Average. That was the only word to describe her. She looked in the mirror at 7 a.m. and saw a freshman who wouldn’t stand out if she wore a sign that said ‘Notice Me’. “I’m going to high school.” She told her reflection, trying to sound excited. “I’m going to my first day at Mathaino High School-” she gave up, “-and I’m going to crawl under a rock once I get there.”

“Kay-LIN! Let’s go, we’re gonna be late!” Called her sister from the bottom of stairs.

“I’m coming!” The freshman yelled back. “Sheesh.” What was she so excited about anyway? Wasn’t junior year exactly the same as freshman and sophomore? She picked up her backpack and walked out of the bathroom, slumping her shoulders. “I swear, if you call me Kaylin one more time…” She muttered. Luckily her sister didn’t hear her so she didn’t have to think of a plausible threat.

Her name was Kay, but only a few people knew that. She grew up in her older sister’s shadow, sound cliché enough? Liann was at the center of the social ring, a tall redhead, and the princess of all things popular. Kay was just… Kay; the half that the whole world forgot.

Remember those fairy tales that you grew up with? Where the little step sister turned out to be the one the prince fell in love with and everything went peachy-keen after that? Those authors had reality issues. In the real world, she would never be her sister and she could never be better. So, Kay was always ‘Liann’s sister’, even to the people in her own grade. She could only imagine what high school would be like:

Go to school

Learn

Be invisible

Come home

Do homework

Eat dinner

Go to bed…

Oh yeah, this would be great.

“Kay! Let’s go!Get a move on!” Liann shouted as her sibling entered the car. “I don’t care if you have to cross burning coals, if we’re late, you’re walking for the rest of the year.”

Great start for the day.

The rest of it didn’t go any better.

The first class on her schedule was history, that teacher began the day with a lecture on why punctuality is important. She had the pleasure of getting him on that topic by walking in five minutes late. Liann was furious, but Kaylin could handle that. The only thing she had to be proud of was that she could be the world’s most annoying person ever. Don’t believe her? Ask Liann.

This teacher just bristled when she came in, and when she sat down, and when he looked at her, and when she left. Isn’t that going to be fun to wake up to every morning? It got better.

She had third period with the god of the ninth grade: Alex Coven. Why is that so terrible? Guess what third period is… Gym.

The first thing that he said to her was “That looked painful.” He probably wasn’t even talking to her, just to one of his friends standing nearby. Wasn’t that a great first impression? This is why she preferred going unnoticed: it’s better than the alternative.

The rest of the day was calm; she even thought she might not need her schedule sheet to find the classes again tomorrow, nothing interesting in the other five hours of the day. Oh joy, wouldn’t this be fun.

Liann didn’t give her a ride home, either. “You made me late.” She said through the open passenger’s side window when Kay arrived at the car to find the doors locked. “I warned you.” And she drove away.

So the freshman walked. The seven-minute drive had turned into a twenty-five minute hike, made longer by having to wait for four crosswalks.

Alight, the freshman thought, enough complaining. The real reason she was so morbid was because her best friend, Sam, had transferred schools that summer. Her pity party had lasted the entire season in hopes that her parents would transfer her, too.

Needless to say, it didn’t happen. The sour act had become habit, and habit had become attitude. She was now bitter 24/7. By the time she got home, Liann was on her cell phone already deep in her shallow gossip. Kaylin went to her room, dropped her backpack and, shirking her chores, flopped down on the bed. God that sucked.

She grabbed the phone and dialed Sam’s number habitually and waited for the phone to ring. Soon enough, there was a click. “Hello?”

“Sam? Oh my God, how was your first day of school? Did it totally suck?” The one thing that wasn’t horrible with this arrangement was that Sam was miserable, too. Wow, was that selfish or what? But misery loves company, and even though Kaylin wanted her friend to be happy, she probably wouldn’t function if she was alone in this.

“Kay?” Man, it was good to hear her voice. “Dude, where were you? I called like… almost an hour ago.”

“Your school lets out earlier remember? Plus I had to walk home. Liann’s gone all bitchy again.”

“Oh, that great of a day then? Or was the rest better?” Kay groaned, that was all the answer she needed to give. “Ouch. Sorry.”

“How ’bout you?”

“Uh… well-” She sounded guilty. “It was actually… pretty cool. There’s this group of kids that I sit with at lunch and the teachers are all hands-on for science and hands-on-calculators in math. And there’s even this really cute guy in gym-” Kaylin scowled. Sam could put up with a god in her gym class; she had the prowess of an Amazon in dodgeball. “-Kay, did you hear me?”

“Sorry, what?” She’d gone zoning again. Sam was used to that.

“I’ve got a date Friday! Isn’t that awesome? First day and I’ve got a date!” Kaylin celebrated with her for a moment more and made up an excuse to get off. Technically she didn’t lie; she needed to do her chores, she just didn’t plan to.

She should be happy; Sam was adjusting great now that school had forced social interaction. Why was she so- so-…jealous? Sam was her best friend; she wasn’t supposed to be angry just because she wasn’t around to be miserable with her anymore. But she was. She felt like screaming into her pillow and destroying her room like she used to when she was four; but the only thing that escaped were a few small tears. Stupid hormones… making her all crazy like this… she wiped them away and pulled a book off the shelf and turned her music on ¾ of it’s full volume to wait for the puffiness to fade. Then she could go do the dishes without Liann mentioning Kay’s ‘waterworks’ over dinner.