Chapter 3

“Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Betty White.” A pretty girl comes towards me while I’m entering the school. I freeze and look at her with caution.

I’m not expecting someone to meet me this fast. Actually, I hope I wouldn’t meet anyone at all today. But my hope is in vain. Here standing right in front of me is a girl with clear blue eyes and dark long hair which reaches up to her belly button. Her bangs are cut side swept and her smile is impressive. She wears a black leather jacket and she’s quite tall. Her olive skin is glowing in the sun. For a moment, I thought she’s a heroine from a cartoon, but I quickly shake my that thought away.

“Welcome to Roland High School, the Home of the Lions.” She says enthusiastically and holds her hand out to me.

“Hi, I’m Jessica Turner, you may just call me Jessie.” I reply with a smile on my face as I put my hand in hers and shake it. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Alright, Jessie. I’m sorry if you feel that welcoming thing was a bit awkward.” Betty says shyly. “I’m a member of the ‘Welcoming committee’ in this school. Our town is a small town, not many students would enrol here. Actually, this is my first time welcoming new students.”

“Oh, was it? It’s great actually. Don’t you worry about that.” I laugh along with her, trying to make her feel better.

We walk into the school. Just like other schools, everyone is chatting in their little groups. The jocks and the cheerleaders are near their lockers, the nerds are sitting at the stairs and getting bullied by some jerks, the scary students are leaning against the wall just so that they look innocent, and the sluts are looking at the mirror. This school is a small one, and its hallways are crowded. It is an old school as well. You can see all the lockers are rusting a little, the paint is faded and the sign at the gate of the school is missing some letters as well. The sign actually reads “Ro d High School”. Yes, it is a public high school. I begged my mom for two hours yesterday to enroll me here since I don’t want to stay with some stupid arrogant rich classmate.

“Here’s your schedule and your school packet. Take them.” Betty says. She hands them over to me. As I look around, panic begins to build up inside me again. I’m surrounded by so many strangers. None of them knows about me and I know about none of them, either. Who know what will happen to me? Who know what they would do to me?

But thankfully, Betty must have noticed the horrified expression on my face. She tries to comfort me, “Don’t worry, Jessie. You’ll get used to it. And also, I’ll be sticking with you for the entire day. It’s part of my responsibility, after all.” She winks.

“So, what’s your first period?” Betty asks me as I open up my packet.

“Mathematics.” I reply after looking at my schedule.

“I see, so you need to go to room 246. Your teacher would be Mr. George.” She informs me, “Well, he’s a nice person, the only thing is that he give loads of homework. What else do you have?”

“My second period is physics, third period English, fourth period history and fifth period drama.” I reply. Oh, I have drama for my fifth period, I don’t like drama to be honest.

“Wow, that’s great, I have you for everything except for the first and the fifth.” Suddenly, her face turns panicked, “Damn it! I forgot I had to do something! I have to go now!” She turns around and starts to run away from me. She shouts as she goes, “I’m sorry Jessie, but I know you are a smart girl and you will find your classroom. It’s room 246, remember!” Soon, she disappears in the crowd. Great, I’m all alone again right now.

I start to look for my locker. Many are staring at me but I ignore them all. I finally find it. I open it up, and it’s actually pretty clean. I’m lucky this time. I put all the notebooks my mom asked me to bring into the locker. I argued with her that this is my first day in this school and I don’t need to bring this many stuff. But she insisted that I should take everything with me. “You should always be prepared darling. Opportunities are only for those who are prepared.” She said to me.

I notice someone leans coolly against the locker next to mine. I look up and find a guy with curly blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes. He has a nice build. His dark gray shirt shows off his muscle. He has a smirk on his face which annoys me. He starts to speak up.

“Hey, sweet heart. Do you wanna get out of this place and do something exciting with me?” He says as he winks at me.

“Sorry, but my parents has told me thousands of times to stay away from strangers like you.” I reply. Somehow, he is shocked for a moment after hearing my words. Apparently, not many girls have rejected him before.

“But then, how are you going to make new friends if you keep silent to strangers?” He smirks again. By now, I’m so annoyed by his smirk. I want to slap his face already. But he continues to say, “I’m Brian Smith. Actually, you look familiar to me.” Damn it, I hate these pick-up lines, they are absolutely disgusting to me.

“Oh, do I? Let me have a guess. I look like the girl you’ve been waiting for, the one who will become your future girlfriend, right?” He’s shocked again. “I’ve heard this enough of times.” I show him a hatred expression, but he continues to smirk at me.

“Babe, you may fall off a building, you may fall off a tree, but -”

“But the best way to fall is to fall in love with me.” I interrupt him before he could even finish. He looks at me in disbelief. I continue to say, “Just get lost, dude. You are lame and boring.”

“I’m not boring!” He replies. Obviously he can’t believe what he just heard.

