“Hey, dude, are you the new guy from the football team?” Kai asked, tapping V’s shoulder. V turned her head back, and narrowed her eyes.

“No, I’m the new girl who can kick your ass, so I suggest you fuck off.” She stated and went back to doing her math homework. Kai stared at the back of her head, dazed. No one had ever talked to him like that. And coming from a girl! Was it his fault her hair was so short? Nobody made fun of him like that and got away with it! She was going to pay…

“Kai!” The teacher shouted.

“Huh?” Kai answered, disoriented.

“Work out the problem on the board” the teacher sighed. Whoops. Algebra had never been one of his strong points. He got up, and slowly walked to the board.

“Five and a half” V whispered as he passed. Kai looked at her, surprised. Maybe she realized she’s made a mistake, he thought. He doing the problem, and came up with two and a half. Should he trust that, uh, girl? She’d been nothing but mean before. No, she was probably just trying to get him in trouble. Bitch. He wrote 2.5

“Now, who got Kai’s answer?” Mrs. M asked. Kai crossed his fingers, but no one raised their hand. Damn. The teacher turned around.

“Well, Kai, I suggest you come to my review group today at lunch.” Kai was so mad he trembled inwardly. Everyone knew that Mrs. M would hate you forever if you didn’t take her “suggestion”. And he had enough trouble without that. He sat down.

“Let’s see now, who can tell us what mistake Kai made?” Mrs. M asked. The girl in front of him raised her hand.

“Yes,” the teacher looked at her seating chart. The girl was new. “V?” she asked, looking bewildered. Kai silently agreed with her. What kind of a name was V?

“Well, after substituting X for 8, Kai multiplied it with 7, and wrote 56. Then he subtracted 50 and a half, and got 2 and a half. 56 minus 50 and a half is 5 and a half.” V stated. She sounds incredibly happy for someone who’s humiliating him, Kai noted. He stared at her stared in rage. V smiled. Who did he think he was, mistaking her for a guy?! She would’ve punched him, but she didn’t want to get on the math teacher’s bad side the first day of class. Math was, after all, one of her strongest points. Except for, of course, her fist. The bell rang, and everyone ran out the door. V looked at her schedule. Language Arts. Oh boy. She walked in, everyone else already seated. The teacher smiled a fake smile.

“Ah! Our new student is here! Well, why don’t you introduce your-“ The preppy teacher started, before she got cut off by V.

“Yeah, yeah. My name is V, and I bet you didn’t know this, but I’m a new student here!” V said sarcastically with mock enthusiasm. “Where do I sit?” The teacher, Ms. R looked around.

“How about next to Kyle there?” She pointed to a fat kid with glasses and greasy hair. Oh, well. At least she didn’t have to sit next to that Kai jerk from math class. What an idiotic teacher, V thought, shaking her head. She still thinks I’m gonna be a contribution to this class. Well, I am, just not in a very positive way, she snorted inwardly, and sat down next to Kyle.

“H-hi!” he stammered. V sighed, looking at the head of the person guarding her from Ms. R’s view. It looked at lot like—oh, god, it’s the jerk from math class! What else can go wrong, V wondered. She looked around the class. Everyone was looking at her. The rejects looked scared and somewhat impressed, and the popular people looked at her like she was wasting air they could have breathed, and what the hell was she doing in their school, anyway?

“I will hand back your papers today.” Ms. R said.

“Huh? What papers?” Most of the class blurted out.

“The ones you wrote last week, either on Sylvia Plath versus Ted Hughes, or general opinion of Sylvia Plath.” Most people groaned. The teacher ignored them. “Most of them did not meet my expectations, but there was an exceptionally good one. Kai expressed his opinion about Sylvia Plath being a confessional writer, not a feministic one like most people believe. It really made an impression on me, Kai. Keep up the good work.” She started to hand back some papers. V heard mumbles of “damn” and “when was this assigned?” and “it was due?” and “my parents are totally gonna kill me” and a few yes’s and “thank god. My grade was totally down before. I mean, A-?”’ from the geeks. V looked at Kai. He took his paper, glanced at it, and put it into his binder like he didn’t care less. V hoped Ms. R wouldn’t make her do this one. She totally blew at Lang A and Social Studies. She thought of Science next period and smiled.

Kai made his way home, stopping on the way to get a coke. He opened his front door and stepped back in surprise.

