Chapter 1

       I don't remember how long I've been like this, but I'm not happy in life. My parents never have enough time for me, for they are always working to keep me happy and healthy. I know they mean well, but they don't know how to make me happy. They don't know that I feel this way, but I don't tell them because they already have too much on their hands. We are barely getting by. We live in a small two room and one bathroom apartment. I'm just glad we have a roof over our heads and food on the table. 

       At school, I don't have any friends. Many people make fun of me and put me down. And lets just say that my self esteem is much lower than it should be. I know a few friendly faces, but the most they do is say hi to me every once in a while. But mostly, my classmates bully me. Once I came home with a black eye and a scrape on my face. When my mom came home I just told her that I got hit in the eye with a baseball when I cut across the park. Of course that was never the case.

       My obnoxious alarm for school goes off. I was already awake before it went off, though. I shut it off and tumble out of bed. I walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror. I eye my long black hair thoughtfully. My eyes shift to my facial features but I quickly look away. I don't have time to obsess over my imperfections right now. I shuffle over to the kitchen. My parents left already. They go to work early. I take the milk out of the fridge and make a piece of toast. I finish my breakfast and head to the bathroom to brush my teeth. After I finish getting ready for school, I grab my backpack, and lock the door on my way out.

         On my way to school, I notice the cloudy gray sky. I'm glad the sun isn't out. When I arrive at school, the bell rings. I go to my first class, which in this case, is Physical Education. In first period I usually get pushed down and beat up. And because of my frail body, I can't put up much of a fight. When I first get into the gym, everything seems normal. Same mean people, same equipment. But when I look around, I find a boy alone. Right in my usual spot. I observe from a safe distance, and see that he has medium length dark brown or black hair, and he seems to be a little taller than me, but I can't be sure. I decide to walk over to him anyways to avoid getting hit by all of the basketballs zooming around the basketball courts.

       As I walk toward him, he still has his head down. Someone yells "freak" to me from behind me. I start to walk faster toward him, but someone grabs me from behind and pushes me onto the floor. I try to get back up and run over to the wall the boy is on, but the bully pushes me down again. I cry for the bully to stop, and the lone boy on the wall looks up at the exclamation. He sees what's going on, and starts running toward the commotion.

       "Leave her alone!" the boy exclaimed. The bully slowly shifted his gaze over to the speaker.

       "What are you going to do about it?" the bully asks, who I now recognize as a mean prep named Jackson. He's my main bully. He's the one who gave me that black eye. He has a gym locker right next to mine. The boy starts running and rams into Jackson. He manages to knock the wind out of him and make him stagger a few paces back and fall over. Jackson stands back up, and gets his friends and motions them to follow him. The boy looks at me with wide dark brown eyes. He extends his hand toward me.

       "Come on." he tells me. I reluctantly grasp his hand, and we start running to the door of the gym. The gym teachers try to run after us as we pass them, but they're knocked out of the way by Jackson's friends.

       We smash into the door of the gym as we run outside. After we sprint a few feet away from the door, we hear five more bodies smash into it. The boy looks back behind us. His expression turned to surprise, and I feel someone crash into my back. The boy yanks me forward and pushes me in front of him.

      "Run!" he commands. I obey his words, and start sprinting. I look back, and see the boy sprinting to catch up to me. Far behind him, I see the group of preps slowing down, and they seem to have decided to brush it off and get back to class. I stop running, and the boy stops too. He looks over his shoulder, then looks back at me. I notice that he's holding onto his arm with an expression of pain. I run back over to him.

       "Are you okay?" I ask him. He glances up at me.

       "Oh, this? Yeah I'm alright." he says with a pained smile. I look down in thought. He just saved me. Shouldn't I thank him?

       "Thank you." I say to him. I notice my ears start to burn with embarrassment and I feel butterflies in my stomach.

       "No problem." he says to me while smiling. "What's your name?"

       "Melody, you?" I ask him.

       "Aaron." He answers with a smile.

Author's Note

Please enjoy my first chapter of Past the Clouds! :) Please let me know if you notice any grammatical errors, thank you!