Chapter 1

Guarded

“Well, Danielle, are you nervous?” her mother asked as she drove their van up to the main entrance of the school.

“Surprisingly, no, I’m not. I recognize some of these kids; you know, from elementary school.” Danielle replied as she looked out the window.

“Any of your old friends?” her mother; Tania asked.

Danielle merely shook her head.

“No, I honestly don’t expect any of them to come here.” She gave a small laugh before continuing, “But then again, I didn’t expect to see any of these guys either. This year should turn out interesting.”

“As long as you don’t get into any trouble,”

“I won’t; don’t worry.” Danielle replied with a smile.

Danielle was a fifth-teen going on sixteen year old girl with long wavy brown hair that went all the way down her back. She had dark brown eyes that looked black if you weren’t really paying attention. She was maybe five feet in height and almost always wore heels because she thought she was short.

Today was no exception, looking down at her open toed high heeled sandals, mini skirt, and sleeveless low neck cut tank top you could tell it was a nice warm fall day.

“Isn’t that Matthew?” Tania asked looking at the boy who now walked up to their van as they came to a stop in front of the school.

“Yeah…” Danielle replied softly as she watched him. He was a dark haired boy with light brown eyes. She guessed he was about five foot five now. He was cuter now, she had to admit, but she didn’t like him that way. To be honest, she didn’t like him at all. Back at her elementary school she was the wall paper and he was the football popular. A lot of the old popular kids from her elementary school were here. None of her old friends were.

She shook her head a bit and grabbed her black book bag from the floor.

“I’ll call you later mom,” she said before opening the car door. Matthew held his hand out for her which she hesitantly took and got out of the car.

Matthew closed to the car door after her and gave her a small pull towards the main building of the school.

“You know Danielle, you’re the talk of the school.” He spoke his voice deeper, older and more mature then it used to be.

Danielle gave a small huff as she tossed her book bag over her shoulder and crossed her arms.

“And why’s that?” she asked not really caring.

Matthew glanced back at her with his usual calm stare.

“No one expected you to come here, I guess. You didn’t seem the type,” he said calmly. Danielle’s eyes twitched as she frowned.

“How sweet…” she mumbled. Matthew chuckled lightly and looked ahead of himself again.

“So where are we going and why are you the greeting committee?” she asked her voice demanding an answer.

“I figured you’d want to make yourself more comfortable until you get your room number. I greeted you, because I wanted to see how much you changed.” He answered simply.

“Why do you care?” she asked.

“I don’t, I was just curious.”

Danielle rolled her eyes at the response but continued to follow him into the building and down a few halls. They came to a rather dim lit room where a few kids sat on benches and chairs. She recognized a few of the kids, like Jeb, Mark, and Elizabeth but all the others were strangers to her.

Jeb was sitting at a table talking to few guys about shoes, clothing, and sports; typical guy talk. Once in a while he’d pipe in a word or two into Mark’s conversation.

Mark was sitting at a lunch table in the corner of the room eating as he laughed and talked to a few guys in the table next to his.

Elizabeth was helping an older woman make cupcakes. A few of the kids in the room would go up and take a cupcake once in a while only to end up getting yelled at. The woman would tell them to eat what they’ve got, or wait till dinner, or something along those lines. Elizabeth would just laugh though and agree with the woman.

Danielle took a cupcake as she walked past them and went to sit down at the table by Mark. At least his conversations were interesting enough to catch her attention; sometimes.

“Didn’t think we’d see you here,” Mark spoke up as she went to walk past him. She stopped and looked down at him for a moment before returning to taking the wrapper off her cupcake.

“Yeah, and?” she asked not really interested in what he had to say.

Mark rolled his brown eyes at her and pulled her to sit in the chair next to him. Danielle blinked and looked at him slightly annoyed.

“Do you need something?” she asked irritably.

“I think you’re the one who needs something.”

“Excuse me?” she asked her left eye twitching in slight annoyance.

