I suppose it began in middle school. That, itself, should have been a warning. When do good things ever come out of junior high? Of course, I didn't know any better. I was twelve years old and thought that was 'mature'. It was the summer between sixth and seventh grade. I'd spent it with the same four people, the only non-family members I had in my life that actually liked me.

There was Slade Demarco, who could have almost passed as my brother. He and I both had black hair and green eyes, only his eyes were lighter than mine, and his hair, straight and falling down his neck, naturally looked as such. From the looks of him, you'd think that girls would love to get next to him, but in reality, everyone thought that he was strange. He was quiet among strangers, and probably smarter than most of our grade, so he spoke in such an advanced way that it almost seemed stupid. Kids made fun of him for the points he would make in class, and the serious look to him he had whenever he was trying to concentrate, so they amplified it to a point of ridicule by seventh grade.

Emily Tier, who was a year younger than me but always taller, was labeled as "emo". People liked to spread rumors about her, saying that she cut herself and that she was actually a lesbian. She was naturally a curly-haired strawberry blonde, but over the summer, we dyed our hair black together, and cut hers so that it barely reached her shoulders. She also learned how to straighten and tease it, as well as apply eyeliner, which didn't the way people looked at her.

Her best friend, Cadence Mihan, was probably stranger than the rest of us. She had a head full of platinum blonde hair, a slightly puffy face, and a petite, straight, almost boyish frame. She liked to wear strange outfits: shorts with leggings, oversized glasses with no lenses, midriff T-shirts that were two sizes too big…she was also very loud and straightforward, which made most of her and Emily's grade dislike her—as well as the rest of the school.

However, she had another friend who was in his freshman year of high school that was just as weird if not weirder; Austin Terrance. He was probably insane in a literal sense. He screamed a lot, and was infamous for his anger issues, and liked to laugh at the most inappropriate times. He hugged everybody that he met, whether they wanted to or not, he dyed his hair many different colors at once and teased it as high as it would go. He even wore yellow cat eye contacts. Even though they were three years apart, I was certain that he had a crush on Cadence. That just made it worse: he was, what, fourteen? She was eleven. It was weird, but I never said anything.

And then there was me, Elijah Goldsworthy—though, my friends all called me Eli. I was kind of short and scrawny, and like the others, I didn't dress like most of the kids my age, so I was a target. My hair was about as long as Slade's and wavy. Naturally, it was dark brown, but over the summer, when Emily dyed her hair black, I dyed mine black, too. My eyes were green, but hard to see behind the glasses that my mother insisted that I needed. I wasn't quiet, per se: I just had nothing nice to say to the rest of my school, so they quickly learned to hate me.

Among our peers at N.J. Braunman junior high, we were known as the outcasts. We didn't necessarily see it as a bad thing, since we still all had each other. It had been that way since our last years at elementary school. We never left home by ourselves, seeing as we were all terrified of getting jumped, but in a group, everyone kept their distances. They made fun of us, but at a safe few feet away.

But that wasn't what started the 180-degree turn that my life turned on. Had everything just stayed the way it was, my life would have had a completely different turnout. That, I'm positive of.

I remember the date and everything: July 22nd, 2006. Emily and I had just finished doing our hair. Slade was over, propped on the living room sofa, mindlessly watching television. We'd discovered FUSE a few days prior, and since my house was the only one with both cable T.V. and an available living room to hang out in, we'd been hanging out here ever since. "You know, the singer from My Chemical Romance doesn't have black hair anymore," He announced.

I had just turned off the faucet and Emily handed me a stained, off-white towel that my mom always used to dye her hair with. I started rubbing it through my own hair as I called back to him. "Oh really?"

"Yeah," He shouted. "They're showing a teaser for their new album. His hair is practically white now. And he cut it really short."

"Eli, you should tie your towel around your hair," Emily said. She, of course, instantly wrapped her head in a towel when she washed it in the sink.

I, however, shook my head, opting to drape it around my shoulders as I looked at the T.V. Before the clip went off, I got a glimpse of the man's head. I shrugged, "Oh well. I can look like some other celebrity."

"The guitarist still has black hair," Slade told me.

"Yeah, and the bassist…well it's dark brown. You still look really good, though."

"Thanks," I ruffled my hair with the towel some more, trying to mop up as much water as I could. I already knew who was at the door when it rang.

