At 7:04 AM, he swung on the bus with a big grin on his face. He took his dear sweet time finding his seat three in front of her.

They had sat there, on the highway, for a good two minutes, waiting for him so show up. As he sat down, the many cars backed up behind the bus started honking. She had been on time, early even. And if it had been her that wasn't out there, there wouldn't have been a second though as to whether or not to leave her behind. She could be waving her arms like a madman, flashing a light at the bus driver to get him to see her, but he always would act like he didn't.

She rolled her eyes and looked down at her book. She read about two words before the bus jolted to a jerky start and the inside lights flashed off. She looked up at the sky, silently asking, why me?

Generally, Ally would pull out her phone and use it as a light, but the events of the day before had left her screen mangled beyond repair. Damn the ice and all its forms. And then she blushed, embarrassed just thinking about the happenings.

Ally, dejected and upset, resigned herself to leaning her head on the gray seat behind her and watching his cowlick stay perfectly still. He was asleep. He always slept in the mornings, relying on the screeching brakes when the bus driver reached the school to wake him up. And it always worked.

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The brakes squealed and everyone was thrown forward and then back again. This idiot doesn't know the brake from the gas, does he?

The doors slid open and kids and teenagers alike ploughed off like cattle, trudging their feet as if they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. The school building was but forty feet away. Regardless, she understood that feeling.

She was the last one off, as always waiting till the end to get off because kids wouldn't let her into the aisle. She walk up the aisle three seat and saw his blond head slumped forward. She froze. This could go one of three ways. She could keep walking and pretend she didn't see him. But, no, that wouldn't work because at this point the bus driver was glaring at her, silently urging her to get off his bus. She could wake him up and be on her way, or she could wake him and he would be mad. But school…

She reached out and poked his shoulder. When that didn't work, she tapped her foot against his boots. Still nothing. She sighed.

"Austin?" She whispered leaning around him to try and see if the was any movement that indicated life. "Wake up, we are at school!" He started at the sound of her voice and jerked forward opening his eyes right before he head butted her right in her nose. "Ah!" Of all the things she had done, Ally had never whimpered before. But now, she didn't question the action, or her dignity, and her hand covered her nose holding it there as if it were about to fall off.

His hand came up to her face, her eyes being closed, and encompassed her hands in his, prying them of her face to get a better look. "Alls, if you get hurt around me again, I'm gonna have to start thinking you just want my attention." She snorted, not thinking.

It cause a whole new level of pain. She started choking on a thick substance running down her throat. It felt like the mucus film you get when you are really sick, but thicker and almost metallic.

Blood.

She started to panic, ignoring his hand on her, and started coughing. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She felt his hands leave hers and initially thought he had left her to suffer. But instead his hand grabbed her cheeks and turned her head towards him. She met his eyes, which were filled with concentration.

"Ally." Can I die from this? "Ally." His voice was like liquid, flowing through her brain like a water fall of nothingness. "Ally, you're fine. Your nose is bleeding, but you are fine. Open your mouth and breathe."

She coughed once and opened her mouth, looking in his eyes the entire time. She breathed in deeply through her mouth. The corners of his lips tipped up a bit into a smirk.

Asshole.

She felt the blood trickle down her face and into her open mouth. Before she could react to it, his arm came up and he used the sleeve to his favorite sweatshirt that was of some sports team. She flinched not wanting to get it bloody. But he held firm, holding it up and examining her face.

"I think it is broken." Ally had never broken something before. Not until this moment. Damn that stupid bus driver and her conscience. If she had just left him…

"I don't like blood." She muttered.

He smiled, wiping her lip again. "Nobody does."

Her eyebrows raised. "You know that Paige girl-."

"Shut up," he said, blushing. He had dated Paige for about a week one time before he realized what a freak she was. She told him that when she saw blood, she wanted to drink it. He broke up with her that day.

"Ally Dawson, are you going to get off my bus?"

All she could do was sigh and ignore the fact that the bastard of a bus driver didn't say anything about the other student sitting on his bus.

"Yes sir."

She pushed his now sticky blood covered sweatshirt away from her face and stood up, gathering her things and stepping down out of the bus. He was quick to follow. "I'll wash that, if you want. I wouldn't want you to have to deal with that." She gestured to his arm.

