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So. New story. Not much to say, 'cept that I think I'll be able to work this story out to the end this time. I've realized after all these attempts, I just can't finish any science fiction oriented stories I start. But, so far, I seem to be on the right track with high school oriented stuff. Let's just hope that holds true this time.

Updates may be far between. Not going to set up a schedule for when to update and until the end of February, I'll be working on a fanfic for Ouran High School Host Club to enter into a Fanfiction Contest to a mini anime convention/get together I'll be going to ( cosplaying as Haninozuka-senpai, no less ). Even after that, I probably won't want to rush myself. Burn-out is baddd.

A little about the main character. You'll learn this later, but I figure you'd like to know in the meantime. XD; The main character's name is Aubrey Beaumont. He has an older sister, who is a senior at the same high school he attends, and lives with his mother. His father, who is French, divorced from Aubrey's mother when Aubrey was two and moved back to France. Aubrey wears glasses, too. So, there you go. Nothing major, but just some fun facts, I guess?

.x Prologue x.

Like most twelve-year old boys, I was beyond excited to hear the bell ring at the end of the day five years ago. The last day of elementary school was finally over and if the next year of school had started right then and there, I probably wouldn’t have been the only one excited to run right over to the middle school building and get started right away. In fact, I could only recall one person I knew that wasn’t even the least bit excited about the big transition, and that was Camdyn Hadley, the boy I’d been friends with ever since the very first day of kindergarten.

I should’ve known something was wrong, seeing as he’d probably been the most excited of us all at the start of the year. But, the last few weeks, he’d been the quietest I’ve ever seen him and anytime someone asked him about it, he’d say something negative.

It wasn’t until we were walking home that day that he finally told me. His mother was getting a better job a few states away, so his whole family was moving when she decided to take it. He didn’t want to go and, now that he’d told me what was going on, I didn’t want him to go, either. But, it had already been decided.

There was only a week left until his family finally left. He’d been over a few times, but packing had kept him busy mostly. I only saw him a handful of times before the day came. My mother, my sister, and I went to see them off. There was a bit of talking, a few hugs, tears (mostly from me), and then they got I the car and left. My mother practically had to drag me back to the house.

Those were the worst few months of my life. Ever since I’d been little, I’d spent the long days off with Camdyn and our host of other friends. Now, I spent them at the house, spending most of my time helping with chores or drawing. There was nothing better to do, as the other friends I’d managed to make over the years more or less forgot about me. In fact, I’d only forged friendships with them in the first place because of Camdyn, but they were weak friendships, anyway. The blonde boy was, figuratively, the glue holding my social life together, and his move was enough of a solvent to completely destroy whatever little bit of a social life I had left.

I was thankful when school started up again, in a way. It was hard at first. I found there was only friend who hadn’t abandoned me, a red-haired girl named Annika who Camdyn and I both had met sometime in the fourth grade. She had been almost as upset as I had been when he’d moved away and, like me, the rest of our friends had forgotten her, too. We spent the rest of the year figuring out how the middle school education system worked, remaining as a simple duo if only for the fact that no one cared to try and befriend us. We weren’t exactly at the top of the social hierarchy—we never had been.

Seventh and eighth grade passed before our eyes. The change into ninth wasn’t even all that hard, either. It wasn’t until halfway through our sophomore year of high school that I realized that the friendship Annika and I had wasn’t quite as sturdy as it had been.

Both of us had grown and matured quite a bit, as had everyone in our class. But, I wasn’t exactly the short, bony little boy with the unruly, curly brown hair anymore. I’d finally managed to grow to the height of five-foot-five and filled out a little bit, thanks to Amelie dragging me with her to the gym every now and then. My sister had even convinced me to go to the hair stylist and get some color put in. She’d ended up choosing what I wanted for me, as I’d had no idea. I’d ended up with a set of reddish and a set of dark blonde highlights on two different occasions. Honestly, I wasn’t very fond of them, but Amelie liked them too much to let me go back and have my hair returned to it’s normal color. My mother wasn’t much of a help either, using phrases like “They were too expensive to just go back and have them taken out” to excuse the fact that she really liked them, too.

Annika, on the other hand, had completely grown out of the awkward tomboy stage of development she’d been struggling with during middle school. Most girls had started filling out a little bit near the end of seventh grade and finished somewhere during their freshman year, but she’d always complained—to me, worst of all—about being flat-chested and having absolutely no curve on her body. It wasn’t until we’d reached tenth grade that she finally began to get noticed by everyone. Over the past year and a half, she’d grown quite a bit. She was delighted fill me in on all the (unwanted) little details—she’d grown an inch, lost a few pounds, gained a few curves, and her bust size was no longer in the low-B range, but almost a C-cup. I’d been less than enthusiastic to know my best friend’s bust size, but she’d only laughed at the way I uncomfortably nodded and went along with the conversation.