"You can come in, guys!" I shouted, and of course, Cadence and Austin made their ways through the kitchen into the living room. There was a flurry of greetings, hugs, and compliments before we all clustered on the two couches, like we normally do.

We had no problem spending our summer this way. We would all gather at one of our houses and hang out wherever we could find room, whether it be a living room, a bedroom, a den, or a basement. Someone would pop a few bags of popcorn, we'd load up on any drink that was loaded with caffeine, and we'd watch music videos and talk for hours. To us, it was fun, however, our parents always seemed bothered by it. Every day when an older family member would pass through the room, they'd give us the typical When I was your age I spent my summers outside, playing with the neighborhood kids! My parents had to make me come home! speech. We'd learned to tune them out.

However, my mom was a different story that day. She came into the room and stood in front of the T.V., arms folded over her chest. "Elijah, this is getting ridiculous."

My friends snickered at the use of my real name. I threw my arms out in front of me. "What?"

"This is the fourth day in a row that you've had people over just to watch T.V. Go out and do something."

"But ma, this is the only house that we can watch FUSE on—"

"I don't care!" She said. "You have a little more than a month left of summer vacation and I can't have you wasting it by sitting on your ass all day! Go show off your new hair to the kids down the block."

I rolled my eyes. "The kids down the block don't want to see my new hair. They hate me."

"Denise's kids? They don't hate you. They just wished you dressed a little better, and I don't blame them."

My eyes narrowed.

She ignored it. "Look, you're way too young to be rebelling against society and living a sheltered life."

"I'm not trying to rebel against anyone—"

"Good! So I guess you won't be rebelling against me telling you to get out of the house." She directed her words at me, but I could see her gaze float around at the others. In her words, she couldn't parent the rest of them 'because they weren't her kids to watch over', but she still had something to say about all of us, whether she made it obvious or not.

"There is nothing to do," I told her. "We have nowhere to go. Everyone hates us."

She groaned, "Would you stop saying that! No one hates you!"

"Wanna bet?" I mumbled.

She rolled her eyes. "How about you go greet the new neighbors that moved in the other day across the street?"

My brow furrowed. "We have new neighbors?"

"Yes, Eli." She said, the patience in her voice growing thin. "The Mars's? They just moved into that little grey house across from ours. I talked to them the day they got here."

"Why would they want us to go, then, if you already did?"

"You might find them interesting. The husband is a mortician."

"Hmm…" I pressed my lips together, looking around to my friends. Slade and Austin were both staring at the carpet, not wanting to make eye contact. Cadence stared absentmindedly at my mother. Emily was going between examining her cuticles and looking at me.

She gave a slight shrug. "That's pretty cool."

"I thought you guys would like that," My mom smiled curtly. "I know you're all into darkness and…death and…all that shit…"

I couldn't help but smirk, even though I couldn't tell whether or not she was trying to be funny. She didn't understand us. As a kid, she was popular. She was on the cheerleading squad, the softball team, the head of her school's student council and dance committees. She and all of her friends were normal girls who lead normal lives, so seeing me be so abnormal was hard for her. However, she was getting used to it in her own little ways.

"Maybe we'll meet him another time, though," I suggested. "Like, as a family."

My mother grimaced. "Well, how about you guys go now, while you're all together?"

I blinked a few times. "I have people over. I don't really want to just bring them to some new neighbor's house."

"But, Eli—"

"What?"

She groaned. "Look, he has a daughter, and I kind of told him that I had a son her age—"

"Oh God, mom, you didn't."

She winced. "I kind of promised him that you kids would show her around the neighborhood?"

I rolled my eyes. "Really?"

"Look, it's not like I ask for much from you, Elijah. You could at least be courteous to our neighbors and welcome them here."

"But that's so awkward" I whined. I didn't need my mom trying to make friends for me. I had my group, and it was golden the way it was. Throwing a new girl into the mix would balance out the genders, but it wouldn't do any other good. I could tell.

"Just do it, Eli," She commanded me, hands on hips. Once the hands were on the hips, I knew that she was serious. "And you can say that you need to be home by dinner so you'll have a time limit."

I grumbled incoherently as I slumped off of the couch. "Fine," I said reluctantly. "But I'm gonna be home by six."

"Seven-thirty," She corrected, then added in a huff, "And put your glasses on! I'm not letting you out blind!"

