Prologue

You’d think that after being out of high school one would lose the petty bullshit drama, people would stereotype you less, and you’d drop the teenage angst in the garbage can off stage as you picked up your diploma. It never does get easier does it? The more tattoos you have and the matching of hair to ebony black eyeliner the dumber you are right? Explain to me how society doesn’t seem to evolve when it comes to different social classes, minorities, and the judging of what people wear. This world makes no sense to me, it never has it never will. The pretty people get what the want in life, the different people are given strange looks, and the homeless litter the streets while the rich push the expensive equivalent of a Stouffer’s home cooked meal around on their plate like it’s dog food. And my college professor hates me because I’m black…

Actually that’s a lie, to be perfectly honest, my college professor hates me because I wear mostly black, I look like a delinquent and I’m sometimes too smart for my own good, with a mouth and attitude to match. It’s a deadly combination when you’re at a prestigious college in the Northeast. An even deadly combination when you’re teacher is a forty-five-year-old conservative tight ass that teaches a college journalism class. He hates me, and believe me the feelings are mutual.

I take it like a champ most of the time, just take in everything he says and put all the energy into my assignments, that he never seems to like. To him I’m an ignorant little punk who doesn’t deserve to be in his classroom. When he looks at me I like to pretend what he’s thinking about. It’s usually negative, as if anything positive could come out of his mouth. I don’t think he likes anyone; after all he never has anything nice to say about anything or anyone. It’s all negative. And it’s not like those college professors that’s a hard-ass and pushes you to your limits, NO; he’s the asshole that generally hates what he doesn’t like about the world, like my liberal ass.

My parents aren’t much better. I do no right in their eyes, my baby sister, Saffi, is the perfect child. “Jeremiah, why can’t you be more like your sister, Sapphire?” you’d think amidst the perfect report cards would do something for them, but apparently wearing eyeliner and dying your hair black outweighs intelligence in my family. I’m not saying Saffi is dumb. God she’s not dumb at all, straight A’s, Varsity athlete, literally the complete opposite of me (apart from the smarts). Where she excelled in sports and making friends, I failed. I was a loner during high school, to tell the truth, I just wanted to get my diploma and leave, but Saffi? She adores it. And I adore here because she’s not the picture perfect carbon clone of Barbie. Saffi and I both have this rich naturally dark brown hair, she leaves hers untainted I dye mine black. She’s just this sweet spunky girl with a smile on her face and is probably the most lighthearted person I know. I love my sister. I hate my parents. But it’s okay, because they hate me too.

You know, out of all the people in the world, Saffi is my favorite. Despite the fact that I’m constantly ridiculed by my parents for not being like her, she’s the truest person to herself, and hasn’t compromised herself for anyone. She’s like a damn dog, loyal until the end. She’s had the same best friend since kindergarten…or maybe it was preschool all I know is that Emery Levison has been like a member of the Carmichael household since the day Saffi brought her home. She walked in like a lost little puppy that followed my sister home, I think Saffi even dragged her up to my parents and asked if she could keep her. I guess anyone else would think a situation like that is cute. I didn’t find it cute, not even remotely adorable. Emery was this weird scrawny little girl, who would always stare at me like I was the devil incarnate.

It’s not like I’m the weird one; Emery has always been a weird one. She’s always had this crazy long wild dark hair and wide blue-green eyes, and her head always in a book. Even when she was hanging out with Saffi, there her head was, buried in a book. I don’t think she and I have got along, we had our moments, like when I taught her and Saffi how to drive, and the various trips I had to endure running them back and forth between the house and the mall. Sometimes I wonder about the type of person she is, like who she really is, and that maybe I should have tried to befriend her a bit more. But who was I kidding, she didn’t need to be my friend, she had Saffi. I didn’t really need anyone.

I hate this place.

So cliché right? I’m that punk kid that just seems to hate the world. I’m not, I swear. You just have to put yourself in my shoes. You’re twenty-something, you’ve just gotten expelled from school for throwing a punch at your professor and actually hitting him, your parents don’t want to come get you, you don’t own a car, and your sister is driving with her best friend to come pick you up at school, so awesome right?

The perfect child and her lost puppy are coming to pick me up. Someone save me.

---

A/N: Just feeling this new story out, it's going to be a multi-chapter that's been in the works for a while. It's all in a bunch of different completed sections (parts that came to me in a spur of passion and had to be written down) and it's just dying to finally get pieced together. Also I'd like to make a comment about Emery's name (yes I know it's a boys name) I stumbled upon the name Emer (pronounced EE-mur) it's Irish, andpossibly from Gaelic eimh "swift". In Irish legend she was the wife of Cuchulainn. She was said to possess the six gifts of womanhood: beauty, voice, speech, needlework, wisdom and chastity. Basically I wanted a name that flowed off the tongue better so I added the 'Y' to the end. I just wanted to mention it because of the nature of her name. And Saffi? Sapphire? I thought it was an insanely cute pet-name and considering the relationship between her and her parents as compared to Jeremiah's and his parents, she really comes out as the jewel of the family. No one else really has a special name, I just like the name Jeremiah, and Aloysius is just the cutest name for a dog...isn't it?

Anyways, I'm in the middle of working on chapter one, polishing it up, etc and I'm trying to get a feel about if anyone is interested in it really continuing, any constructive criticism on the basic idea or any thing you want to point out, let me know. CC reviews are greatly appreciated.

MJ