Chapter 1: An Unexpected Proposal

The name's Withers. Layne, Withers.

It's not one of those names that sound cool when said in a James Bond sort of voice – on the contrary, it sounded like a spray an old man would use on the weeds in his garden. Where is the justice? It's about not as fair as why chickens don't quack. Do only ducks get that privilege? Quacking is the epitome of cool.

Don't look at me like that; I know you have wished you could quack at least once in your entire lifetime. I know I have several times, in all seventeen years of my life.

I could go on about ducks for hours. But more often than not, I go off track and on to a completely new topic altogether. I was broken out of my reverie by my best friend Annabelle Greene, who threw a crumpled paper ball at me to catch my attention. For a girl who reportedly had the worst aim in our year, she was right on target this time. I looked at her questioningly, and she shook her blonde hair out of her face, narrowing her shockingly blue eyes at me. She nodded furiously towards our Geography teacher who was droning on about something to do with... rivers, was it?

"...and the story of the Ganges, from her source to the sea, from old times to new, is the story of India's civilization and culture, of the rise and fall of empires, of great and proud cities, of adventures of man..."

Hell hath no fury like a woman who can multi task.

A few minutes later, the bell rang, and not a minute too early. I gathered up my books and walked over to Ann's desk. She picked up her own books, slung her bag over her shoulder.

"Lay, honey, you really should pay attention sometimes. Acing ever Geography test during mid-terms and finals won't help you in college," she said, smirking slightly at the end.

"In my defence, I learned all this stuff way back during my home-schooling days!" I exclaimed.

From kindergarten to my freshmen year, I was home-schooled by my mom, before she decided she would rather me putting her degree at Fashion school to better use. That was also before she turned whacko and shut her husband and kids out.

"If you say so. Let's hurry, we promised J we'd meet him by my locker!" she said, pulling my arm and dragging me out the door. As a result of her forceful dragging, boy she can be strong when to wants to be, I bumped into Ryan Mathews, nearly shoving him and his armful of books to the floor.

Now here's what you're probably thinking. Girl bumps into guy, falls on top of him, girl is on guy, and they apologize, and realize they're in love with each other. Fortunately, that's definitely not the case here.

"Never forgive men; they'll screw you over in the end, anyway."

I was suddenly reminded of my mother's reminders – this was the one instance where I paid any attention to her and her morbid warnings.

As soon as he hit the floor, he swore and looked at me sideways.

"Watch where you're goin', Shorty." He said, smirking. I it was no secret that I was one of the shortest students of our grade.

He nodded at Ann, his jade eyes crinkling at the corners. Her face broke out into a grin and she nodded back at him. I glared at her, turned back towards him, and knocked the rest of his books out of his hands.

"Oops," I said, in a saccharine sweet voice. He chuckled and bent down to pick them up. Ann reached down too, but I gave her a little push out the door. We were not about to help Ryan.

Before I tell you anything more, here's one thing you need to know about Mathew - he was, to say the least, a genius. I'm talking the whole 130 IQ, a 4.8 GPA and all AP classes. In addition to being the Devil's most intelligent spawn, he was also a pure, 100%, made-in-China, Grade A, asshole. He treated girls as dogs, and had at least two of them hanging off his arm every second of the day; as he did right now. Apparently it was a pre-requisite that those girls had to be wearing revealing clothes and not know how to string together more than two coherent sentences.

The walk to Ann's locker was silent, and then I spoke up, my voice brimming with anger.

"Just watching him makes me want to gouge out his eyeballs with a spoon. Yeah, a nice big spoon would do the trick." I glared at a dirty spot on the floor.

Though my relationship with Ryan was still a bit of a sore topic, even after all these years, Ann knew when to be serious about it and when she could laugh off my rages.

"Is there a jail sentence for that? There's got to be some sort of set punishment for eyeball gouging." She ran her fingers through her hair as she looked at her reflection in the mirror on the door of her locker.

I chuckled, a tad less angry than before. Keeping up the ridiculous conversation, I replied, "Well you never know; depends on the severity of the victim, maybe?"

"Eyeball gouging was actually used as a legal punishment until being declared illegal in 1913. The sentence is life."

'J', Jacob Cairns as Ann called him earlier, was the third member of our trio. He had the knack for knowing random information that was never of any use to anyone – till now.

