Chapter 1

“Cassandra!” a loud angry voice yelled from down stairs.

In her room, a small, extremely skinny girl sat in her room, a fluffy blanket pulled around her shoulders. Her thin shoulders shook as she stared at the door to her bedroom with brown eyes, resembling that of a baby deer.

“Cassandra, get down here! Rich is here to take you to school!” the loud voice yelled up the stairs again.

The small girl slowly crawled off the bed and started slowly toward the door, adjusting her black and gray, plaid, pleated skirt as she walked. Her black ballet flats clicked against the hardwood floor softly as she walked. She grabbed her backpack of the stairs as she descended.

“What took you so long?” A big tall blond man in his mid forties, Cassandra’s step dad, questioned gruffly.

“Jack, I had to find a hair band,” Cassandra answered timidly, holding up her wrist to show him the limp hair band that hung from it.

“You call me dad,” the big man said, waving his finger at her dangerously, causing Cassandra to flinch away, afraid he’d hit her. “Now go, don’t keep Rich waiting any longer.”

Cassandra turned and ran out the front door and down the front steps to the driveway where a tall strong, bleach blond football player sat in the drivers seat of a silver Jetta, waiting.

“Hey,” the boy greeted in a deep voice, a small smile that said ‘he knew something she didn’t’ played on his lips.

“Hi,” Cassandra responded, dropping down in the passenger seat.

The drive to school was silent except for the soft purring of the engine.

As they pulled into Rich’s parking spot in the school parking lot Rich reached over and pulled Cassandra closer to him.

“Meet me outside the locker room this afternoon during sixth period,” Rich said as more of an order. Cassandra nodded obediently. “Good girl.” With that he kissed her and got out of the car and walked to the front of the car to wait for Cassandra.

Cassandra walked over to Rich carefully. He put his arm around Cassandra’s shoulders and pulled her close to his side. The two of them walked into the school and over to Rich’s friends.

Cassandra’s eyes wandered over to her old group of friends that were sitting on a bench across the courtyard. She could see her friend Macy and Frankie, her two old best friends, watching her through the crowd of people. She hadn’t talked to them since her mom died and she started dating Rich, about two years ago.

Cassandra turned back to Rich’s friends, ready to ignore everything that was said and smile at everyone like Rich told her to. She scanned the faces in the crowd surrounding her and Rich. All the eyes were pasted on Rich, hanging on his every word as he explained so football play or some movie. She was just about to turn her eyes back down to the ground when her eyes met a pair of light brown eyes with a green and blue starburst pattern around the irises. Cassandra glanced down at the ground quickly before looking back up at the boy with blue green and brown eyes. She knew she knew the boy from somewhere, but she couldn’t figure out why. She looked away again and was about to look up at the boy again when Riches hand tightened around her upper arm.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Rich bit out before dragging Cassandra away from his friends and into a hallway. “What are you doing?” Rich growled, backing her against the wall. Cassandra shrunk away from her boyfriend. “What are you doing?” Rich repeated. Cassandra opened her mouth to answer, but Rich yelled at her before she could, “Do you know who he is?” Cassandra didn’t answer. “He’s Nate Ritterson! The soccer captain! My enemy!” Rich turned and walked away from her, back toward her friends. Cassandra sunk down to the floor where she sat, shaking for a while.

The bell rang, signaling that there were five minutes till class started. Cassandra stood up and started toward her first period class. As she walked, Nate Ritterson’s face kept flashing back into her thoughts. He had been rolling his eyes at something Rich had said. Unlike everyone else in the group, Nate Ritterson seemed to be frowning most of the time, glaring whenever he looked up at Rich.

Cassandra entered her first period class and sat down in her normal spot at the back of the class. She pulled her trig 2 book out of her backpack and opened it to some random page. She then started to dig around in her bag for her homework from the preview night.

She was bent of her bag, digging for a pencil when someone sat down beside her. Cassandra sat up, her fingers curled around a pencil. She glanced up through her long dark eyelashes to see who was next to her.

A tall boy with dark brown hair, which fell in his eyes, sat in the chair next to her. Cassandra turned her gaze back to the book that sat open in front of her. She went to turn a page in her book, but cut the tip of her finger on the edge of the page. Cassandra shook her hand for a second before sticking it in her mouth and sucking on it.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked. Cassandra looked up at him, expecting to meet his eyes, but found the boy staring at her arm. She glanced down at her arm to see that the sleeve of her shirt had slid down to her elbow, revealing the many bruises she had received from her boyfriend and her step dad.

“Um…” Cassandra stuttered, quickly pulling up her sleeve. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Cassandra stared down at her book, avoiding the guy’s eyes.

“You sure?” the guy asked gently. Cassandra looked up to meet light brown eyes with a green and blue starburst pattern. She quickly looked away from Nate Ritterson’s eyes and stared across the room closing herself off from the world.

“Yeah,” Cassandra answered, barely audible. Nate stared at Cassandra for a moment before looking back forward.

The rest of the class period Cassandra focused hard on taking notes while Nate concentrated much less on taking notes and more on glancing over at Cassandra every thirty seconds on the dot.

The bell rang at the end of class and Cassandra quickly stood up and left the classroom. Nate stared after her, confused, before turning and packing his bag.

Nate exited the classroom to find Rich leading Cassandra, by the shoulder, down the hall, rather roughly. He was about to start after them when a few of his friends came over and started talking to him. Nate watched as Rich and Cassandra disappeared into the crowd of students.

So this is only an idea I thought of one saterday so I was just wondering what you guys think of it. All responces are good.:)