I groaned once again but crossed the room towards the mantle above the T.V. as my friends rose from their seats. I picked up my glasses and put them on. Really, they didn't make a difference. I saw perfectly clear, but according to my mom, the doctor said that I couldn't see very sharply. Really, I just listened to her so that she'd shut up. Glasses were good to wear on days that I didn't feel like wearing eyeliner.

The group of us left the house. It wasn't swelteringly hot out, but it was warm and humid, which just made the thirty seconds of walking even easier to complain about. The group elected me as the one to go on the doorstep and ring the bell, since my mother was the one who volunteered us for this feat. Unenthusiastically, I did so, leaning back with my hands in my pockets while I waited.

A man answered the door first. He couldn't have been younger than forty, but he had a boyish smile. He had a pale face with slight wrinkles and laugh lines with sunken eyes behind his wire-rimmed circular glasses. His hair was probably supposed to be a dark brown, but it was seasoned with greys, and his hairline receded back a few inches more than it was supposed to. He was dressed in a simple black button-down with grey slacks, and white lab coat open on his front. "Hi!" He asked with an expecting smile.

"Um, hi, sir," I smiled timidly. "My name is Eli Goldsworthy?"

"Oh, yes," He grinned, putting a hand out. He had a very firm, enthusiastic handshake. Around that moment, I started noticing the lofty chemical and floral scent that the house's open door emitted. Every home has its smell, I guess. "Your mother was telling me about you."

"Yeah, she said for me to show your daughter around the town?"

"That would be delightful," He beamed before turning back into the house and calling. "Julia!"

I turned back to my friends, who were all chuckling to themselves. "Is this guy for real?" Austin smirked. "He sounds like one of those guys you'd hear advertising for heartburn medication."

"He looks like one of the guys you'd see on the commercials, too," Cadence sneered. "How old is he, sixty?"

"Shh, guys," I laughed, turning back towards the door as I heard footsteps back down a tile hallway. The front door opened again and my eyes widened.

She was about my height, maybe a little taller, with a full head of long, black hair. Had I not known otherwise, I would have suspected her to be fifteen or sixteen, not twelve or thirteen. I couldn't tell what color her eyes were, but they were shaded in perfectly with what had to be liquid eyeliner and shadow. She smiled: she had perfect teeth, like the kind you get when you just get your braces taken off. She also wore copper lipstick. "Hey?"

I stared at her for a moment. I liked her outfit. She was wearing a long-sleeved fishnet shirt underneath a black Alice In Chains T-shirt. Her jeans were dark-washed and slim-fit, but she wasn't wearing any shoes. Somehow, I noticed that both her fingernails and toenails were painted black, so perfect that it was probably freshly-done. A glimpse of a silver-studded belt shone on her right hip, where her t-shirt was hitched up a bit.

I snapped myself out of the daze in time to see the start of confusion on her face. "Hi," I said. "I'm uh…I'm Eli Goldsworthy?"

"Oh, right, the neighbor kid!" She had that same mask of bashfulness that her father had. While his seemed natural, though, hers seemed artificial and forced.

"…Yeah, uh," I pointed a thumb back towards my house. "My mom told me to show you around the neighborhood?"

Her thin eyebrows rose and she glanced past my shoulder, eyeing my other friends before they finally looked back into mine. They were brown, I realized. It took her a moment before she put on a smile. "Oh, uh, no thank you." And with that, she closed the door.

Simple as that.

No goodbye, no well-wishes, no rain check, 'maybe some other time'.

Not even a disgusted look, a glare, and 'ew, why would I want to be around you guys?'

She declined, but she smiled, and just shut the door on us, leaving me out on the stoop with the lingering chemical-flower smell and the soft chill up my spine. What had just happened, and why was I bothered by it?

"Well!" I heard Emily say with a clap of her hands. "That was easy enough!"

I turned around, looking down towards the group without stepping off. "Did you guys see that?"

"Yeah, it was weird," Austin chuckled.

"She was really pretty, though," Cadence beamed. "I wonder what kind of makeup she uses."

I hopped off the doorstep. "That was weird, though," I said. "She just said no and left us here."

Emily gave a shrug. "Whatever. If she's not interested, she's not interested. We can go tell your mom that?"

I stood there for a moment, blankly thinking, but I nodded and we started back. Somehow, though, even at that moment, I knew that everything was about to change.