1 Chapter 1

I don't know how to start this.

For some people, it's as easy as talking about the one they love, or talking about a favorite hobby. But for me, I don't know where to start.

You know what, I'm not going to start my story just yet. I'm going to start with my best friend: Richard Harrison.

He's the guy you'd expect to see in a romance novel or movie or TV show or anime. Handsome, tall, confident, good at sports, good at school, and somehow looks perfect every single day. He was immediately indicted into the hall of cool kids. (Disgusting)

For some reason, he wanted to be my friend. I have no idea why, because I didn't have that many qualities that would make him want to be my friend. I was one of the loner kids, the ones who ate lunch alone, all by themselves. I also tried to avoid social interaction as much as I could, because of a certain...incident that happened during my sophomore year. So that meant that whenever he would come near me, I would immediately walk away. But somehow, after about three weeks of him pestering me, I finally caved in and became his friend.

I'm not sure if that was the best choice I had ever made in my life.

I was immediately introduced to the popular kids, who welcomed me with open arms, and I tried to talk to some of them. They would sometimes come to me and offer me a high five, say hi and talk to me, and other things. Every time they did that, I would wish that this would just end. And there were those popular kids who remembered the incident, and made a point to avoid me at all costs (cough, all of them, cough) so it just made me feel more alone.

Unfortunately for me, that would never go away. Anyways, back to him.

A lot of girls would always be around him, trying to get together with him. But he didn't care about the girls fawning over him. It was as if he knew their intentions behind them trying to get together with him. He became the face that girls would swoon over and boys would be jealous of. But then he focused on one girl, the one girl out of all of the girls in the school who didn't fawn over him.

Her name was Abigail Morris.

She was your average girl, but she actually looked pretty cute. She didn't wear makeup (Because that stuff's expensive.), and she wore second hand clothes. That was the girl that caught Richard's attention. He confessed to her, and she said that she loved him back, and they're now dating. Whenever he would talk to me about her, he made it seem like it was the best thing that ever happened to him. He'd say, "Chris, I think I'm lucky that I met Abigail. I don't know what or where I would be without her."

Oh, and my name's Christopher. Christopher Ward. Nice to meet you.

Oh, and one more thing. Since his name is Richard, I call him Dick. It's pretty funny, since he's stopped trying to get me to say his actual name.

Moving on from him, I guess I should start my story. This is a story that could make you cry, or make you hurl, or maybe do both. Other people would probably start at the end, where everything was either amazing or terrible, and then later try to explain how they got there. Others would probably start with something strange, like maybe a date or something where they confess their love. And others would probably start with them meeting the person they would later fall in love with. But I'm not going to start at either of those places.

I'm going to start with a simple conversation..

"Dude, you need to learn how to have a conversation," Richard said to me one day.

"I am having one, Dick," I said. "With you."

Let me give you some background as to what exactly is happening right now: The day is Friday, March 19, 2021. It's lunchtime at Eastwood High School in the small city of Eastwood, California. The nickname for Eastwood by the students who attend is "Hell School," due to its reputation for being one of the more competitive, academically higher schools in the US. It's on par with most colleges here. And before you ask, yes, it's like most schools: people sit with their cliques, they complain about their grades, why they have to wear uniforms (I guess I should tell you about their dress code. For boys, there were cargo pants and either a dress shirt with tie or a polo for them to wear. For girls, they could wear a skirt and blouse or dress pants and a blouse. And all of the shirts had our school's logo and mascot on it. Always required to wear it, and not wearing it one day could result in a visit to the vice principal, one of the scariest people within the entire school. Most people made sure to wear the uniform to avoid a conversation with her, and they hated them. Honestly, I didn't mind them that much, though), their lives at home, etc.

I usually sit at a table by myself, but ever since Dick befriended me, I sat at the popular table. I hated the attention. It was like I'd been hit with a spotlight that I didn't want.

He sighed. "That's not what I meant, Chris," he said. "I mean with other people besides me. You can't just stay friends with just me."

"But I'm not," I countered. "I'm friends with you and Abigail."

He sighed and raised his hands in surrender. "Touché, but you get what I mean. You need to make more friends."

