is he wore a black armband that was pulled up around his upper arm.

"No. Why would you think that?" I said turning back around. I kept walking foreword.

"Because I saw you roll your eyes when that guy picked up Shelly. So I thought maybe you were jealous." He said following Karin and me down the path.

"I would never be jealous of a bitch like that!"

"What makes you say that she's a bitch?" He asked walking up beside me with his head cocked a little to the side.

"Just because she wore the wrong attire for hiking, she gets some guy to carry her." I answered walking a little faster.

I heard him snicker a little then fall back so he was walking behind me.

"Retard." I mumbled just loud enough for Karin to hear.

We kept on winding through the forest stopping every so often so Mr. Michael could show us some fungi or weird species of animal.

Shelly, the bitchy queen bee had apparently got some other helpless male soul to carry her backpack and two other guys carry her throne style through the forest. Karin walked beside me mostly silent except when some weird species was pointed out and she'd cringed and tell me how disgusting it looked. My mind drifted in and out of the memories of the past and now, surprisingly, the guy who had talked to me earlier. But I didn't know why. We kept walking until we departed the forest and entered the sunlight. I shielded my eyes from the sudden light. The scene before us was a lake that had a sandy beach with a few boulders outlining the forest's border. There was also a wooden dock that lead into the water. Everyone dashed for a spot on the sand to put his or her belongings. Then everybody, but Karin and me, started to strip of their clothes revealing their swim suites.

I sat on a broken tree trunk that had fallen onto the beach. Karin sat next to me. She was looking down while I was looking up at the sky. It was powered with puffs of clouds. There were a few birds here and there. A raven perched on a treetop looking around its surroundings.

"So why did you not want to swim?" I asked Karin still looking up at the clouds.

"W-well, if you p-promise not to tell anyone…I kind of think I'm too skinny…" Karin stuttered.

"Too skinny?" I asked a little shocked.

I mean it's usually to fat. Not to skinny. It's like anorexia in reverse. Just then, I noticed that boy with the armband, now in swim trunks, was talking to a group of guys and then looked back at Karin and me. I poked Karin in the shoulder and pointed at the group of boys.

"They're talking about us." I said.

"How do you know?"

"They were pointing at us." I replied.

"Don't worry about it. They're probably being jerks." Karin leaned back on the log and looked up.

"I'm not worrying." I mumbled leaning the other way and looking back up at the sky.

But because we were paying no mind to our surroundings, we didn't notice the guys sneaking up on us. Out of nowhere, I felt hands grab me up in bridal style.

"What the hell!" I shrieked as I left the comfort of being on the log and into someone's arms. "Let go of me!"

"I knew you wanted to be held! Wanna go for a swim?" His voice held over my screams of surprise.

"First, put me on the ground! Second, do I look like I want to go swimming?" I yelled referring to me not wearing a swim suite. But he kept walking towards the dock. I started to try and struggle my way out of the grip I was in. He only held tighter.

I stole a moment to look over to see if Karin was ok. The other guys had tackled her and were now carrying her towards us. She was struggling too.

I started to kick. He laughed and started to run for the dock with the guys who were carrying Karin close behind. Karin was screaming bloody murder.

It was only then that I realized where we were headed…the dock, which meant water. 'Oh shit!' We came closer to the end until he was at the edge. He stopped and looked down at me. He had the shittiest, boyish grin on his face.

"Put me down!" I screamed.

"Ok." He jumped off the edge.

I screamed as we hit the ice-cold water. The jerk was still holding me under water so I put my hands of his chest and gave a good hard shove. He let go of me and I swam to the surface. I gasped as I broke out of the water, a few seconds later he came up next to me.

"First, that whole "Let me down!" "Ok" thing was so cliché! And second, YOU JERK!" I yelled at him, my face was red with anger. He just laughed really loud like and arrogant ass. I looked up at the dock and saw Karin in between two guys holding her forearms ready to push her in.

"Now Richard?" Asked one of the two guys to the guy who jumped in with me.

Richard just smiled. "Yeah!"

"3...2...1!" They yelled and pushed the screaming Karin in.

I swam to where Karin had connected with the water. She came up a few seconds later. She drew in a breath of air and then looked at me.

"Are you okay?" My voice was full of concern.

"Y-yeah." She squeaked.