“You’re here, alone and quiet as usual. Can’t you be a little more friendly towards old friends?” he asked with what one would think was a smile. Danielle knew it was just his’ own form of a smirk.

“We’re not friends, Mark. We never were,” she corrected before going to eat her cupcake.

Mark took her hand and took a bite of her cupcake earning himself an irritated yell.

“Go get your own you pig!” she yelled angrily.

Mark ate his bite of the cupcake with his smile like smirk and for once said nothing.

Danielle stared at the cupcake and frowned. This was typical Mark behavior. She found it hard sometimes to decide if he liked or hated her. She couldn’t decide. The only thing she was sure about was she had an utter disgust and hate for him.

“You’ll eat it,” Mark said knowingly.

Danielle rolled her eyes and looked a bite of the cupcake.

“You can always go snag another one, I only took one bite.” He said with a chuckle.

Danielle hit him in the arm with the top of her fist as she ate. Sometimes she wished she could ignore him but most of the time found that very hard to do. It’s not that she honestly hated him, but she didn’t like him either. They weren’t friends but with that said she wouldn’t consider the two of them enemies either.

She hated him most of the time, or so she’d say, but she could put up with Mark and his behavior unlike with some of the other boys she knew. Mark was simply the only one who was actually funny or entertaining. The other boys were just annoying or stupid. That’s what Danielle thought anyways.

To her, everyone was annoying, stupid, or just not someone she fancied. That’s why she didn’t have any friends. Well, any friends outside the computer to be exact.

Danielle was a computer geek as one would call her. Most of her friends were online and lived in either different countries or different states. She was like a different person online while in ‘real life’ she was colder and kept more to herself.

She pushed a lot of people away and came off as bitchy towards people at school, etc. She did have a few friends, but to her luck they all went to a different school. So when it came to school and stuff, she was pretty much alone.

Like any real person she wasn’t happy with it that way, but opening up and being friendlier just wasn’t something you learn how to do over night.

Danielle wouldn’t admit it to anyone not even herself half the time, but she knew why she was so bitchy, and why she pushed people away. It was obvious; she was afraid of getting hurt.

It’s happened to everyone, so we all can relate, but Danielle was born under what one would call an ‘unlucky star’. She had a lot of bad luck especially when it came to people and society. She would usually end up making friends with the wrong people or with someone who just wanted to use her.

She’d see it, so she wasn’t blind to it, which was good, but the problem was she didn’t wanna see the evil in others. So she’d simply pretend that she was imagining it and pretend that she didn’t see or know anything. In the end this always got her hurt. So she decided to stay away from people and be what people called now a ‘loner’. This was so she couldn’t get hurt; no one could hurt her if she was alone. She found it safer this way.

Mark went back to talking to his friends as Danielle sat calmly next to him listening in on parts of the conversation. Once in a great while she’d add a comment in but was otherwise silent. Matthew had come over and sat down across from Mark without a word. That was until he joined into the conversations.

Danielle laughed softly at something Mark said and he looked back at her with a small smirk. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. She looked up at him with a cold look and tried to move away but to her displeasure, couldn’t.

“What’re you doing” she asked her voice demanding an answer.

“I was planning to introduce you.” He replied with a sly smirk.

“And you have to hold me to do that?” she asked sarcastically.

“Yes,” he replied calmly with a nod. Danielle gave him another cold look and glared. Mark ignored her look and turned back to his two friends.

“Kevin, Eric, this is my girlfriend, Danielle.” He introduced with another sly smirk.

“I am no such thing!” Danielle snapped quickly. Mark laughed apparently amused with her response.

“And why not? You don’t wanna be my girlfriend?” he asked. He seemed to be teasing her but the look in his eyes made her think this was an honest question where he wanted a serious answer. She frowned at him and gave him another cold glare. She didn’t answer him, not really sure how to respond. Mark smirked and pulled her into his lap.

“So you do wanna be mine?” he said with a laugh.

“No! Now let go!” she snapped trying to get off of him but he wouldn’t let her.

Kevin, Matthew, and Eric seemed highly amused by the scene.