Boys that Annika had had her eyes on for years had finally started talking to her. When we’d meet at her locker between classes, I’d notice more and more people coming up to interrupt our conversations, mostly giving me looks that implied they’d like me to leave. Most of the time, I just muttered that I would talk to her after the next class or at out lunch break and she would wave to me before resuming her conversation with whoever it was talking to her next.

That was the first time I had ever truly been jealous of anyone. I had never been all that interested in dating or whatever and it had always been okay with me that girls never had been interested in me, either. But, the day that Annika told me she would need to cancel our plans for the weekend because she’d been asked out on a date, I had been angry. It was unfair to me how people that had made fun of her for years and not cared a bit about her suddenly were of enough importance for her to cancel plans with me, her best friend of around seven years.

The year was coming to an end and it seemed that any time I approached Annika at school anymore, her new legion of friends were always there to will me away. It was impossible to do anything with her as friends anymore—her weekends were already booked with other friends or dates and after school, she always either had a lot of homework from her classes or had to work.

Finally, summer came and for the second time in my life, it was dreadfully uneventful. Occasionally, Annika would come over for an hour or two and once or twice, we went out to a movie or somewhere, but those events she’d always brought a few of her other friends to.

Our first day of the eleventh grade, I realized our friendship wasn’t as long as I’d thought it was. I’d met Annika at lunch and tried to sit with her, but when a few other girls she had befriended came to sit with us, they gave me the usual cold looks and eye rolls. Whenever Annika got up to go grab a tray, it left me alone with them. Finally, one of them spoke up.

“So, do you have a girlfriend yet, Aubrey?” She asked, though it had hardly seemed as inquisitive as it did malicious. Before I could respond, another girl made a comment.

“Of course he doesn’t,” This girl, a blonde, snickered, “Why would any girl want to date him? Well, unless she’s a lesbian.”

I’d hardly been affected by the comment. It wasn’t like no one had ever made it a point to tell me how ‘girly’ I looked. These girls were far from the first and I knew they would be far from the last, either. Still, though, it got under my skin that Annika was friends with these kinds of people when she was absolutely nothing like them. For one, she didn’t mercilessly taunt people she didn’t necessarily like.

“Don’t tease him about girls,” The third girl leaned over to the brunette, faking an innocent tone and making a stage whisper loud enough for everyone around us in the tightly packed cafeteria to hear. A few people turned their heads to give me weird looks as she spoke, “He’s obviously gay. Why else would he be so girly?”

Again, she hadn’t been the first to make the assumption. I went on ignoring it, looking over to the line. Annika was almost through the line. Hopefully, the group would leave me alone when she came back, as not to upset the red-haired girl. They wanted her in their little ‘elite’ group. They wanted a share of her popularity. I made me mad to know that that was all they wanted from her.

“You should go sit somewhere else,” One of them suggested. I looked back to them. Annika was about to the table. A little bit upset, I pushed my chair out, grabbed my tray, and was about to silently go off to another table before Annika could convince me to stay. But, she saw me and was instantly concerned.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, sitting her food down and looking up at me. I shook my head.

“Nothing. I’m finished, so I’m just going to go work on my homework for a while. I’ll talk to you later.”

I didn’t care to start any drama between her and these ‘friends’ of hers. If she liked them, I didn’t need to go ruining her friendships with them. She was capable of making her own decisions and I was just the unwanted friend now, anyway, or so it seemed. She let me go without much protest and I tossed away my untouched meal and walked back to the classroom on my own.

Ten minutes into my history assignment, the door to the library swung open and Annika walked in quickly, her face red and her eyes watery. I was confused when she came and sat down beside me, threw her arms around my shoulders, and started crying. It was untelling how many times she had apologized to me, but it was more than I could count on both of my hands, for sure. She had found out how cruel her ‘friends’ had been to me once I had left. They told her not to associate herself with me anymore and it had made her angry. When they proudly told her they’d ‘chased me off’, she had given them a mouthful—witnessed by the entire student body present in the cafeteria at the time—and officially broke all ties with them.

The next few weeks were oddly familiar to those of our freshman year. Annika had cut off ties with the people she’d made friends with, coming to a realization that they were hardly the kind of company she wanted to keep. Now that she was back to the bottle of the social ladder, the rate at which she was asked out for dates became less and less. Even then, she turned down the few offers she got. We were back to being the best of friends again without any one else trying to harm that, but I still felt a little guilty for being the reason why her bout of popularity and adoration had abruptly ended. She never once blamed me, though, and told me time and time again that she much preferred my company over theirs. I didn’t feel inclined to believe her.

Ever since, we operated once again as our little duo, going back to doing everything together and the like. Weeks wore on into months and, finally, November came. I expected it to be just like any other month. But about three days into the bitterly cold month, I was proven wrong. Sitting on the bed doing my homework, I hardly expected the ringing to be about anything important. Maybe a telemarketer or someone calling to collect some payment or something from my mother.

But when I answered, I hardly expected that it was actually the beginning of another radical change in my life. I didn’t expect the voice on the other end of the line to teach me so many lessons in living.