Chapter One

I guess I would sort of call myself popular. I mean, popularity was based on how many people liked you, right? By that…I mean I knew a lot of people who liked me. I was friends with Sam Herald, the starting quarterback of my school's state-championship-winning team, and my best friend in the world, Aria Greene was the head cheerleader. So, yeah, by the standards of modern television and teen movies, I was pretty well off under the social scrutiny of high school. But I wasn't nearly as 'cool' as my friends were.

I was the girl who got straight A's, even in insane classes like AP Chem. and Physics. I was the girl who people came to talk to when they needed advice, too. No seriously, people would always ask me for my advice, then tell me how I was 'nice'. Sometimes I wondered if nice was a bad thing, or if it was okay. I mean for the most part it was good, but then again it was annoying because that's the only thing people usually saw in me. I even remember over hearing Sam talking to one of his 'bros' who had asked him if he was going to ask me to Junior prom. His response, "Nah, she's just a friend. She's really nice, though."

So, there you have my dilemma.

"Kenzie!" I heard Aria call out to me one day, as I was making my way to third period. I turned around to see her jogging towards me, her black, ribbon-tied, pony tail swinging side-to-side.

"What's up?" I asked, as she came to a halt when she reached me.

"Mrs. Dunlap wants to see you in the office," she panted. I bit my lip. The office? What did the office want with me? I had never, ever done anything bad in my entire seventeen and a half years of living.

"Really? Why?" I asked, panicking. Aria just laughed.

"Kenz, why would you of all people get in trouble? Plus, Mrs. Dunlap assured me you weren't in any kind of trouble whatsoever," she explained cheerfully. She was always cheerful. I guess I just happened to roll with an oddly positive crowd. And she wasn't the only one either. Sam sang. And no not in show choir like on that show, Glee. (I mean I love that show, but it strikes me as odd that all of the guys in glee club are football players.) But he was in all of the musicals. How he juggled football and drama, though, I will never know.

"Oh…that's good. Wait, why were you there?" I asked.

"I was dropping off a note in the attendance office. I'm leaving early for that root canal," she said, the last part of her sentence significantly less up-beat.

"Ooh, that's rough," I said, sympathetically. She nodded in agreement.

"I know. It's pretty sucky," she sighed. "Well I'll see you later!"

I told her I'd see her later, too and changed my course of direction to the office instead of my third period, which was Art. I didn't like art very much, but it was a graduation requirement.

When I entered the office and headed for Mrs. Dunlap's desk, I noticed a guy already standing there. I had never seen him before in my entire life, so, given the abnormally small size of the school, I assumed he was a new student. He was on the tall side, with side-swept brown hair and soft blue eyes. He wore a red t-shirt, faded jeans and red converse high tops. Secured to his back was a fire-engine-red backpack. 'Hmm, I bet he likes red…'.

I stood to the side politely, ready to wait for him to be done speaking with Mrs. Dunlap, when, instead, she beckoned for me to come over.

"Mackenzie, I want you to meet Beckett," she said, gesturing towards the guy in red. I smiled.

"Hi," I said. He didn't reply though, he just sort of gave me this deer-in-the-headlights look, then averted his attention to a red, ceramic apple on her desk tat red 'worlds best teacher' on it. (which was sort of odd that she even had that, given that she wasn't a teacher.

"Beckett, you can trust Mackenzie, she's a very sweet girl." Mrs. Dunlap assured him. He glanced at me again, then finally smiled.

"I'm Beckett David Saunders," he said. I thought it was odd that he was introducing himself again. I found it even more peculiar that he was using his full name.

"I'm Mackenzie Waters. You can call me Kenzie though," I explained. He smiled this goofy, yet strangely adorable, smile and nodded.

"Anyways, Mackenzie, Beckett is a new student and I was hoping you could show him around a bit. I noticed you guys have the same third period, so I thought that that would be perfect for you to show him the ropes a bit." She explained. I looked from her to Beckett ( who was still smiling) and then back to her again.

"Of course," I agreed. I mean, why would I say no? For one thing I'm just too 'nice' too say no, plus it was more of a command than a question. And on top of that, this Beckett guy was sort of cute.

"That is wonderful. Thank you so much, Miss. Waters." She said. Beckett picked up a packet of papers that he had apparently set down on the desk, and turned to me, ready to go.

"All right, let's go," I said, leading him out of the office. Once we were out of there, I turned back to him and tried to initiate conversation. "So, Beckett, where did you move here from?"