“Aww, come on, you weren’t arguing a minute ago.”

“I wasn’t agreeing either!” she huffed still trying to pull away.

Mark let her go suddenly letting her fall back into the chair next to him. She frowned and kicked him, knocking him off the chair and onto the floor. He didn’t even guard himself as he fell. He blinked and looked up at her from the floor, apparently he hadn’t expected that.

Danielle stuck her tongue out at him, “You deserved worse.” She huffed.

Mark gave her tongue a lick after he rolled his eyes.

“Not like you didn’t enjoy it.”

“Enjoy what?” she asked with a cold look.

“Me, and you, being so close, touching-“ Danielle cut him off quickly by hitting him in the head.

“Enough!” she snapped irritably.

Mark just laughed and got back into his chair next to her and began to once again talk to his friends.

Danielle got up and went over to steal another cupcake. She grabbed a cupcake and started nibbling on it as she took a seat in one of the chairs by Elizabeth and the older woman. Her eyes ran over the room again slowly taking in the faces, the changes of the people she knew. Well, the people she used to know.

It had been a long time since she last saw them. Elementary school was so long ago now but the memories were still so clear for her. She remembered her last look at the school, the people she had never intended to see again, the friends she lost but didn’t miss, and the teachers that she often ignored.

After elementary school she moved on to a middle school by her father. For those few years she had to live with her father in order to be able to go to the school. She didn’t know any of the students from the school when she started and she hardly knew any of the students when she left. She knew them by names and faces, by groups and friends, but she rarely spoke to any of them, let alone become friends with them.

High school, this year, was what she had been waiting for. Kaplins’ High School was a two way school. This meant it accepted two groups of students. Students who wanted white collar jobs went into school A down the street, while the other students would go to school B – that’s where Danielle intended to go.

Danielle gave a small sigh and stood up. She walked over, grabbed her bag from under Mark’s table then left the room quietly. She needed to find something to distract her. She was thinking far too much and she knew it. She didn’t need to ruin her own day with all of the memories.

She walked down the quiet, rather dark halls. It was strange, the halls were so dark, but it was only noon. She glanced out a hall window, the sun was still bright.

“Weird…” she whispered softly as she moved away from the window. It was like the light didn’t want to come inside, but the idea of that seemed increasingly silly to her.

“Lost?” someone asked suddenly.

Danielle jumped slightly before looking behind her. A dirty blonde haired boy stood behind her, his arms tucked in his pockets. He seemed normal enough, but she couldn’t erase the nervous feeling he gave her.

“Not really,” she replied calmly, her eyes watching him. She didn’t like how he had seemed to just appear behind her. She was paying attention, she was sure she would have heard him, but no. She hadn’t heard a thing, just like now; she couldn’t even hear him breathing.

He gave her a final look before going to walk past her.

“You should check your phone,” he said as he walked past her and down the hall. She hesitated but pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. A message flashed across the screen.

“A new text?” she glanced down the hall where the boy had disappeared. Now she really didn’t like him, whoever he was. She wouldn’t forget him though, at least not anytime soon.

She glanced up and down the hall before reading the text. Her class and dorm information had come. A small smile crossed her features as she closed the phone and headed down the hall towards the office to grab a campus map.

Danielle slipped quietly into the crowded office, grabbed a map, and left. It felt a bit odd, everything had been so quiet in the halls before, but she made one turn and everything was alive, loud, and filled with people and students. Even now as she walked down the halls to find the dorms entrance hall.

A small sigh parted her lips as she thought back to the boy. He still gave her the creeps, but she wished she had caught his name or some sort of evidence as to who he was.

She frowned slightly at her thoughts. The more she thought about the boy, the more freaked out she got. She wasn’t sure why, it was just something about him. Something about him bothered her, gave her a bad feeling, something she didn’t like. She just wasn’t sure what it was and at this point, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to find out.

She forced the thoughts away as best she could as she pushed open a set of doors and walked down a small hall connecting the school building to the dorms.