She pretended not to notice the faint pink dusting his ears and lower neck, telling herself it was a trick of the light. "It's fine. I'm the one who bloodied up your nose." His brow furrowed. "Speaking of, why didn't driver what's his name say anything?"

She resisted the urge to snort again, having learned her lesson. "Because my name isn't Austin."

He ignored her and kept on talking. "You need to go to the nurse. Oh are you bleeding again?" She felt his other sleeve wipe at her face and she swatted it away.

"I'm not four you know."

They reached the doors and she grabbed the handle before he could and slipped through, heading straight for her locker, nose in her jacket, despite his instructions to go to the nurse. She put in her combination, almost screaming when it wouldn't open. Not knowing exactly why she was so frustrated, she threw her backpack down on the ground and stormed off to the bathroom. Ripping paper towels out of the dispenser, she pressed them to her nose and yelped. I didn't hurt when he did it. She looked at her nose in the mirror and winced at the awkward warped way her nose was bent. It was blue and black, spreading out across out onto her cheeks.

She poked it, wincing again. Who the hell thought that was a good idea?

Blood started running into her mouth and she couldn't help but think of the beginning of every horror movie. Something unsuspecting happens and then BOOM everybody dies.

She thought back to the brief lessons from the fifth grade on first aid. I need to tip my head back, right? She trusted her instincts and tipped it back slightly, breathing through her mouth. But stopped when she felt the thick rolling liquid seep into her throat.

Convinced she was not remember something, she heaved another sigh and stomped back out of the bathrooms, passed her locker and backpack, which was still on the floor, with a paper towel to her nose. Down the hallway, to the right, to the left, to the right again, and one more left and she was in the nurses office. She watched the floor, counting the blue tiles amongst the red and white. What an awful color scheme.

"What's up sweetie?" The sickeningly strong smell of the nurses perfume traveled up her nostrils and into the part of her brain that what already not functioning properly.

Um, do you not see the bloody paper beneath my nose?

"I have a bloody nose and I don't know what to do." The sarcasm that leaked into her voice was purely accidental.

The nurse's smile faded slightly and Ally assumed it was because she realized she would actually have to work. "Well of course you do. Anyone who ever participated in P.E. should know what to do."

Ouch. I just got fat shamed by a teacher.

"I must have forgotten." Ally's voice remained steady, though she felt like curling into a ball and crying.

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Ally walked through the halls, ponytail swinging from side the side, on her way to English with her copy of Pride & Prejudice clutched tightly to her side. She couldn't ignore the tape that was haphazardly placed of her nose. The nurse decided it wasn't broken and gave her ibuprofen when her nose stopped bleeding on its own.

Ally's backpack had been in front of her locker when she had gotten back from the nurse, who was cold on all degrees.

Shaking her head with a light smile, her eyes caught sight of him leaning against a locker, and different female specimen trapped in place by his gaze, his fingers slowly working through her long blonde hair. It was always blonde. Always they had blue eyes. Always they were stick thin and tall, with legs that went on and on and lean arms that had muscles under the thin lair of paper white skin.

Ally had never before compared herself to the girls he was seducing, but in that moment, she took in her own skin color. It was darker than that of the girl pressed into the locker. Her Mexican mother had given her a coloring that she always had appreciated. She didn't look tan. Instead, she always looked like she glowed. Or so she had been told.

Ally started to morph in her own mind. Her arms became lean and her stomach flat. Her breasts shrunk down to a reasonable and manageable size. Her legs grew long, and her hair became blonde and her skin the color of the girl pressed on the locker. Tilting her head back at them she noted that she didn't like the way she looked when she did that.

Blonde hair looked rather silly on her anyways.

At 2:21, she ran out the doors of the school, racing to reach the bus. Her eyes connected with his feet as the stepped on the bus.

Shit.

She ran even harder, making it just as the doors closed. She knocked on them, hoping the bus driver would respond. Instead, she watched as he put the bus in gear, and drove off.

She didn't miss his sneer either.

Ally stood there for a good ten minutes, wondering what she was going to do. She was watching the school, praying that it opened up and eat her, sucking her into the underworld where she might be able to find a real place of solitude.

Don't be ridiculous.

Her fingertips started to tingle, her nose stinging with invisible ice. It was rather cold outside, the white snowflakes littering the ground and trees around her. Not even really snowflakes. There were banks of snow, covering every inch of the world around her.

