I laid my head down on my pillow, my eyes closing shut automatically. I couldn't believe that for the first time in nine years Jared had actually talked to me, and he'd been in my house, heck he even knew my most well kept secret. It was like he was struck by lightning and his brain had gone dead. Not that I was that ugly but he was Jared Cameron and I? I was Kim Conweller, the nerd that sits at the back of the class with the gigantic glasses who wears no makeup and chews pens so much that she has to throw one out at the end of each day. With all of this you'd think someone would at least look at me in disgust as I made my dayly visit to the bin but nope, I didn't even get that.

I supposed it was Ok, at least I had Misty, the girl who had looked at me in poorly covered dislike because I had been chewing pens (back then pencils) in year 4 too, when we met. She told me it was weird and that I shouldn't do that anymore I'd end up with no friends. Misty and I, of course, became complete friends the moment we got over that; we were 9, she had cool blond hair that was never seen at the rez, I had this really horrid strawberry gum at my house that was way too sweet but which she deemed worthy of falling in her mouth and that was that. Later we bonded over being loners and our love for books, I wasn't that shallow.

Even though I was trying to keep my thoughts on Misty and the dodgy way our friendship started, Jared kept popping up here and there. I bet he would like the strawberry bubblegum, he likes sweet things. Another one, another damn minute of my life wasted on the guy that hadn't noticed me until today and probably still hadn't; who was to say that him coming over to my house meant anything? He was popular after all and I didn't keep up with that vibe: fashion and makeup were so not my thing, his behaviour could be considered not even close to something non-platonic in the world to those people. Heck, it was probably meant to just confuse me, a stupid joke put together by stupid Jena and her minions or by Jonah's jock group. All people who didn't deserve my time but were getting it because of stupid Jared. Stupid, amazing, cute, incapable of doing any wrong, Jared. Jared Jared Jared Jared. I had it bad. I had it very bad.

"Kim! Kim come down right now!" Crud, I'd forgotten to make dad's dinner with all the lovey-dovey mush in my head. It was just another reason to hate him! I tripped over my own feet in my haste to get over to my notebook, fling it open to the pros and cons page and scribble it down quickly before my dad got mad for not only having to wait for dinner but also for having to wait for his personal servant. As I marched down the stairs I thought to myself happily that makes everything a little bit more balanced, now it's only 300 pros against two cons. Then again the other con was written in crayon and by Misty, not me "He has cooties"

"I'm sorry I forgot to make your dinner father, it was completely my fault-"

"Who else's would it be you waste of space?" He wasn't hung over, today he'd come home drunk. Bloody perfect, Blue and Gray were going to see the man they thought worked day and night to feed them with bloodshot eyes and yelling profanities. I had to stop him. I would risk my life to save the little twerps, heck, I'd risk my life just to have them both be happy which was precisely what I was about to do now

"Father lower your voice, Gray and Blue are sleeping."

"What did you say?!" He grabbed the nearest thing to him, a fairy washing up soap, and hurdled it at my head. Luckily my reflexes were in tip top shape and I managed to duck down before any harm could be done. "You don't give me orders! Make my dinner and scrub the kitchen clean so no speck of dust is on any surface!"

"But I do that every day anyway." My voice had shushed down to a whisper, he'd never threatened me like that, never looked at me with so much hate in his eyes.

"You trying to be funny? I'll show you something hilarious." His hand came over his head and straight down to slap me so hard I reeled back, swearing. "Do what I asked you to do, you won't stop stop cleaning until the sun comes up, you hear?!"

The rest of the night was just as bad as the day had been good, just like it was told in stories "don't go out at night, there's monsters out there". They at least got that part right, although I believed that what I considered a monster and what they thought one looked like was completely different. I knew my dad was horrible but making me stay up on a school night cleaning the kitchen was the worst thing he'd done to me so far. It could've been worse. Tiny afraid me spoke up and I wanted to slap it into silence again as a shiver of disgust went down my spine at the mental image conjured, it could've been so bad I was almost grateful for the bags under my eyes and the spreading purple bruise.

"Hey Kim!" I didn't even move, I was pretty comfortable. When I had arrived at my locker instead of opening it I'd just let my head fall forward, probably making it look like I was crying or something. Beyond caring I lazily made one eyelid budge upwards so that I could look at Jared in what I hoped looked like an uninterested manner even though I was feeling quite the opposite.

"What do you want Jared?"

"Are you Ok? You seem a bit tired…" Flip, he'd caught on! I put both hands on the cool metal and pushed, forcing myself to stand up like a normal person and look at him properly as if I had the energy to actually pay attention to people today. They were just blobs of skin to my tired eyes, that decision was just aided by the fact that I'd forgotten my glasses and couldn't see what was five meters in front of me.

"Oh, yeah, I was just up all night-" Cutting my sentence off I slapped a hand over my mouth before I said cleaning by mistake. "Reading. Up all night… Reading." It sounded fake even to me. God, what had I gotten myself into? My peers all ignored me and that was all in the end swell with me because it meant I didn't have to hide secrets or anything, I didn't have to lie, didn't have to just- It simply made everything easier, no matter how much it hurt.

"Um… Ok?" He seemed to take a massive gulp of air into his lungs as it all came out in a whoosh. "Anyway Kimmy I was wondering-"

"Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" It was Ryan, I recognised him because my "friend", not really we only sat next to each other in homeroom, had gone through a pretty hard breakup with him only a couple weeks back. Apparently he was a douche who she was still caught up on but I'd never actually seen him in person on Friday when they sat us next each other. I kept my difference, I wasn't too fond of popular people, they scared me pretty bad.

"Uh, yeah, sure." I turned around and saw him staring into my eyes which just made me realise he had some pretty nice blue ones, nothing like my muddy brown ones. He smiled at me as I raised an eyebrow, wary of the whole situation. Cute guys with nice blue eyes were not supposed to speak with me or come into contact.

"I sat next to you in English on Friday and I really like you so, would you like to go out with me?" Gaping like a fish I took in what he said slowly. I was being asked out by a guy. This was Laura's ex-boyfriend, even though we didn't talk he was still a very very big no and in either case did I want to go out with someone who was so different to me, did I really- "Nah, just kidding." Then he turned around, high fived a couple of his friends and left me there stock still in the middle of the corridor, people moving by me without paying attention to me like they always did. I was a nobody in any case, wasn't I? His friends had probably dared him to go and ask out the ugliest girl he could find, he saw me, thought he even had a reason to talk to me without it being too noticeable and BAM he'd gotten a plan together.

The worst bit though? Jared had disappeared while I was distracted with stupid, not worth my time, Ryan. And now I had nobody to hug me or tell it would would all be fine.

Just like it had always been.