“Kai! Oh my god, we were so worried! What kept you so long?!” His mother breathed a sigh of relief which then turned to anger.

“Uh, I’m only five minutes late…” Kai tried.

“It doesn’t matter! We thought something had happened to you! I knew letting you walk home alone was a mistake! After what happened you’d have thought I was smarter and-“

“Mom,”

“-I shouldn’t have let you out on you-“

“Mom!” Kai shouted.

“Yes, honey?”

“I was five minutes late and you’re acting like I went missing for five days!” Kai pointed out. “You promised not to get so worried…”

“I know, but it’s just…after…”

“Yes, mom I know that you have a right, but it’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be fine. It’s not going to happen again. I know how to take care of myself.” Ever since Kai had been kidnapped when he was two, his adoptive parents have been very overprotective. To tell the truth, Kai didn’t remember much. He’d been found four years later, and his memories of the event were pretty fuzzy. He wished his parents would lay off.

V came home. Nobody there, as usual. She wished she had a normal family. She turned on her computer, playing some music. V was tired of people complaining about how overprotective their parents were. She wished they knew how lucky they were, to have someone who cared about them. V just had herself. Her mom…who knows where she is? And her dad was always at work. They moved around much. Ever since she was small, she learned that if she didn’t make any friends, she wouldn’t have to say goodbye when they left. So she became independent. Always, always, and forever, always, always and forever, sitting here and thinking back, to a time when I was young, my memories, good as day, I’m listening to the distant string, you were downstairs, you would sing, songs of praise, and all the times we laughed at you and all the times that you stayed true to us, now we’ll sing, said I’d Thank you, we’ll always thank you, more than you would know than I could ever show, and I love you, I’ll always love you, there’s nothing I won’t do, to say these words to you that you’re beautiful forever, always, always and forever, you were my mom you were my dad the only thing I ever had is you, it’s true, and even when the times got hard you were there to let us know, when we get through, you showed me how to be a man, you taught me how to understand, the things that people do, you showed me how to love my guard, you taught me that not everyone, knows the truth, and I thank you, I’ll always thank you, more than you would know, than I could ever show, and I love you, ill always love you there’s nothing I won’t do to say these words to you, that you will live forever, forever and ever, forever and ever, said I’d thank you we’ll always thank you more than you would know than I could ever show, and I love you, we’ll always love you, there’s nothing I won’t do to say these words to you, and I thank you, ill always thank you, more than you would know, than I could ever show, and I love you, we’ll always love you, there’s nothing I won’t do to say these words to you, that you will live forever…V wished she was Joel Madden…

The next day, V signed up for soccer. She looked at the list and noticed she was the only girl. V shook her head as she saw the 3 page sign up sheet for cheerleading all filled up. Ah, the vainness. She was the best long distance runner at her old school. V scribbled her signature and set off for her first class that day, Study Hall. Great, a whole 1 and a half hour of listening to music and doing next week’s math homework. Mrs. M was undeniably predictable and always assigned the last twenty even problems of the lesson. V had completed six lessons and was about to die of boredom. She’d learned all there was to know about algebra last year. This school was awfully behind, and what was worse, most people seemed to be totally confused. V sighed and wished she was done with school forever. But she still had some awful writing homework from LA that she had no idea what to do with.

V arrived at the field ten minutes early, being eager to get out of her house. While waiting, she thought she’s warm up. V started dribbling the ball around the goal post when she heard someone arrive. She looked, and her enthusiasm was immediately shot down. Kai met her eyes. What is he doing her? V pondered angrily. The girl who gave him the right answer in math, and then humiliated him is on the soccer field during tryouts, Kai noted. What’s she doing here? He wondered. He thought she’s said she was a girl, and she did look like a girl (minus the neck-long hair), so what was she doing here? These were soccer tryouts? As in, not cheerleading. Kai thought he’d help her out and tell her that before she embarrassed herself in front of everyone. She had given him the right answer in math, after all.

“Cheerleading’s that way,” Kai said, pointing to the gym. “This is the soccer field, where soccer tryouts are about to start.” He pointed out, smiling. V looked at him, outraged. Who did he think she was? V wouldn’t be caught dead doing cheerleading in a million years! Stupid jerk.

“Do you have a point?” She asked coldly.

“Well, yeah,” Kai started.

