A/N: As a heads up to anyone who cares, the uploading of this story does not mean I'm discontinuing my other ones! Neither am I sure that this will be a series...

The Non-Believer

There are people who have the capacity to love, and those who don't. I happen to be one of the ones who refuse to love. It's not that I'm not able to – I'd just rather not. Besides, what's love but a secondhand emotion and an excuse to cry at night and get your heart broken? I'd rather avoid all that, thank you. Save the drama for somebody else.

In fact, I just stay away from people in general. I'm not anti-social – I'm anti-people. People are problems. People are obstacles. People are accidents waiting to happen. So to avoid said accidents, I just stay away from people.

Oh, what a miserable life I must lead. How sadly mistaken you are.

I am very content with my life. In fact, I'm more than content. I'm delighted with the way my life is going. And I plan to keep it that way. But of course, what I plan out isn't always what Fate has in mind. And what Fate thinks goes. That's just the way of life. No escaping it.

And thus, Fate brought Chet Adamo into my life. And thus, my contentment was ruined.

"Mia, I won't allow you to sit on your ass all day while your younger brother is working!" My mother complained to me as I sat on our worn, dark olive green couch. My legs were crossed and I was staring blankly at our 23 inch TV screen – not really watching what was on. My arms dangled on the head of the couch and my ears perked up slightly as my mother talked. She was constantly nagging to me, so I partially ignored it, but she'd shaken me out of my mental argument on whether toe socks were better than knee socks or not.

"Mom, let him have a job," I groaned back, annoyed that she would interrupt such a heated argument. "I'm just not meant to work. I was born so I could fail miserably in life and grow up to be some druggie who ODs and dies in a dark alley alone."

Okay, so I didn't firmly believe that, but at the rate I'm going – according to my mother – it's highly possible. I mean, I'm intelligent and all, honest, but I just don't apply myself. I really don't see the use in it. I mean, you're smart, you grow up and are shunned by those dumber than you, you have low-self confidence, you do something great for the world and nobody truly appreciates it until you die in your house on the hill with your forty-something black cats surrounding you and pecking at your skin. How glamorous.

And no, I'm not a cynic. I'm a realist.

My mother sighed audibly from her place behind the kitchen counter. I could feel her hazel green eyes boring into the back of head, probably trying to burn a hole back there. Really, she should've learned over the past five years that that's never going to happen. "Mia, I don't understand why you're so hell-bent –"

"Mom, stop bugging me!" I whined in my most annoying voice, knowing she'd leave me alone after that. When my voice went nasally and high-pitched (which I could turn on and off at will), she no longer bothered with me and just left me alone. As you can probably guess, I do turn on the voice quite often around my mother.

A few minutes later, after I'd realized I'd been watching SpongeBob Squarepants, I heard the phone ringing in the kitchen – which was an open kitchen, with just an island counter and a few steps separating it from the living room – and I didn't move a muscle. I never use the phone and I never anticipate calls.

Who is there to call or be calling you when you don’t have friends?

"Mia!" My mother called, and I tensed, hoping she wasn't trying to get me to talk to one of my oh-so annoying aunts or something. "It's for you," she said more softly, in awe. I whipped my head around and raised an eyebrow at her, turning my body to face the kitchen (which was far left to the couch). She held her frail, pale hand against the mouthpiece and simply stared at me, a surprised look in her eyes.

I stared back for a moment before slowly getting up; wondering if this was some lame trick being pulled by someone at my school. I took the cream colored cordless phone from my mother and paused before breathing into the phone, "Hello?"

"Mia? Mia Bellerose?" The voice asked, as if they were reciting my name. "Is this you?"

"Yes," I answered back, looking at my mother for answers as to why somebody would be calling me. She caught my look and shrugged, obviously not knowing the reason either. "Yes, this is me. Who is this? And why are you calling me?"

Hey, if you want the answer to something, it's best to be blunt about it.

"This is Chet Adamo – I'm in your homeroom," the voice answered. Oh. I knew it sounded familiar. Who didn’t know Chet's voice? Not only was he popular and on the basketball team, but he was loud. Like, really loud. But on the phone, he sounded relatively quieter. Probably because he was calling me.