“Haha, your stupidity amuses me. You are not boring indeed.”

“Hey, you are quite interesting.” He says. “Guess what? You are now my best friend. You are not like other girls, they are too easy, but you are not.” He puts his hand on my shoulder as we start to walk down the hallway.

“I’m going to show you off to my friends! But seriously, what’s your name?”

“Oh God, are you crazy or what? You first hit on me, and now, you are suddenly excited because I just rejected you.” I laugh and reply, “My name is Jessica. Jessica Turner.” I say in the way he introduced himself to me earlier and he laughs.

“Do you have a bandage?” He asks.

“Why? Did you scrape your knee falling for me this time?” We both laugh out loud.

Finally, we reach his group of friends. I’m astonished when I see them. I wonder how many people in this school are good looking? This school is full of people with God or Goddess appearance.

“Hey, guys, this is Jessica Turner, she’s Andrew Turner’s sister.” They nod. I’m surprised that they know my brother. “You know, she’s a bad ass. She just rejected me.” Everyone laughs as he pretends to cry.

“Hi, I’m James.” The guy with the brown fro-hawk and gray eyes says to me. His hands are wrapped around a girl’s waist. Apparently, that’s his girlfriend. “You are just like you brother, huh?” He asks. I nod. I’m so proud of my brother.

The girl in James’ arm is so cute. She has green eyes and blond wavy hair which goes past her shoulder. She starts to speak up.

“Hi, I’m Jennifer Smith, and I’m that stupid boy’s twin sister.” A disgusted expression comes to her face as she looks at her brother.

“I’m Sam.” A guy with dirty blonde hair says as he shakes my hand. He seems uncomfortable in this scenario. He is not the social type by the look of it.

“And I’m Clark.” The last guy finally says. His black hair is spiked up. His face looks perfect, just like a wonderful sculpture work. There must be plenty of girls who love him. He smiles and me and shakes my hand.

As the bell rings, I bid them farewell. I don’t want to be late for my first class in this school, since I want to give the teacher and my classmates’ a good impression. I still have three minutes more to get to the class.

I quickly climb up the stairs and walk through the hallway in search of room 246. I am getting more and more impatient as the time flows. I don’t want to be late for my first class, otherwise, my teacher would think that I’m one of those “bad girls”. But how could it be my fault if I couldn’t find my class room? The classroom numbers are faded and they are so difficult to read!

As I am busy trying to find my classroom, I accidentally run into someone. I stumble back a bit from the impact, but fortunately, I manage to maintain balance before I fall on the floor. The place where I bumped into him is tingling, that’s why I start to rub it.

“I’m sorry, I was just trying to find my classroom.” I say in scary. What Will this person do to me? Will he scold me? Will he punch me?

I look up at this tall guy. He’s in a similar age as me, and he has a nice build as well. His hair is black and his eyes are blue. Damn, he is sexy and handsome. I would have been swooning over him if he didn’t have that furious expression on his face. We look at each other and I feel like the entire world has stopped for us. My heart overdrives again and I see something in his blue eyes. It is a huge gray wolf, and he looks like a puppy which was given a treat. It is as if he finally finds something that he has been searching for his entire life. I don’t know why, but my heart somehow swells up.

That wolf disappears and I close my eyes. I must be hallucinating again. I feel dizzy and stupid right now. After a while, I open my eyes again. That person’s face softens a bit, but before I think I can walk away from this easily, he bumps my shoulder so hard that I fall on the floor. Now, my shoulder hurts more badly than yesterday. Everyone around us start to laugh at me, and I feel my face is burning because of this awkwardness. For some unknown reason, I feel like my heart is broken as I watch him walking away from me. Why do I possess such feeling for someone I’ve just met? I can’t help but wonder.

But then, I quickly shake my head to clear these thoughts. That guy was rude! He certainly didn’t have a wonderful morning, but that’s not the reason why he could unleash his anger on me. I literally did nothing to him!

Fury start to accumulate inside of me and suddenly, I hear a deep growl. It surprises me so much to know that this growl might actually come from me. What is going on? Did I just growl? I now know for sure that this school isn’t normal. The atmosphere here is strange, and I feel like there are many things awaiting for me to uncover. But how? How can I find it if I don’t even know exactly what I am looking for? And why am I feeling that I’m not the girl who I previously was? I feel I have become stronger and my temper is hanging on a thread. My temper never get out of control this fast, I want to know why I feel like this all of a sudden. Oh yes, I think I know the answer already. It’s because I’m Jessica Turner. I’m not a normal girl.

The people are still looking and laughing at me. I feel deeply embarrassed, but soon, my brother’s voice pops up in my head.

“Keep your head up high and smile. Stand up tall, remain strong.”

Yes, I should keep my head up and be strong. I stand up from the floor, pick up my stuff and resume walking towards my classroom.