Chapter 2

"How much time you need to put some clothes on and brush your hair, Danny?" I was getting irritated. I had been waiting for the past twenty five minutes. We were supposed to be at the school five minutes ago. I swear, he wanted to look good for some new girl to charm with his charming appearance. He looked normal to me, even when he came through the front door and finally showed his oh so handsome face.

"Calm down, Ash. It's okay to be late sometimes."

"Not on the first day."

He scoffed. "Since when you care about being late on the first day. It's not like you haven't got a detention before."

"Oh, excuse me for being considerate of the fact that my little brother liked it here, and so, I should try not to mess anything up." I gnashed my teeth in anger and turned my head away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his face soften with guilt and love.

"I'm so sorry, Ash. I was acting childish. Please forgive me?" He gave me those puppy eyes and pout until I couldn't resist. I began to smile softly and opened my arms for him.

"You know you're allowed to act childish sometimes. You're still a kid so you should act like one. I can take care of the mature stuff." I ruffled his hair lovingly and he caught my hands in a moment and frowned at me for ruining his hair.

"You're still young too, Ash. You should be able to enjoy freedom for a few years before you're forced to be a adult." Those words got me thinking. I thought about how it would be to be a young, carefree woman. Not to worry about how I was going to pay the mounting bills, not to worry about how we were going to leave behind our past.

He watched me think about his words. I finally shook my head and my thoughts away.

"Even though we all like to dream of things that are far-fetched, reality isn't going to vanish. As to answer your words, I like taking care of you. Even though, I admit, it's a little tiring sometimes, I don't mind doing it. Besides, we're late for school!" I closed the conversation with that, and started my bike. It was a beautiful, white Ducati that I had purchased with my own money. The money that my old job gave me. If only I started doing that again....

I shook my head to break my chain of thought and motioned for Danny to sit behind me. What is wrong with me today?

Even when we started to gain speed, I had no answer.

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The thunderous roar of my bike caught the attention of everybody, even the teachers going about their business. It didn't bother me. I could feel thousands of gazes on my back as I pulled out the helmet off my head. I dragged a hand through my brown hair and met the gazes of the curious students. It was the middle of the second month at school, so they were probably dying to know the person who had just arrived.

I smirked. I'm gonna rock this school.

"No, you're not. Remember your promise." Dan uttered those words while looking at me with warning.

"Did I say that aloud?" He rolled his eyes.

"No, you didn't, I just became a mind reader and answered your thoughts." He said sarcastically.

"Shhh. You can take advantage of that." I said with a straight face, playing along.

"Shut up already or we won't be able to get a move on till dusk." He said while looking at the school.

I followed his lead and glanced at the school for the first time. It was grey and huge. It looked like dinosaurs had tea in it. Well, it had to big for thousands of middle and high school students.

I then proceeded to take a look at my fellow schoolmates. There were the cliché cliques that every school, private or public, had.

To my right stood the cheerleaders with their tiny uniforms, gossiping. The jocks weren't too far away. Motherfuckers.

On my left stood the nerds and geeks, looking frightened out of their minds. I frowned. I didn't support any types of bullying. That is, bullying of innocent people. Whereas, idiot jocks and heartthrobs were welcome to my fist.

Besides all those, were the normal guys. They were boring. I mean, I didn't have anything against them. There were times when I even envied them for their relatively carefree lives. No responsibility...

I shook my head to break those thoughts. I looked around for some badass people. It was fun to tear their assumptions of being cool to shreds. I was disappointed. There were none of them.

I looked around once again. This time I found a group away from everyone. They all looked away in different directions. They weren't talking, as far as I could tell. There were two girls and three mean looking guys. Tattooed and muscled. The two girls weren't anything less too. Neither of them were like a girly girl. They looked tough.

Hmmm. This year is gonna be interesting.

I met the gaze of one of the three guys. He was heavily tattooed and had silky, brown hair.

Which I wanted to tousle and ruffle... I wonder if it's smooth like it looks...

I turned my head away in defiance. I'm not one for touches and feels and I will never be.

I looked at myself. I was wearing a black leather jacket studded with rhinestones, black skinny ripped jeans, a black and white skull themed t-shirt and black boots. I looked totally badass.

I was reminded by my subconscious that we should get to the office as fast as possible, if we didn't want to be beyond late on our first day.

"Come on, Dan. We should get going." Through my peripheral vision, I saw the tattooed guy looking at me. I ignored him and his heavy gaze. My knees almost buckled.

Sasha Hastings doesn't feel weak. She is strong headed and remains focused on her life-long goal.

I reminded myself that and led my brother inside.                                                                             

********

We went to the office to get our schedules and other useless information about their rules. I had done this exercise so many times in my life that I was bored out of my mind. On the way, I saw Danny looking at our surroundings with awe. I guess this school was significantly better than our previous ones. I didn't show much interest because I didn't have much interest, period.  I had many other useful exercises to do, rather than drooling at the crystal clean marble floor or thinking about the day when I will get my own medal in athletics, like looking for potential enemies. You never know when who will turn on you.

That boy has anger in his eyes, but I can handle him. That girl looks way too shy to even raise her voice even once. He looks....

Finally we entered the office. A lady was sitting behind a counter, chewing her nails while looking out the window. I turned to see what was so interesting to stare at.

A middle age man with scrawny arms looked back at her, making googly eyes, that were supposed to be admiring. I almost puked right then and there.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her blushing like a juicy tomato and fidgeting with her fingers. I cleared my throat once to gain her attention.

"What?" She turned to look at me with actual annoyance, like I had disturbed her while she was undergoing a very special moment.

I scoffed under my breath. Special my ass.

Well special for her, I guess.

"Can you give us our schedules? Our names are Daniel Hastings and Sasha Hastings." I said, without a pause in my words.

She stared at me, dumbstruck.

I stared right back at her.

She stared at me some more.

I raised an eyebrow, impatient.

"Oh, right. Wait here for a moment, please." With that, she disappeared. I tapped my foot impatiently. After ten seconds, I noticed Dan giving me a look.

"What?"

He just shook his head and I could almost hear what he thought. What will I do with her?

After ten long minutes she finally appeared with two pieces of paper in her hands. She gave them to us.

"Everything you need to know is in there." With that, she plopped down on her chair and began to resume her loving act with her fellow lovestruck fool.

I just rolled my eyes and led Dan out of there.

Some people just never change.