Did I mention people at my school were scared of me? It made my avoiding them so much easier. I must thank them for that when I start talking to people…

"Oh. Yeah…well, what do you want?" I snapped, regaining my composure. Now that I had overcome the initial shock that someone was calling me, I needed to know what for. I put my free hand on my hip and fingered one of the side pockets on my denim shorts.

"Um…what was our math homework? I wrote it on my hand, but I accidentally washed it off," he explained, giving a nervous chuckle. I rolled my eyes and headed for my room, where my backpack and homework were.

"You realize this is what we have assignment books for," I sneered as I opened the stark white door to my room. It's amazing how white the door is, but then the walls in my room were dark purple with my own hand painted black skulls on them. It looked pretty cool against the off-white colored carpet. Most of the furniture was black or dark brown and made of mahogany wood, but just painted. There were two glass slide doors near my bed which led to the only balcony on the right side of the house, and were basically the only source I wanted and needed. All in all, I had the coolest bedroom in our two-story home.

Chet laughed nervously again, but gave no words in response. I guess he's not much of a talker. "Hey, why didn't you ask one of your buddies for the homework?" I asked, not genuinely curious, but just to make small talk and stall myself as I got my assignment book out.

"They didn't have it either," he replied nonchalantly. I rolled my eyes again. Boys.

"You all aren't a very responsible bunch, are you?" I chortled, laughing at my own joke. Chet didn't respond once again, so I finished fishing out my book from my deep purple backpack which was haphazardly thrown up against my black desk. Flipping through the various pages, I landed on the one for the homework from Friday, which I'd already finished. "It's page 232, numbers 2-40, even only," I repeated straight from the book.

There was a short pause before Chet replied, "Okay, thanks."

"No problem," I responded, shrugging although he couldn't see me and was about to hang up when I heard his voice again.

"Hey…could you help me with it? I'm pretty stumped on what South is talking about," Chet admitted. I couldn't help but roll my eyes again. And here he was supposed to be the fifth smartest student in the school. I don't know which number I am, but then again if you don't make an effort, you can't really be up there, can you?

By the way, "South" as Chet called him, was Mr. South, our algebra teacher. He let the boys in the class slide with calling him just South, and some of the students even called him Antony. But no. I stayed plain with Mr. South. It's a weird last name anyways. All directional and shit.

"Unfortunately Adamo," I snarled, calling Chet by his last name, "I don't have a lifetime to waste trying to uselessly explain this to you. Perhaps you should've just paid attention to what Southy was saying on Friday, hmm?"

There was a longer pause this time before I heard Chet's response. "Marco's all wrong about you. You're a total bitch, my god. No wonder he won't ask you out," was his retort. In all honesty, I didn't know what he was talking about – and I really didn't care.

"Are you done wasting my time, or must I suffer longer?" I drawled. Then all I heard was a click and I sighed in relief. This is why I don't waste my time with people. I don't see why they can't return the favor.

I went back downstairs and handed the phone back to my mom and she gave me this questioning glare. "So…who was it?" She asked, sounding moderately hopeful. If she thinks I'm ever going to give up my passionate hatred for all humans and finally be social, then she can just die with that idea.

"Oh, some jerk from school," I responded half-heartedly, plopping back on the couch. "He needed the homework because he was too much of an idiot to copy it down correctly himself. I tell you, they get worse and worse each year…"

"So you know him?" My mom asked, almost completely ignoring the whole purpose of what I'd just said. I rolled my eyes, though she could see it.

"No Mom," I sighed in exasperation, and you could hear it. "I don't. I don't even know how he got my number in the first place or why he called me. I just hope he doesn't bother me again. In fact," I frowned as I stood up and turned off the TV, "I'm feeling a bit bothered right now. I'm gonna go to my room, k? Call me when Darren comes with food."

I flopped on my bed when I arrived there, brushing my raven black hair out of face as I fell on the soft mattress. Folding my tan arms underneath my head, I closed my hazel eyes and thought. I usually do this when I'm stressed out or just don't want to be bothered. This usually happens after human contact.

After fifteen minutes of deep concentration and thinking, I came to a conclusion:

Knee socks were way better than toe socks.