Introduction

A Chapter by Melissa Padilla

One day, I guess I’ll stop being in love with my best friend, Joe.

He is the typical handsome boy every girl in a movie wants. He is tall with a great muscled body, captain of the football team, funny, popular and not stupid. He is the prototype of every boy and the deep crush of every common girl. And yes. I’m a common girl. I like him since I remember and I’ve also been his best friend since I remember. He is my dad’s best friend son. When I was little I went to his house every weekend or sometimes he came to mine. Those were glory moments, we didn’t go to school yet and played around our houses with no care in the world. Our life was only games and fun. I love him despite of what everyone says, specifically my girl best friend Abby, she says he is just a bad boy who thinks that has the world in his hands or can get anything he wants with just a word. She thinks he can’t be more arrogant, hateful or mean but he is a kind person, not as he looks like.

Anyway, today is not the day I stop being in love with him.

Today is a rainy Monday morning. I’m at my house kitchen having breakfast alone as any other morning. My parent’s go to work at 7 a.m. every single morning. By the time they get up, I’m still dreaming. Since I wake up late, I don’t have time to make a delicious breakfast so I just grab some milk and a cookie.

I just received a text from Joe saying he’s outside. He always pick me up for school. I gave myself a last look in the mirror of the living room as I passed by. I took my black flowered backpack, my keys and my jacket and I came out running because of the rain.

-Hey you

-Hey- I said entering in the car- Agh! I hate rainy mornings, don’t you?

-I know you do, but they make your hair look prettier- He said laughing at my messy hair.

My hair is curly. Not a pretty curly type of hair but not afro either. It’s … well… it’s horrible but I let it be not like other girls that love burning their hair to look better.

As he drives I turn the radio on. I searched for a good song but nothing, only publicity or the previous day news. I kept searching until I finally found a song. Wonderwall by Oasis was playing.

I started singing it very excited. Joe started singing with me and speed the car a little more. He screamed the chorus as he crossed the street to school’s entrance.

-See you later Claire-he said as he parked his car and got out of it.

I got out as well. I saw him walking to where his friends were, sitting in the theater’s entrance stairs beside school.

I go to a private school. It’s an old castle actually but it has some new buildings beside it that form part of our school as well. For example the theater, it’s located at the left of the main entrance. We have a football field and a gym at the right.

I walked inside school and went to my locker.

-Hellooooo Claaaireee- Said Abby singing and appearing suddenly on my back. I startled a little bit. She put her arm around my neck- It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?

- What does it have of beautiful? �" I said turning off all of her cheer.

She made an angry face and took away her arm.

-Don’t you remember?!

I started thinking what was important about today as she stared at me with her green angry eyes.

-What kind of a best friend you are?!- She said shaking my shoulders.-Today is going to be the greatest day of my life! I have a date with George!- She said smiling. And until then I remembered. George is a guy she met at the lake as we were walking las week.

He was handsome I have to admit. But I don’t trust him obviously. He threw her to the lake accidentally and after the disaster, invited her out. He’s a stranger but she doesn’t care. He’s the only guy that has asked her on a date since her last boyfriend and that was a year ago. I know it’s not too much time since then but she is desperate to find anyone else to replace her feelings for Liam.

-Why don’t you forget your plans for tonight and watch a movie with me? �" I said closing my locker and putting my back against it.

-I know you don’t want me to go out with him, but he is cute and he seemed really nice.

-He was indeed, but he’s an estranger. You can’t go out with anyone who seems cute, it could be a psycho or…- The bell rang interrupting me and announcing classes begin. �"Saved by the bell.

We walked in separate ways, we didn’t share all classes.

I entered quietly to my class and looked for a spot to sit. Every day was the same story, everyone seemed to be a nomad changing spots. Every single day I had to stare at the classroom for a few seconds looking for a sit. I found one next to the window with a great view to the field. I had Brooke, the blondie nice girl in front of me and Chris, the one with the red hair and who was always sick of something. I like him because he is very kind and never bothers anyone except when he has a flu surrounding the place with germs. The seat next to me was empty, very unusual actually since classrooms had all seats full. Maybe someone is missing. I took a quick view to my classmates to see if anyone was missing and yes, Michael wasn’t here. Michael is a tiny boy with red cheeks. He’s shy and barely talks to anyone.

-Good morning everyone- Said miss. Grace, our English teacher entering to the classroom with a tall boy next to her. She whispered something to him and he walked to the seat next to me. I looked at him curious; my classmates did it too. Whispers started. �" Well, as you can notice we have a new student, his name is Caleb and he comes from a high school at Boston. He’s an exchange student. I hope you give him a proper welcome here.

We all looked at him but he just looked to the front with a serious expression in his face.