“Then make it.” V commanded sharply.

“Well, you’re a girl, so you can’t try out for the boy’s soccer team,” Kai tried, before a very angry V cut him off.

“Oh, so now you decide I’m a girl? How very generous of you. And for your information, the soccer team’s open for both girls and, by the looks of it, assholes, dumbass.” What?! Kai stared at her in disbelief. He’d made a mistake, okay, but was she going to hold a grudge forever? How could she not like him? Everybody liked him! Or, at least, everyone did their best sucking up to him. But, nonetheless, everyone wanted to be him friend! Well, whatever. Her choice. But if she wanted to hate him, well, he wouldn’t just stand by like the idiot she thought he was. She wanted war she got war…

“I’m so sorry if I offended you,” Kai started, his voice sickenly sweet. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a “you better be,” from the girl. Vee, was it? He certainly needed to get more background information on her if he was going to win this war. “I just thought that you’d want to do something normal girls do, to prove you aren’t the guy I thought you were, but I guess I was wrong. Why pretend to be a girl, though, dude?” he asked, trying not to laugh at her face expression. Maybe it wasn’t really fair to tell her she looked like a guy, since she didn’t, but it had worked before, and he was annoyed, so whatever. He felt oddly proud to see her standing there, looking all offended, before he turned back so he wouldn’t have to listen to her rebuttal, which would, for sure, be heinous. It was only then that he realized he couldn’t really go anywhere, unless he wanted to skip the tryouts, which there was no way he’d miss. He thought frantically about what to do, and say the coach arriving. Thank god, he thought to himself, I’ve got to be more careful next time.

“Well, hello there,” the coach said. “Why, we’ve got a girl here for soccer! You’re here for soccer aren’t you? We drive ‘em hard here, so you’d better be good. You look like a girl with a strong backbone, good…we haven’t had a female on the soccer team since…1937, I think. Well, welcome. Care to venture your name?” V listened to the coach’s dwellings, deciding he was weird, but her type of weird. She wished there were people like him her age. At least she now knew why Kai hadn’t initially thought she was here for soccer. Looks like I’ve gotta go break some stereotypes, she thought. Why are they called stereo-types, anyway? V pondered. Whatever, she decided. Well, looks like she’s on for a challenge…

“V” she said to the coach. “Just V”. She noted he was the first person here who didn’t look at her weirdly after she told them her name. It wasn’t like this was her actual name, sure, but V hated her actual name. It was her mom’s idea. And V was such a cool letter. The coach actually smiled when he heard it.

“I like it. Well, V, welcome.” He said, smiling. Kai kicked the grass. He was supposed to be the coach’s favorite, not some girl who called him a dumbass! He glared at her, but she glared right back, and he was the one to pull away. Sometimes Kai hated himself. All through practice time, Kai and V glared at each other, smirking when the other made a mistake. Then it was time for the actual tryouts.

“Okay, kid’s. I hope you aren’t nervous. Nervous makes you screw up. Now, what I’m going to do now will not only test your soccer skills, but your teamwork one’s too.” The coach said, and everyone groaned at the word “teamwork.” The coach pretended to ignore them. “All right, here’s the deal. Groups of two, I pick your partner, two teams go at once. See those cones? One person stands on one end, the other at the other end. You pass after each cone. The faster the better, but accuracy is what I’m really looking for here. And communication. Your partners will be picked based off the skills you’ve shown me during practice time. We do that, de split into six teams. Two go at once. You get one ball, you play the opposing team. You lose, you’re out. Best team automatically gets on the real team. That’s the plan. Alright, let me read you your tryout groups. Here we go; these are in the order you will go in.

“Josh and Rick, Tom and George, Jared and Patrick…” Kai and V both patiently listened for their names, sure that they would do awesome no matter what. “Cameron and Arnold, V and Kai…” V and Kai looked at each other in panic, both thinking the same thing: is the world against me? We have to work together to do well, V noted. They’re both gonna make it, or neither of them is. And it was their choice.

A/N: Even if you don't feel like reviewing, or you don't really have anything to say, please review! Even if it's just : I liked/hated it, It makes me happy to know that somebody's reading this. Thanks :)) PS: I don't own Joel Madden, or his band Good Charlotte, or the song featured here, Thank You. I do, however, own the characters and storyline, but nothing else. Goes for entire story, if I continue it.