Yeah, I'm really bad with the updating.

"Wait, you did nothing while Richard's dumb ass was laughing at you?" Andrew shook his head as I recounted my story to him in our third period English class. "I'm so ashamed of you."

Mr. Samuels, our very loved teacher, was nowhere to be found yet. He was a heavy smoker, and thus was always outside in the designated smoking area behind the student parking lot, hidden behind the giant maple tree. Andrew told me that he was actually a really good teacher, but I doubted this, as we were thirty minutes into class, and while I learned nothing new about English type things, I had learned some of the ins and outs of the school, a little background on my classmates, and a very heavy background on Richard, who went to middle school with Andrew.

"Ugh, Richard is such a poser. Seriously. You should have seen him in middle school with his Jay-Z loving self. Now he's all 'Look at me skate!'" Andrew rolled his eyes and ate some more Skittles.

"Hey, where'd you get those? I haven't seen a vending machine anywhere. Well, I saw some Coke machines, but they were all empty." I asked.

He looked around the classroom. "Um. That girl somewhere..." He pointed to a girl in the back of the class.

"But that's so far! Go buy me some." I handed him a dollar and waited for him to come back.

Andrew understood my laziness, and he didn't mind doing small stuff for me, but it was more the apprehension of having to talk to these people than laziness that had stopped me from going for the candy myself.

On my way between classes, I kept being interrupted by random people coming up to talk to me, saying that they would be my friend, or if I needed to talk sometime, they would be there.

It was way weird, and way creepy.

My impression of this school was already so messed up. The people got on my nerves, there were too many rules, and there were these annoying posters everywhere about Rachel Scott. If I saw one more blue flyer about "taking the Rachel Scott challenge", whatever that was, I'd shred it to pieces and feed it to someone. Preferably Richard.

How dare he call me an-

"Psst. Lane!"

A voice jerked me out of my thoughts. Where was it coming from? I turned to the open doorway and my insides melted. And then hardened.

"What? Omigod, dude, shouldn't you be in class?"

Adam grinned at me and waved his laminated hall pass. "It's the magic ticket. You can go anywhere with one of these."

I quickly checked at what Andrew was doing. I didn't want him to see me talking to Adam. He was busy talking to the candy seller, though. Andrew's beautiful features make him very popular with the girls, who unfortunately don't realize he's gay, or are in denial. No one else was noticing us either, as they were all too busy with their own conversations, or their PSPs.

"Well, should you really be loitering in the halls, then?"

Adam pretended to think about it. "Why yes, yes I should."

I smiled, and then hated my self. Why was this guy still making me all fuzzy inside?

It had been a year since we last spoke, but two years since we saw each other in person. Since seventh grade I'd had a crush on this guy. He was so geeky and funny, but totally oblivious to my not-so subtle advances toward him. In ninth grade we went our separate ways meaning he had chosen to come to this dump, and I'd chosen Jones, but we continued to talk on the phone and email.

Until, of course that idiot girl came along...

"Hey, dude, have you ever heard of Rancid?"

It was November of my freshman year, and I was talking to Adam about music, which we always talked about. We had almost identical taste in music, so we could spend hours discussing a song or a band.

"Oh, man! I love them!" His enthusiastic tone made me feel almost proud, or something. "What songs have you heard by them?"

"Omigod, you listen to them too? Dude, I just love Motorcycle Ride, but now my favorite has to be Junkie Man."

I went through the cupboards of my kitchen, looking for a strainer, with the phone pressed between my head and shoulder. I think he heard the cabinets opening and closing, because he asked me what the sound was.

"Oh. Um. I'm just looking for a strainer."

"YOU cook? Every day I learn something new about you." He laughed. "What are you making?"

I looked at the counter top. Well, there was brownie mix...and...some other stuff..."Oh, just brownies."

Crap! I thought, You don't need a strainer for just brownies.

"Brownies? Man, I wish I were there. Ooh, ooh! I'm gonna make a song about brownies." I heard him strum something on his guitar.

Phew. Adam's clueless when it comes to the kitchen. I looked guiltily at the ingredients on my counter, then at the clock, which read five o clock. I didn't have to worry about my parents getting her in the middle of my coking, since they were out somewhere, and wouldn't be home till maybe ten, but my sister would come by for this stuff at six. I sighed. I couldn't do this with Adam on the phone.

"What's wrong?" Adam stopped strumming and waited for my answer.

"Nope, nothing!" I tried to inject as much happiness in my voice as I could. "So, met any cute chicks at that lame-ass school yet?", I asked, trying to change the subject. I asked him this everyday, but so far the answer had always been no, which I was glad for.

"Actually, I have."

I stopped searching the cabinets and struggled to keep the jealousy out of my voice as I said my next sentence. "Whoah. There's actually a chick at that school good enough for you to like? She must be super awesome."

"Well, I think so. Okay, look." Adam sighed deeply. "I'm gonna tell you something, and you really have to promise not to laugh, okay?"

Since laughing was the furthest thing from my mind, I agreed.

"Okay. Um. Lane? I know we swore that dances had to be the dumbest shit in the universe, but look, there's this chick, Yasmin, who really wanted to go, and I was joking around that maybe I could take her, and she actually agreed, and so I've started talking to her, and she's pretty cool. I think you'd liker her. Really."

I hung up the phone, and he didn't call back for about a week.

Remembering that, I got angry again. "Dude, go away. Seriously." I turned my back to the door, and I heard Adam mutter "Fuck you, then", under his breath, and footsteps going away.