She sometimes wondered what it would be like to be a snowflake. Was every snowflake also a raindrop in the summer? Was the fact that every single one is different because that is the only way they can show their personalities?

Ally shook her head and turned around. She walked back into the school, wondering how on earth she was going to get home.

Her answer came in the form of a text from a number she knew by heart. "Need me to pick you up?"

She smiled and texted back, "If you don't mind."

"Be there in five."

She could almost hear his voice on the other side. Sarcastic and loving.

She walked to the front doors, painfully aware of her nose and the questions that were about to ensue.

The lime green canvas top jeep pulled up exactly ten minutes later.

Smiling, she walked out the doors, snow begging to fall from the sky so that the clouds could have a break from holding all that weight. They must be tired holding all that snow and water.

The sky was grey, almost the color of her thoughts. She imagined that her thoughts were all dark, with wisps of green shooting through at lightning speeds. Each different shade and hue represented a different emotion she was feeling at every moment. The green was for times like these. It was for times that the stupid jeep she was approaching was in sight.

She opened the door with a huge grin, feeling ten again.

"Hey squirt."

She rolled her eyes as she climbed in. He was such a brat sometimes.

"Hey!" She reached over the center console and hugged him tight around the torso, shoving her head into her shoulder. "How'd you know I needed a ride?"

"Austin texted me." He pushed her away, and pointed at her seat belt. "He said that he saw you running for the bus, but didn't make it."

Didn't make it my ass. "Ah. Okay. Thank him for me?"

She clicked her seat belt into place and looked up just in time to see his glare. "What?"

"You ride the bus with him every day. He is a two minute walk away from the house. His locker is right down the hall from yours."

"And? Your point is?"

"Do it yourself, Butt face."

Ally smiled at her the mean name he called her. Shaking her head with a large smile she leaned into the seat.

Dustin pushed his foot into the gas and they were off to home, weaving through the houses of military personal.

Ally lived in a small town outside another small town that was just outside a slightly larger town. Her small town had no high school. She had attended their elementary school from the time that she was in kindergarten, to 6th grade. Then, because it was the closest one, she and all the other kids from her hometown, attended Stimerelan Jr. /Sr. high school on the Airforce base near her home.

They drove through the gate and drove down the highway to home. Well, her home.

Dustin was in the Air National Guard. He would deploy and come back, over and over again. She wasn't able to keep track of her beloved brother.

Dustin was the exact opposite of her. Where she had her mother's dark brown hair, he had their uncles red hair. Their skin was similar in color, his darkness was emphasized by that extraordinary hair of his hair. He was lean naturally, always eating. But, he was a guy, and he lived to exercise and keep fit.

"So what happened to that elephant nose of yours? It looks like you painted it."

Her lips quirked. "Austin happened."

Dustin's eyes flashed over to her in surprise. "What?"

"He head butted my face. Although as much as I would like to blame him, he was asleep."

A smirk and raised eyebrows was her brother's response.

They pulled into the driveway and were met with the sight of Austin, sitting on the porch, shivering and looking at his phone. When he saw the jeep, he jumped up with a huge smile on his face.

Dustin quickly got out of the car and they preforms the ancient act of "bro-hugging." Ally was convince that had she not been there, they would have jumped up and down squealing. She slid down in her seat till her head was hidden by the dash board.

Damn, this car is dusty.

Her heart sunk when her door was ripped open by one of them and she was pried out of the car, despite her holding on to whatever she could grasp.

"Come one Ally, let go inside." So it was Dustin that dragged her out. Figures. Austin usually ignored her when she was by herself, let alone he Dustin was there.

"Dez, what're you waiting for!"

The infuriating nickname for her brother slipped out of Austin's lips.

Austin's lips were turning a dark purple color.

"How long have you been sitting there?" The question left her before she could stop it. Besides, what right did he have to try and take her brother from her when it was the first time she had seen him in a month, seeing as he had been down in Nebraska for an exercise?

He shrugged. "Since I texted him."

Ally rolled her eyes. At least thirty minutes, if not longer. Idiot.

She nodded. She sensed that it was time to take her leave of absence. With a slight wave of her hand, she brushed past Austin and made her way to the grill, opening it and grabbing the house key, pretending that it didn't bother her that she now had black goop on her fingers.