Abigail, who was sitting right next to Dick, piped in and said, "Chris, Richard is right. You need to make more friends."

"Thank you, Abigail," he said, giving her a small kiss on the cheek, and I couldn't help but cringe at the amount of love-birdiness that was happening. Sometimes I wondered why I sat with these two. I kind of felt like a third wheel.

"You can start by meeting some of my friends," Abigail offered. "They're pretty nice, unlike some of the other girls here." She said that last part quietly, but I got it: the girls around here were dicks. (No, Dick was not one of those dicks).

"No, thanks," I said politely. "I don't exactly do well around girls."

"It's okay," she insisted. "I think you'll like some of my friends. They're pretty understanding, and once they get to know you pretty well, I think you'll become pretty good friends." And she sounded a little bit disappointed when she said, "And not all of my friends are girls."

I looked at her, and she gave me a smile. "Trust me, okay?"

I nodded slowly. "I guess...it won't hurt to try."

A few hours later, I was regretting this decision.

Her friends were nice, I'll admit that. And like Abigail said, some of them were not girls. But all of them were already engaged in conversation, and whenever I would try and introduce myself to them, it would always fail, with me getting ignored, getting weird looks, or other people saying something like, "I'm sorry, but we're talking. Can you not interrupt us please?"

Eventually, I quietly slipped away from the crowd, going outside to get a breath of fresh air. I don't think anyone noticed that I had disappeared. I don't think anyone cared.

I stood outside, looking up at the sky. I was at Abigail's house along with Dick, and her house was pretty big. It was two stories, had a generous amount of rooms and windows, a backyard big enough to fit a small house inside of it, a swimming pool that looked like it belonged in a rich person's house, and a nice patio that was suspended out over the hill the house was on. Inside of the patio, there was a bunch of stuff that was there: a table with six chairs surrounding it, a small fire pit, a pool table, and a game of Cornhole that was set up. Luckily for me, there was nobody out there. There was a wooden rail that looked sturdily built, and I leaned on it, looking up at the sky.

It was still light out, and the sun hadn't quite set yet. The sky was gradually getting darker, and you could see it in the sky: it was bright, in most of the areas, but there were also spots of darker areas which were getting larger with the setting of the sun. There were a few stars that were starting to appear in the sky, twinkling in the distance like the waves in the ocean did during the day.

I shivered. It was a bit cold outside, and I hadn't brought a warm jacket or sweater with me. Whatever. This was a whole lot better than staying inside when I knew I wasn't wanted. Besides, a little mental recharging didn't hurt, either.

I looked around, making sure that I was alone, and I found myself looking at a girl.

She didn't exactly look like a girl when I first saw her. She had on baggy clothes that hung over her, making her features almost indistinguishable. The only thing that gave her away as a girl was her face, which I had seen only because she had turned in my direction.

It wasn't covered in makeup, like most girls at school, but was rather modest, like Abigail. No makeup was needed, I guess. She also had a rather pretty face as well, one that would make you look twice at her.

Sorry, I'm getting off track. She looked at me and immediately froze. "Hello," she said.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Chris. Nice to meet you. What's your name?"

I couldn't speak in regular sentence length due to the fact that I was still mentally drained. I guess she understood that, because she gave me a small smile and said, "I'm Ashley. It's nice to meet you, Chris."

We both stood there awkwardly for a minute, then I asked, "So, are you a friend of Abigail?"

"No," she said, shuffling. "I'm only here because a friend convinced me to come, and said that it would help me break out of my shell." Her voice was quiet, and she held her arms close to her chest.

"Same here, I guess," I said. I shuffled nervously in place. "So...out here to recharge?"

She nodded. "Same for you?"

"Yeah," I said. "I don't understand how people think that having you meet with other people is a great way to break out of their shell. It's not that easy."

She nodded, leaned against the railing, looking up at the sky. "It's really difficult," she said, her voice quivering a little bit.

"I wish more people would be able to understand us," I said, looking at the sky again. "Then life would be a little easier. I mean..." I trailed off. I wasn't really sure what I was going to say next.

