Chapter 1

Sarah's Point-Of-View (POV):

Why don't people find me interesting? I guess I know the answer. I don't do exciting things, I don't have many friends, and all I do is stay in my room or with my family. Some people go hunting, but I don't want to hurt a poor defenseless creature; others go on extreme trips, but I don't want to break a leg or something. I wish for once someone would drag me out of my comfort zone and convince me to do something exciting.

​I spun around in my desk chair and thought about how my fragile body would be able to do extreme stunts. I would easily die doing most of the things in the movies. I pretty much crossed "stunt double" off my career list a long time ago.

I almost jumped completely out of my chair when someone grabbed my shoulders and stopped my chair from spinning. I slowly turned my head around to see who had grabbed me. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my older brother, Shawn, smirking at me.

​Shawn was pretty tall but too skinny to be on the football team. He had long, brown hair (well, it isn't long enough to go into his eyes). He always wears either a hood or a beanie on his head (which makes his hair even longer), and he has green eyes like me. When people first meet us, they think we're twins, but Shawn is actually a year older than me.

​"What's up, kid?" Shawn ruffled my hair.

​"Thinking," I answered flatly.

​"Oh, really? What about?" He had an annoying tone in his voice.

​"None of your business," I glared up at him. "I think I'm going to go on a walk," I stood up out of my chair.

​"Aw, come on! You can't be mad that I scared you!" Shawn grinned at me but I just simply continued to glare at him. "Well, fine, then. Have fun." He finally left me in my room, alone.​

I waved my hand as if he was still there. I walked over to my closet and grabbed my gray hoodie and walked down the stairs while I was putting it on. My mom saw me walking down the stairs and smiled. "Multitasking I see." I tried to hide my smile as I walked toward the garage door. "Sarah?"

​"Yes, Mom?" I answered with my hand on the door knob.

​"Don't stay out too long, okay?"

​I nodded. "I won't, Mom," I kissed her on the cheek and closed the door behind me.

​I walked down my street with my hands in my pockets and my hood over my head as if trying to contain the curly mess of caramel hair on top of my head.

It was getting colder by the minute! I walked around trying to think of something to do or somewhere to go so I wouldn't have to be stuck inside my house. Then, the greatest idea struck me! I turned around and ran down the side walk in the opposite direction of where I was going.

I walked about the half a mile that I had done over a million times before to my best friends' house. After ten minutes of walking alone, I finally approached their sidewalk, leading me to their front door, and it was then that I realized how much I missed my friends. Their house always stayed the same ever since we were little kids. The paint hasn't changed, the flowerbeds didn't change, nothing ever changed no matter how much time passed. The same old tree that we used to climb on as little kids is still in their front yard, just a little taller now.

I walked up to the front door and knocked. I looked back at the old oak tree and remembered when one of my friends, Maika, fell off one time when we were six. Luckily, he didn't fall too far, but he did manage to break his thumb. I was quickly sucked back into the present when my friends' Mom opened the door. She smiled when she realized it was me.

"Sarah!" she exclaimed and hugged me as hard as she could. "How have you been, sweetie?"

"I've been good," she motioned for me to come inside. "How are you?"

"I've been wonderful!" she chuckled as she closed the door behind me. "It's getting a bit nippy out there."

I smiled. "Yes, it is!"

"Carlee and Maika are upstairs in the game room, as always."

I smiled and headed toward the stairs. "Thank you, Mrs. Bruse." I ran up the stairs and quietly walked into the game room.

Maika and Carlee were sitting in front of a huge flat screen television playing some type of war video game. I'm going to guess Call of Duty which was Maika's favorite game. I shook my head and glanced around the room which was filled with movies and other video games. On the right side of me were different types of chairs and on the left was a table that was spilled over with video game controllers.

Carlee turned around and smiled at me. "Hey, Sarah!" She paused the game and ran over to give me a hug. I hugged her back and watched as Maika stood up off the couch he shared with Carlee and smiled at me.

Maika was adopted from another part of America, but he looks like Carlee's parents more than Carlee does, so no one can tell that Maika was adopted or not. They question Carlee instead. I'm the only person outside of the family who knows about his past family and that he was really adopted. Carlee had long, pin-straight blonde hair and blue, while Maika had short, spiked brown hair with gray eyes. Maika had the family's facial features, though, which made it better to pass as one of the Bruse's.

Maika walked over to us and gave me a slightly awkward hug. "How have you been, Sarah?" he asked me.

I smiled at him as he pulled away from the hug. "I've been good."

He nodded. "That's good!"

Carlee grabbed my arm. "Maika, Sarah doesn't want to talk to you," she winked at me as she began to pull me away. "Come on, Sarah."

I laughed as I was being pulled away. "See ya later, Maika!" I didn't see or hear if he responded or not.

Carlee led me into her bedroom, and we sat next to each other on her floor. We began to start talking about school and the football season at school. We quickly began talking about boys next.

You see, the funny thing about Carlee is that she loves everyone. There's only a handful of people that actually get on her nerves. She always knows how to make me laugh, even when I'm down. Overall, she's just an amazing friend who is always there for the people she cares about.

After I had been there for a while, Shawn called me on my cell phone. I accepted the call and placed the phone to my ear. "Hey, Sarah, I'm coming to get you, okay? We're going to the football game at school," Shawn said on the other line.

"Yeah, sure. That's fine," I answered coolly.

"All right, I'll be there in at least five minutes."

"Ummm, okay." Shawn hung up.

Carlee looked up at me with a weird look on her face as if she was trying to make me laugh, which she succeeded in doing. "Shawn's on his was to come get me," I said while still laughing.

She was laughing along with me. "That's fine." She stood up and chuckled one last time. She stuck out her hand towards me to help me up. I accepted her jester and let her try to lift my butt off the ground.

Once I was up, we headed toward the stairs and I decided to peek in on Maika. "Hey, Maika, I came to say bye," Maika was staring into space while sitting on his rolling desk chair in the middle of his bedroom.

He whirled around in his chair and exhaled when he saw me. "Bye, Sarah. I'll see you later."

He waved good-bye to me as I walked away from his room.

He was acting a bit strange. Is he feeling okay?

I ran down the stairs and hugged Carlee who was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me.

"Bye! I'll see you soon!" I pulled my jacket up my shoulder. "Tell your mom I said bye, please."

She smiled. "I will!"

I waved bye to Carlee before I shut the door the front door. Shawn was waiting for me inside his car. His speakers were blaring metal rock music, and he was head banging. I had to bang on the window to get his attention so he would unlock the door for me. Once he finally did, I climbed into the passenger seat.

"Ready for the game?" Shawn asked as I buckled my seat belt.

"Yep," I replied. I wasn't really into sports. I only went to our school football games to hang out with my friends. I looked over at him as he drove away. "Is Emma going to be there?"

He smiled.

Emma is Shawn's girlfriend. This was actually the first girl I have ever seen him smile about when you said her name. Whenever they're together, you can practically feel the love radiating off of them. They are always there for each other. Emma has always lifted my brother up when he was down, and he's done the vice versa for her. She was also the first of Shawn's girlfriends that I liked. And believe me, he's had many of them! She's very nice and sweet, even to me. And for once, it was nice to see my big brother fallen head over heels for a girl.

"Yes," he smiled even bigger.