-Today we’ll be studying Journalism…- Miss. Grace started her class explain the meaning of it. I didn’t pay too much attention, I was busy staring at our new classmate. He has black bright hair flowing in waves in his head, his eyes are blue I guess, I can’t see them well. He has a beautiful face for what I can see, he has hard and sharp features. He’s wearing a black t-shirt adjusted to his chest and arms. But he looked so… scary. He looked like a serial killer gotten out of a movie. In simple word he is dauntingly handsome.

I turned my look to the front or I would have looked like a stalker.

Miss. Grace was talking about veracity in a journalist work, about how important is to look at the simple details, those details no one notices at first sight.

I took notes from the class but got distracted drawing in my notebook.

I sensed someone looking at me and I lifted my face to see who was looking at me. It got surprised to found out it was Caleb. The new one. I looked at him thinking he would remove his sight away from me but he didn’t, he looked at me with a challenging face. I tried keeping a firm view on him just to follow “the game “and win it but I must admit I got nervous, so I looked somewhere else and then I focused on my notebook again to avoid his intimidating look.

I heard a whispered laugh from him and saw a small smile in his mouth that meant only one thing: victory.

The bell sound and everyone got up from their seats.

I picked up my stuff and got out as soon as I could.

Morning was passing by quietly and luckily I didn’t share any other class with Mr. Serial killer face.

Lunch time came and I sat with Abby, Lisa and Olivia. Lisa and Olive are my closest friends after Abby and Joe. They are best friends but so different. For example, Lisa is blond and Olivia has dark brown hair, Lisa is a rocker and Olivia loves pop new music, Lisa has a stable boyfriend since a year and a half ago and Olivia changes boyfriend every time she gets bored.

Olivia started talking about a new boy in her history class, she described him and I knew it was Caleb the serial killer handsome boy. Lisa said she heard some girls talking about how hot he was in the girl bathrooms and Abby had no idea of who he was. I told them about my awkward English class but it wasn’t relevant for them and thinking about it isn’t a big deal.

We ate, laugh and talked about stupid and non-sense things. I searched for Joe with my eyes and I saw him, gorgeous as always with his brown perfect hair falling like waterfalls in his forehead, he put it in its place immediately. His green eyes stared at his friends and laugh at some joke Ryan told I guess. He always sat in a table located at the corner of the salon with his friends. He was surrounded by his football team friends, some cheerleaders and pretty girls. Among all of them was George, Abby’s ex-boyfriend with a brunette girl by his side, I guess they were dating but I don’t think it’s a serious relationship. None of them liked serious relationships, including Joe, they were not the kind of people who enjoyed of a romantic date or think that a girl/boyfriend wasn’t only for sex.

I took my sight away and got back to my reality. I don’t want to be in that group like some others from my school, I don’t like popularity and that doesn’t mean I’m a shy girl or an antisocial person. I’ve gone out with them in some occasions, I even get along with some of them but I enjoy more being with my “three musketeers”.

As every Monday, I have music class after lunch and then P.E.

Music class it’s my favorite class because I can be alone with myself playing the piano. I’ve played the piano since I was 7 years old and I loved it. But P.E… I hate that class!

After school, I went to the parking lot to wait for Joe. I was on my cell phone checking my social apps when my skin crawled. I felt like someone was watching. I looked around but anyone seemed to notice me. Joe came 2 minutes later and he took me home. I felt the way home really long. Music was playing and Joe was telling me about some game he was having on Friday but I was feeling estrange, I had the feeling something was wrong. Joe noticed I wasn’t paying attention and he asked me if something was wrong. I told him I had a bad feeling.

I arrived home with that feeling in my soul, filling every space in my body, like an invasion of my privacy. I felt cold inside.

I entered to my house and found my brother laying in the sofa of the living room playing videogames with his friends. M y brother is 23 years old, 5 years older than me. He studies law at college.

I don’t get along with him so well since he read my diary once when I was 15 years old. He read something about Joe. It said something like this:

“October 21^st

Dear diary:

I got lost today, lost in his green deep lovely eyes. I can’t stop thinking about him. I know it’s wrong, I know that it will never happen but today something felt different. Joe was sad a about his mom, she is very sick; she is going to have a surgery this Friday and he is worried about. I admit I took advantage of the moment to hug him and try to get closer to him and he did it too.

I can’t wait to spend any other moment alone with him. I can be myself around him and I like that. I just hope his relationship with Diana ends quick. I hate it when he talks to me about her or any girl…”

I hated him when I found out what he did. Since that moment I never wrote anything about my life again and burned that stupid diary.

Night came and so did my parents. We had dinner as a family.

I got to my room early and stood talking on the phone with Abby right before she went out to her date.

As I entered to my room’s bathroom I felt sick, I looked myself in the mirror and I looked pale, I heard my window opening and I got closer to the bathroom door and looked what was happening. I saw my window open. I got scared. I could barely walk to the window, everything was spinning, faced with nothing. The wind blew hard in the window, I saw the blue sky, and the last thing I remember about that night was a raindrop falling on my nose as I peered out the window.

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