A/N: hi there. I’ve revised this first chapter thanks to the feedback form some reviews, so please tell me if it’s any better D This is a story I’m actually writing for a competition, so I’d love any feedback at all. I still have a lot of editing to do, but do read, and please review.

Enjoy…

The First One

Part One: Morning

Chapter One

She rips every page out of the book, until all that remain are the jagged edges of paper sticking out of its spine. The book thuds as it hits the ground, the ripped pages flurrying after until they land over it. She kicks at them viciously, but misses, her foot connecting harmlessly with the carpet.

She wants to scream.

She was late to school that day. Connor noticed because she wasn’t on the morning bus. He sat alone, pressed up against the window, watching the condensation from last night evaporating away.

She haunted his thoughts all the way to school- he hated not knowing where she was. He was the only one who truly understood her. Well, him and Alex. But Alex, with her radical purple dreadlocks and open heart had no trouble accepting anyone, no matter how strange they were.

Connor, on the other hand, would normally have run a mile if someone even remotely like his now obsession had come near him. She was not ordinary in the least. In fact, at first he had been convinced that she was completely insane. But he had been drawn to her, inexplicably and irrevocably. She infected his thoughts, and penetrated his mind. Jade. Jade was everything to him.

“Hey, dreamer, you coming to class?” a husky voice cut through his reverie.

Startled, Connor jumped slightly. Alex was standing in front of him, an eyebrow raised quizzically.

“Huh?”

“The bell rang,” she said, waving vaguely around the corridor in which they stood, where hordes of students were hurrying to roll call. Jameson High School was public, and had no uniform, so the variety of fashion that the students were wearing was quite noticeable.

Connor glanced blearily around the hallway, taking in the rows of lockers and red notice boards. School always seemed too bright and alive on Monday mornings. Rubbing a hand wearily through his tousled brown hair, he tried (and failed) to conceal a huge yawn.

Alex smiled wryly.

“Just another manic Monday, hey?” she said sympathetically. “Don’t worry. Only another six lessons to get through.”

Connor rolled his eyes.

“Cheerful thought, that,” he muttered. “Listen, have you seen Jade today?”

Alex tilted her head back, her smile becoming whimsical.

“She’s in roll call. But…well, she’s not herself…or maybe she is herself. I don’t know, but you should probably go to her,” she said, turning to look at him.

But he was already gone.

She sat on the floor between two wooden desks, the light from the window above her shining on her golden hair, giving her a hazy halo.

In an oversized jumper, her knees pulled up to her chin, blue eyes gazing over them widely, she looked even more innocent and childlike than usual. Every so often, she would raise her hands and cover her face, peeking out from behind her fingers, only to giggle and hide again.

Other students were milling about in the classroom, throwing her disturbed glances, but otherwise ignoring her. They were used to Jade’s strange behavior by now. Playing hide-and-seek in the classrooms wasn’t the worst or most quirky thing she had done, and her classmates were both wary and indifferent to her antics.

Slowly, Connor paced over to stand in front of her, the look in his eyes undecipherable. He dropped to one knee so that his head was almost at the same level as hers.

“Hey,” he said softly. “You didn’t catch the bus today.”

Jade looked up, her blue eyes somber. Suddenly, they brightened, and her face burst into a smile.

“Connor!” she exclaimed. She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him fiercely. “I thought you’d never find me.”

Connor held her tightly for a moment, and then let her go, though she didn’t remove her arms from around him.

“I’ll always find you,” he said, half-smiling.

Connor did not forget anything that Jade did. He filed away her every move into the depths of his memories, and held onto them tightly. He doubted he could forget anyway.

He remembered the day she locked herself into one of the school toilets for the entirety of the morning. Alex had tried and tried to lure her out, but to no end. And when she finally did reappear, it was not Jade as she had been. Her skin, usually pale, creamy white, was covered in swirl-like blue patterns, her hands covered in ink. She clutched a smudged biro between her coloured fingers. And her face…it was undecipherable but even more beautiful. Swirls, butterflies, designs so intricate Connor couldn’t tear his eyes away. She gazed at him.

“Am I pretty?” she asked, smiling almost devilishly.

That was what she was like, though. Unpredictable, naïve, highly strung and sometimes frightening, Jade was impossible to contain. Connor often marveled at the fact that he had ever befriended her at all. When he had transferred into the school at the beginning of last year, he had been the most ordinary, down-to-earth guy most would ever come across. But as soon as he entered his new school and met Alex and with her Jade, Connor changed. He saw things differently, he felt things differently. Jade somehow made him feel more realistic. She was the present. He lived for that.

He saw her that afternoon, right after the bell rang for home time.

She was standing in front of a boy from year nine, the year below them. Even so, she was a full head shorter than him.

She craned her neck to look up at him, both hands hanging loosely by her side, her backpack slung over her shoulders.

The poor boy looked slightly confused, but seemed unable to move. Her gaze was like that. Mesmerizing. Connor half-smiled. It reminded him of when he had met her for the first time, nearly a year ago. The scene was almost identical to the one before him now.

As he watched, Jade half smiled. Lifting a hand, she extended a single finger and traced gently along the boys jaw. His eyes were wide, and his entire body tense, but he couldn’t move away from her. Then, abruptly, she dropped her hand and turned away. The boy, frowning, shook his head almost as if to break the trance that still lingered over him, and walked doggedly away.

Jade glimpsed Connor standing there, and was about to approach him when Alex strode up from behind her and tickled her gently, casing her attention to become diverted.

Connor smiled, watching them giggle together. Like this, Jade almost appeared normal.

Almost.

A/N: you find out more about Jade and what she’s like in the next chapters…please review, guys, I’d appreciate it.

JB