"Aw man," I complained, leaning on Ann's locker. "I was so looking forward to that!"

Ann and Jacob exchanged looks of amusement. When they stood next to each other, they looked like twins. For starters, they both had blue eyes, blond hair, and were the same height. This caused for people everywhere to tell them to date, but Jacob had his own steady girlfriend and Ann isn't quite the type to stick to one guy for too long.

"Sorry I'm late you two," he started on his customary excuse for why he was never on time. "We got our Physics lab reports back and I got an A- so I had to talk to my teacher about it. She is so iniquitous!"

It was Ann's and my turn to give each other the exasperated face we only pulled when Jacob was around – he was always using these big, complicated words that we had no idea existed. As a budding author, he thought it was his duty to educate us on as much as possible about the English language; whether we cared or not.

But in all honesty, it was quite entertaining; Jacob was extremely sweet most of the time.

We started walking down the crowded hallway into the cafeteria. We grabbed a tray each and stood in the line. Soon, we were seated at our usual table; the three of us had claimed the bench farthest from the rest of the desks and nearest to the window and the exit to the playground. It ensured that if we were every having a private conversation, no one would ever hear us. If someone did happen to be standing nearby, we'd see them.

I had just started on my granola bar, when a shadow passed over the table. I looked up, only to see, the great Ryan Mathews standing. (Note sarcasm). My face immediately morphed into its usual glare which always came into play when Ryan was around.

"What the hell are you doing here, Mathews?" I snarled.

Ryan's mouth turned slowly into a lazy smirk. "Now, sweetheart, must you be so cold? If I remember correctly, we used to be dear friends. What happened all of a sudden?

Rolling my eyes, I said, "Do you really want a reiteration of what happened three years ago? I'd be more than happy to give one to you if I wasn't so busy… eating." I trailed off, seemingly awkwardly.

Instead of walking away like the abiding person he wasn't, he sat himself down directly across me. I sensed Jacob opening his mouth to say something, but without looking at him, I put my hand on his arm, silencing him effectively.

I looked back at Ryan, eyebrows raised. "You're wasting my time, Mathews. What do you want?"

"To make you a proposal." He said smoothly, tilting his chair backwards.

"A what?"

I shrieked, loud and clear for the whole cafeteria.

Great job, Lay. Way to keep it on the down-low. I was about to tell him off again, but Ryan cut me off.

"Babe, listen. I know we've had our differences. But I also know what kind of person you are, and you aren't the type to hold a grudge for this long. We've had enough time to sort them out, and you know, get over them. I've settled my side of differences, and I hope you weren't planning on settling in our differences. So, if you ever want to be friends, or maybe even more, call me. You know my number." He winked, got up, and walked away.

Immediately, Ann and Jacob turned on me.

"After all this time?" Ann started, with a questioning tone.

"Always," Jacob said, successfully diffusing the tension with his Harry Potter reference.

"I have no freaking idea what he's on about though, and now of all times. Just give me a day to sleep on it and I'll meet you guys tomorrow before school, next to the basketball court." They agreed silently. Ann was pursing her lips and I knew she was measuring my next rage.

I had to go home and figure out what my next plan of action was – that's how it always was with Ryan. Planning your move strategically so as to not get crushed. What the bloody hell was Ryan up to? Something devious, no doubt. But, more importantly,

What the hell had just happened?

I am back.

Just… like… VOLDEMORT!

Forgive that pun; I'm going through Post-Potter Depression. But more on that later, of course.

If you're asking where this came from, you'll have to go into my brain and knock on the door of my inner editor because my answer? No fucking idea. Fresh of the success of the NaNoWriMo 2011 (my first year! Sqeeeeeee! How many of you participated?), I told at least seven people that I would be happy not to write another story again.

Lies. All of it.

But here it is. Going through my original drafts of this just made me depressed – I'd rather have one really good chapter than nine really horrible ones. Not that this is what I would call good, it hasn't been edited yet because I am sans my favourite editor at the moment. So please point out any grammar mistakes or any other folly I might have committed; you guys are my temporary editors!

I hope I haven't bored you to tears already – this was just to tell you guys that I'm not dead and withering away in a muddy grave! The next chapter of this isn't likely to come anytime soon because –well, I'm not in any position to say when I'll write next. It'll come when it comes. Your feedback would help oodles! I love you all!

-noxmandy-