I looked up at the hysterically laughing boys who had pushed Karin in. They stopped laughing as soon as they saw my icy glare.

"You are so lucky I'm in this freaking cold water and not up there!" I warned them.

Karin started to swim to shore. I swam after her. The boy named Richard was still treading water when I passed him. I stopped and looked at him. He smirked and arched a brow.

"Yes?" He asked stifling a laugh.

I splashed him in the face.

"That's not very nice young lady." He said grabbing my ankle as I tried to swim away. He yanked me back towards him. I spun around looking him in the face.

"Let go of me…or else." I said slowly through clenched teeth.

He let go.

"Good boy." I patted him on the head like he was five.

I caught up to Karin just before we got out of the water.

"Hey, Rachelle?" Karin sounded sort of nervous.

"Yeah Karin." I said with just a hint of left over anger in my voice.

"C-can you walk in front of me?" Karin asked me getting out of the water.

"But why?" I asked looking back at her. I struggled to keep my mouth from dropping.

Her clothes stuck to her body like spandex. She was so thin it was…surprising. I never really noticed how thin she was because she wore sweatshirts or something that hid her upper body.

"K-Karin! Are you ok?" I asked really worried. Then I noticed that most of the class was watching Karin. Shelly stared at Karin then leaned over to one of her girlfriends and whispered something. Karin looked like she was going to die. She ran over to a near by tree and hid behind it.

"Oh no…"I ran after her.

She was sitting on the ground with her hands burying her face as she cried into them. I walked up slowly to her and kneeled down. I put a hand on her shoulder and gently began to rub.

"Sorry." I said quietly.

She looked up and tried to talk but she was crying to hard.

"It's ok. I know you're probably embarrassed…"

"It's not that!" Karin cried. Her face was pink and tears soaked her cheeks.

I sat beside her. I knew what it felt to be hysterically sad and have no one there for me, so I wanted to be there for Karin so she didn't feel the same way as me.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, you know." I sat next to her, leaning against the tree.

"Everyone's going to think I'm anorexic and I'm not!" She perched her head on my shoulder. She was still shaking from the hysteria. I didn't know what to say so I let her just cry.

"I don't think your anorexic." I comforted after a while.

She lifted her head up. "Thank you. You're a true friend."

Wow, I actually have a friend. I never really realized this, but I have never ever had a friend. Just Sarah and my Mom. 'Oh, Sarah, I miss you.' A small tear made its way down my cheek as I remembered my dead sister and best friend. I quickly wiped it away. I noticed that Karin's violent shakes of hysteria had settled down.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked.

"Can I tell you a very deep secret?" Karin sat up and wiped the left over tears away.

"If you want, I guess."

"But I can trust you right? Its just I have to tell someone and since you're my only friend…" Karin explained.

"Again, only if you want to." I really didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable, like she had to tell me.

"Ok, so…my…" She paused taking in a deep breath. "See…the r-reason I'm so s-skinny..." She started crying again. "M-my mom was m-murdered two years ago." She took another deep breath.

"It's ok." I felt bad for her. I really did. And that would be my White Angel side.

Karin started talking again.

"So now I l-live with my d-dad, and he…h-he's…" She couldn't finish because she just broke out crying again. 'Wow she really hasn't cried for a long time considering how much she was crying.'

"Sorry, it's kind of hard to talk about." She waited a few seconds to start again. "Anyway, now I live with my dad and he drinks all the time. He never use to drink but now he blames me for my mothers death. So he punishes me by starving me. I haven't had anything to eat for a week. He gives me no money to buy cafeteria food." She curled up and started to rock back and forth.

"Please understand, that I've never been through what you're going through, but I have been through a lose similar to yours." I sympathized.

Karin just cried into her arms.

"All the money I earn from my job at the Dark Day Café, he takes to buy more alcohol.

"Why don't you quit?"

"I'm scared of what he might do!" Karin cried.

I stood up and looked behind the tree at the beach. Almost of the entire class was out of the water and getting ready to leave.

"Com'n Karin. The bus is leaving." I offered with my hand outreached towards her to help her up. She looked up and grabbed my hand. She stood up and wiped the tears away. "And I promise never to tell anyone." I reassured her.

We walked to the bus only to be faced with a long bus ride ahead.