"Oh, I didn't move," he said.

"Oh…where did you go before then?" I asked, slightly confused.

"I was at View Point, but then I had to change schools." He sighed. "People were mean."

"Oh…that's not cool. Well, I know a lot of really nice people here," I assured him. I was very curious to know why people were so mean to him, but I decided not to pry.

"That's good. You seem nice, too…and that's also really good. So are you an artist too?" he asked.

"Well, I would hardly call stick people 'art'" I sighed, sort of chuckling to myself. He frowned.

"Oh. That's too bad…I like art, though." He informed me. I nodded.

"That's a good way to kick off your year here, then. Because we're going to art right now," I pointed out.

"I know. I saw my schedule. I have Art third period, then gym fourth period, then lunch fifth period and science sixth period then English seventh period and Spanish class eighth period." He told me. Did I mention he recited all of this to me without even looking at his schedule card, which I'm pretty sure he received like five minutes ago?

"Oh, well then it doesn't seem like you have any other classes with me…except lunch, of course," I sighed, as I pushed open the doors of the art room.

"Hmm…oh wow, this is really neat," he said, marveling at all of the pictures and paintings hung up all over the walls. The art room was a very, er…creative place. Not that I didn't like art or anything, it just always seemed to be more enjoyable to the people who were good at it.

"Yeah, I like it in here," I said. "We don't have assigned seats in this class, so you can sit next to me if you want," I offered, leading him over to the table in the corner that I sat at, usually with these two seniors, Ashley and Corey. They were both AP students, so my work always looked more like a preschooler's scribble than usual next to their work. Ashley was a pretty red head that always had sort of a hippy-ish vibe to her wardrobe and Corey was a bit on the flamboyant side, but was one of those guys that would never admit that he was gay in a million years.

"Hey, guys, this is Beckett, he's new here," I said, introducing Beckett to them.

"Beckett David Saunders," he repeated. There it was again. What was it with the full name thing? I sighed and plopped down into my seat. Beckett set his backpack down onto the table and turned to me, his face suddenly very serious.

"Can you please watch this for me? I have to go introduce myself to the teacher so I know what to do. Don't let anyone take it," he said. And from the sudden change in his tone, I knew some shit was about to go down if anyone laid a finger on his red backpack.

"Of course. I won't let anyone touch it," I assured him, without a single hint in my voice that could lead him to think I thought he was acting strangely.

"So, how do you know him?" Corey asked, as he mixed together various shades of blue onto a wax-paper pallet.

"Oh, Mrs. Dunlap thought I should show him around and stuff," I explained.

"He seems…interesting," Ashley said, in her usual lazy tone. She was in the middle of some sort of painting, too. She was more of an abstract artist though, so whatever she was painting was far beyond my artistic comprehension.

A few minutes later, Beckett came back to the table with a set of drawing pencils the teacher, Mr. Hewitt, had given him.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, he just wants to know what I can do, so he said to sketch something," he explained, unzipping his backpack. "No one touched this right?"

"Nope," I replied.

"Well good…can I draw you?" he suddenly asked, flipping to a blank page in his sketch pad. He flipped so fast, though that I couldn't get a look at his other drawings. I wondered if he really was good.

"Oh, uh, sure," I shrugged. "Do you want me to do anything in particular?"

"Nah, just sit there and…I don't know. Do what you're supposed to be doing, I guess."

"Okay…" I said, thinking of what I should do. I had finished my project (which was utterly horrendous) and had a free day, so I just took out my AP Bio book and decided to read chapter 40 which was supposed to be homework.

"That's great," he said, pulling his legs up onto the stool and crossing them Indian-style as he balanced the sketch pad on one knee. I could tell he was hard at work, too, because he didn't say a single word the entire period. That is, up until three minutes before the bell was due to ring, he jumped off the stool.

"Finished!" he exclaimed, excitedly.

"Oh, cool, can I see?" I asked. He nodded enthusiastically and flipped the sketchbook around. I think the dropping of my jaw was a pretty involuntary action. Because Beckett was a really good artist. No, he was amazing. I could tell right away that I was his subject, and that the lights and shadows were exactly right. It was realistic, yet at the same time it was artistic and wasn't photograph-looking.

I think it was at that moment that I realized that there was something really special about Beckett David Saunders.

A/N

So…what do you guys think?

I'm really curious to know! Thank you for reading!!