Andrew came back a minute later, tossing the bag of skittles on my desk. "Oh man, it's like no one here has any gay-dar. Hey, what's up with you? What's got you so down?", he kidded.

"What do you think? This school blows. I want to go back to Jones. " I said for the millionth time that day.

"I know. These people think they're so fucking great. Especially Richard. He's like the biggest freaking poser." I let Andrew complain about him some more, while I mindlessly ate my skittles and thought some more about the past years.

I showed up for gym, my fourth class, with low expectations.

They weren't even fulfilled, low as they were.

There were three coaches who didn't even check attendance, and everyone was just plain rowdy, jumping off bleachers, and some guy had a stereo, playing the most current top songs. I spent the period on the bleachers, trying to make sense of my chemistry homework, but I didn't get any of it.

And so I started to cry.

It wasn't necessarily the chemistry that made me cry. I just hated this whole school, and the reason I was here in the first place.

I also had a boyfriend, Danny, who I wasn't sure I entirely liked that much, but I couldn't break up with him, because I'd be a total bitch to do so.

I spent about a year getting over Adam, and one look at him, and all that hard work repressing memories was gone.

All this thinking was hurting my head.

I decided to not attend gym any more.

Walking to the cafeteria after class, I thought about my situation some more. It wasn't actually as bad as it seemed. I've always been something of a crier and a worrywart, and listening to grunge during the period probably hadn't helped. But I still wasn't going to gym.

I walked in the cafeteria, where kids waited in long lines for food, argued, laughed, and acted like assholes.

There were two entrances from the main hall, and a door leading to the courtyard. I sat at a table nearest the main entrance, once again trying to do my chem homework. Nearby I could feel some kids staring at me and whispering.

I turned up the music on my mp3 player louder, but had to turn it down when one of the people sat across from me. He was older than me, and had an eyebrow piercing, with a too tight blue shirt, jeans and Converse.

“Hi. What are you working on?”

I looked at him. Couldn't he tell from my book? “Chemistry.”

I returned to my work, hoping he'd get the message that I didn't want to talk to him, but he still stayed.

“Y'know, I used to dress like you. I shopped at Hot Topic, and wore dark pants with chains, and stuff. I was Goth, too.”

I screamed inside, but kept a straight face. I hated when people thought I dressed goth, or thought I got my clothes at Hot Topic. I shopped at Sears, for Chris sakes. I looked nothing like a goth!

“So, what bands do you like? I like Evanescence. Do you like them?”

“No.”

“Oh. Why not?”

I sighed deeply. He was just not going away. “Most chick singers screw up a song.”

“Well, how about Fall Out Boy?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh. I hate them.”

He continued to name bands, each one crappier than before.

“Okay, how about Hawthorn Heights? They're seriously awesome.”

I slammed my book shut. “Okay, you have lost all right to speak to me.”

I stood up, walked out the nearest door, and added the cafeteria to my list of places to never step foot in again.

Out in the main hall, I had my choice of turning right, towards the main offices, and the other classes, or to the left, and out the doors, to where the bus ramp and overhang were.

I went outside, to where the skater rats and everyone else had been that morning, but now, during second lunch, when most of the magnet kids were still in class, it was virtually empty. There were a few people sitting on the benches by the entrance to the planet building, but it was not my idea of a super happy fun time to be out here in the September humidity.

I walked past them inside the building, and looked at the projects on display. Earlier that morning, Adam had told me this is where they took all the kids touring prospective schools, to make them think that they were actually going to learn something. I hadn't had a class here yet, since this was mainly just labs and stuff, but I knew I had my seventh period here.

The building was a just a rectangle, with about five or six large classrooms on one side, all with two entrances, and at opposite ends, glass windows and glass doors, so that you could see outside. I had seen from the outside that the classroom nearest the entrance I had come in through was actually an empty greenhouse. On the other side, to my left, there were about three smaller classes, then another entrance in the middle, then three more classes.

You couldn't see inside any of the classes, and the projects got boring. I started humming to myself, scraping my nails along the wall, when I heard a door open.

I whipped around, hoping they hadn't heard me hum. It was two guys I recognized from my computer science class., trying to hold several beakers, and they hadn't noticed me yet, since they were too busy joking around.

The middle entrance was between the two sets of classes, so if I ducked in the small hallway, they wouldn't see me.

I started to push on the handle of the exit, when I heard “emo girl”. I paused to listen some more.

“Richard says she's stupid, too. Like, she couldn't solve some problem. I don't know. Maderazo's a bitch, though.”

“Yeah. But hey, Ricardo's stupid, too. Wait, then Emo Chick must be like. A super idiot.”

They laughed, while I considered turning the corner and smashing those bakers over their heads. My decision was made for me when I heard their next sentence

“I saw her talking to Adam and Mark. Maybe she came from their middle school.”

“Mark the junior or Mark the sophomore?”

“Junior.”

“Oh. Then no. Mark the sophomore and Adam went to Berry Middle, I know that, but Mark the junior went to middle school with Johnathon.”

I was surprised at this new information. How many other people from my middle school came here?

“Well, I guess Emo Chick was asking for directions, or something. I bet her class was right across the hall.”

They roared with laughter, and then glass shattered.

“Oh, shit! Green's gonna kill us.”

I wanted them to talk some more about Adam, but instead they argued about who had to clean up the mess, so I pushed the door open and left, unnoticed over the bickering.