The sun was now below the horizon, and the sky was growing darker by the minute. The moon was starting to rise, and its light started shining over the two of us. The lights that were out on the patio began to switch on one by one, the difference between the two very jarring.

I shuffled again. "Um...so. Yeah." I started to feel slightly uncomfortable, as I continued talking to her. I don't know why. Maybe I hadn't really mentally recharged as much as I had thought.

It was obvious that she was uncomfortable, too. We had barely met, and for introverts, it's a bit weird talking to someone who they just met.

There was a long, awkward silence as neither of us said anything after that. "Well," I finally said. "I've got to go. Bye"

She nodded, then I turned and started to leave.

"That was awkward," I said to myself, and I walked back inside.

Later, I tried to talk to some people again, but it just didn't work. The same thing happened again, and at that point, I gave up and went home. I didn't tell anyone, and no one seemed to care that I was gone.

As I walked home, I kept thinking about that girl, Ashley. She was...different from the other girls. I could actually hold a small conversation, and that confused me a little bit. And there was something about her that just...called to me. I can't describe it.

After the weekend was over, the next day at school was weird, because I kept seeing her in all of my classes.

Let me set up the scene for you.

It first happened before homeroom history. I was walking through the halls of the school, almost invisible to the hordes of people walking when I bumped into somebody. "Sorry," I said, looking at them. I was startled to see that it was Ashley.

"O- oh hi. It's you again. Chris, right?" Ashley looked at me. She backed up a little so that we weren't so close to each other.

"Yeah," I said, also backing up a little bit and putting my hand to the back of my head. "Sorry for bumping into you."

She shook her head gently, her hair followed her as she did. "It's alright. It was partly my fault as well," she said softly.

"I guess..." I shuffled in place, consciously aware that the people were flowing around us and giving me and Ashley strange looks, then said, "So what class are you heading to right now?" I wanted to get out of this situation and get to my class. It may have sounded rude, but I didn't like that other people were kind of looking at me.

"I'm heading to homeroom history," she said softly, shuffling. "What about you?" She seemed nervous but was trying not to show it.

I was a little surprised. "That's where I'm heading," I said. This was curious. I had never actually noticed her in my homeroom, but then again, I just paid attention to the teacher and nobody around me.

For a second, we both stood there, feeling a little bit uncomfortable, before I finally said, "Want to walk to class together?"

She looked a little bit shocked, as if no one had ever asked her to do something like that before. "Umm sure!" She gave me a small smile, which was weird because I had never seen her smile before.

"Okay." I said. I started walking in the direction of our class, and Ashley fell in step with me, and we walked together.

I looked at Ashley. She still had a small smile on her face, which was weird, because she had looked tired when I had first seen her, and even before when I had bumped into her earlier. But I decided to ignore that. Her hand reached up to get some of her hair out of her face, and the sleeve of her jacket fell down a little bit.

I started in shock, as there was a nasty bruise on her arm, and I almost asked her if she was fine but thought against it. I had barely met her, and if I asked her about that then that might push her away from me. I looked away, hoping she hadn't noticed me.

She moved her hand back down, and her jacket slipped back to how it normally was. She looked at me. "Is something wrong?" Somehow, in the couple of minutes her face had turned back to tired and she yawned softly. Turns out she noticed.

"No," I said, my voice surprisingly calm. "Just thinking about things."

"Oh, ok," she said as she turned her head back to face forward. We kept walking, but now there was silence between us. I pondered over the bruise. It was a pretty nasty one, and I tried to think about how it could have come about. Before I knew it, we were in front of our class.

And I couldn't help but notice that I was getting a lot of strange looks from everybody. I didn't know why, but I ignored them, turned to Ashley and asked, "Where do you sit?"

She pointed at the desk right in front of where I normally sat. "I sit there," she said, her voice getting quieter with each word. As soon as she had entered the classroom, she had reverted back to her regular self, and she pulled up her hood. She quietly walked over to her desk and sat down, not looking at anyone else. She stared at the desk, and she didn't look up.

I blinked, then I shrugged and sat down in my regular spot. That's weird, I thought to myself. I don't remember ever seeing her there before. I pulled out a pencil and my notebook for history and waited for the class to begin.