She was about to take a step up to the porch, which had rotted planks of wood that would fall out and crumble at random, when Austin large and warm hand closed around her wrist.

She turned around in confusion. As soon as her face was in view, though, she understood what he was doing. His finger raised up to her nose and ran it down its full length. "You're all black and blue." His voice was soft, but not as soft as the unbelievably tickle of a touch on her sore nose. With every section of her nose he touched, a soothing feeling ran through it, as if he had a healing touch. A whisper in time, trapped in her memory. Just for her.

Her breath came out in short puff, the white fog emerging from her mouth made her feel like part of a movie roll. And yet nobody yelled 'cut.'

He help her eyes in an exhilarating gaze. Dustin disappeared, and it was only him and the snow. The clouds must have approved because a tunnel of snow engulfed them. This was the part where the guy realizes how much he loves the girl and want to tell her, but she is so beautiful he can do nothing but stare. Her eyes closed and opened again, pulling her out of movie land. Shaking her head, she turned around, leaving Austin there on the sidewalk in the snow.

The unlocked the door and walked inside. She closed the door and leaned on it. It was just eye contact.

But it was so much more than that, wasn't it?

She rolled her eyes at herself. Overreacting was one of her specialties.

She dropped her bag down on the ground and went to the sink to pour a glass of water. A smile reached her lips when she saw a dirty plate and fork in the sink.

Mom has been up.

She heard the frantic scrapping of nails on the linoleum living room floor and turned to greet her dog. He jumped on his hind legs to get closer to her, and so she gave in and knelt in front of him. "Hey bud." She scratched and scratched, her dog seemingly never satisfied.

"Come on!" She grabbed her bag and walked to her room, careful to be quiet when she heard the quiet huffs of breath coming from her mother's room. She leaned on her door to close it and turned around, taking in her messy room.

Messy. Not dirty.

Quickly's large, and slightly misplaced, eyes watched Ally's every move. One step forward and Ally was in front of her mirror. The surface distorted her image, having to reflect through all of the sharpie marks. But this time, Ally didn't suck in. She leaned down to inspect her face.

It was round, red, and her nose purple nose was covered in black heads that she couldn't seem to get rid of. Today she didn't feel fat.

She felt downright ugly. Furrowing her misshapen eyebrows, she stood up and looked around. Her eyes landed on a green sharpie on her floor.

With a shaking hand and closed eyes, she grabbed it, hating herself for what she was about to do.

Green sharpie is never a pretty color. It always looks like someone ate some bad fast food and food coloring.

But when it spread onto her mirror, it was the ugliest shade of green she had ever seen.

She had spent the last two hours in her room, counting the seconds till Austin left so that she could have Dustin to herself. But the laughter was continuous. She was praying that her mother didn't wake up, but it was a silly idea. And even if she did, she wouldn't actually get up.

Austin and Dez had been best friends since Austin reached the seventh grade. Dez was a freshman at the time and they had just kind of… clicked. Ally had spent many summers avoiding them. Many summers wishing she could be like them.

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A.N.

So. The skin color thing. I know it is iffy and doesn't stay true to Ally, but don't worry, this isn't going to be a story about racism.

So. On with my notes to my reviewers.

Guest: Thank you! I really appreciate that you are going to read my others. Don't expect to much though. And don't read the first one. It is bad. Like, "I can't even" when I look at it.

. : Thank you! You made my day! Thank you for the detailed review. It really helped me write this chapter. I hope I cleared up the Airforce base confusion. It is because there isn't a highschool in her small town, so they go to the closest one, which happens to actually be ON the base. You will also be getting more back story on why she thinks she is so invisible to him in the chapters to come, so stay tuned.

Immafan80: I sure hope so! Lol! Thanks for you review!

Deined23: I am trying to portray that idea. Ally is going to be going on a rollercoaster journey with her weight and her image. I hope I don't disappoint! Also, I am trying to write it one how I have felt, so if there is anything that doesn't seem clear, let me know?!

Alright. Now. I am thinking that updates will be every two to three weeks until Christmas break. I always have lots of homework so hopefully that will be enough time for each chapter. Sorry if I fall out of that rhythm. I am under TONS of stress. Thanks for reading guys.

And once again, leave you opinion, no matter how brutal. Diversity in opinions are what make them such a powerful tool.