February 20th 2010.

Why do I think I need a life? Possibly because it's the first day back at school and out of the 200 students in my grade only one has even acknowledged my existence. Holidays weren't as pleasant either, after finishing my marathon of Heroes I had no friends nor a life to attend to except sheer boredom for 4 weeks.

I also managed to successfully read twilight 4 times and create my own love story in my head. But which girls hasn't done that.
But, on a more related topic I have English class now.

The hallways, as usual are packed with students talking… and moving my way through is harder than I remember. Tell me again why it's normal to stand in a door way when having a conversation.
After successfully pushing my way through the crowd I take my usual seat. By usual I mean, second row from the back on the side hoping to not get noticed.

So, I haven't introduced myself yet. Faith Clark here. (No wonder I turned out a loser with a name like this). All you need to know is, I'm average. Average height 5'5, Average weight, average hair and a below average life.

Back to the more related note: English class.

Attempting to find my average seat, one near the back on the side that's directly next to the window.
"Uch." The automatic reaction that somehow escapes your mouth before you have time to correct yourself.

My seat was taken! Some boy who is probably blind. I guess that would explain the hairstyle and the colour if he did it himself… I mean why else would his hair cover his eyes? Is it just that he doesn't want to wear glasses?
So why is he in my seat if he can't see out the window. That's a whole year of day dreaming down the drain.

I take the seat next to him, I'll just have to learn to stare from a distance… or something.

The rest of the class files in. Typical order, nerds at the front, some group of girls at the front right side, a group of perv guys on the left centre and the 'cool' kids taking up the whole back row. Than… the loners always back right, by the windows. Surprisingly I'm always in that group

The usual chatter of 'dude, I fucked so many girls this summer' and 'I only got alcohol poisoning twice this summer' died down when the teacher walked in.

My sigh wasn't heard by anyone else as I turned my head towards the window ready to get lost in the scenery of just-outside-the-window views for the rest of the lesson.
"Good morning year 10C!" A tall, skinny man with dark hair and oddly formal attire spoke.
Finding a good position is hard especially when the easy view out of the window is blocked by the blind kids head but.. I reckon it won't matter because he won't see me staring right?
"This year is going to be hard. Lots of tough work" The teacher says with a little bit too much enthusiasm and a Scottish accent. "This is the top English class and I know you all have the capability to ace it!"

…Apparently 20 minutes just passed. All I heard was the words 'shakespeare' and 'essay'. Typical…
The girl group, taking up the seats 3 rows in front of me are passing notes, silently comparing shoes under the table and checking out the perv group for potential hot guys.

While I'm officially annoyed at the whole world, I can't get over the fact that I'm not dumb enough to fit in.
Turning my head back expecting to be staring out the window, however my gaze was caught. The boy who held my gaze, his eyes were bright green which pierced through his jet black hair.
No… I'm not saying this right, his one eye was so green. The other was still hidden.
Maybe he's only blind in one eye.

After the awkward moment of eye contact he placed his head down letting his hair fall completely blocking his face. He brought his hands up to replace his hair. Note: the black nail polish.
Realising I was staring I tried to pull off the 'I'm-just-looking-round-the-whole-class-with-my-eyes-and-accidently-caught-your-gaze-thing' and look away.

He was looking at me again… I think I missed something already.
"As I was saying, Miss Clark" As expected, the whole class turned to gawk at me. "I will be assigning partners for all of you and will hand out the assignment next lesson so that you can start getting to know your partner now, if you don't know them already" How did his Scottish accent make that all sound good? "And as I was saying Miss Clark, you and Jake will be partnered." From the left (a pervert) coughed "fag" and high fived his friends…god.

Awkwardly I looked around looking for someone who caught my gaze with an 'Oh-shit, you're-my-partner-kill-me' look. Until I finally caught someones eyes, or… eye again. "Oh" Escaped under my breath.

The bell rang right as the teacher finished assigning partners and the squeaks from the desperate girls (in front) finding out they were partnered with the pervs died out. "Alright all, have a great day!" How is he so happy?

"Hey what do you have next" A quiet, low but smooth voice asks. I turn to see Jake standing there, his green eyes on me (*eye). Skinny jeans, loose band t-shirt saying 3DG (no idea what band that is) and headphones around his neck playing a song with guitar and a male singer, which turned from a normal form of singing to screaming and back again. Somehow managing to hide my disapproval of this non conformity I get out my timetable and answer "Music class".

"Oh" He says, not keeping eye contact. He is taller than me by a lot… "Guess not all of our classes match up" His music changes to a heavy bass, loud guitar and pure emo scream.
Slightly jumping from the sudden change of music and I watched as an amused expression sweeped across his face. "See yu Clark" And he turns.
Maybe he's not actually blind…

"Hey Faith!" I hear as I get close to my music class which happened to be on the other end of the school. Half flinching at the use of my first name, as I'm more used to being called 'her', 'that chick' or 'who??'

"Hiiiiiii!" I could hear her running up. I braced myself putting one foot infront of the other getting ready for impact. "Faiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" She cried again… she hammered into me. Her arms flung around me pushing me forward (if not for my 'get-ready-for-the-hug' stance) if not I would have fallen. My stomach being squeezed.
"Hey" I finally managed to choke out.

To explain it, she's one of those people who talks to everyone. You know who I'm talking about. Those people that think that everyone are their friends. Whether they know they are hated or not.
See, I attract these people for some reason. I don't know how, it's not like a go to parties and are everywhere they turn but, somehow they are always around me.
But, that's not all. I'm not just one of the thousands of people they talk to; I'm that one person that they seem to trust. With their life, secrets, gossip… everything!
Unbelievably Hailey isn't the only one of those types of people I talk to… there are more.

"Heyy Haiilzz" I mutter with what I don't think she understands is fake happiness. "How are you?"

"I'm great! My holidays were fantastic! I met these three really great boys and" This is where I phase out.
This is why I really don't understand why these people like me, are my 'ohhkewl', 'sounds hawtt' and 'echh not kewl' really that convincing?
"How great is this new year!!" Trust me, the double exclamation points do not do justice how annoyingly happy this girl is.
"it-"
"IKR" This means 'I know right' in popular language. "Plus have you seen the new hotties?!" She stopped for a micro second to look into the distance in one of those I'm-so-inlove glances. "Anyway, music! Thanks god! I had history last, believe it or not they think it's alright for them to start teaching on the first day. What dickheads"
Laughing slightly, just for her to know I was listening I grabbed her arm and dragged her towards class.
The day was slow, nothing much happened it was just full of teachers introducing themselves, putting us in seating orders and giving us information about what we are going to learn for the year.

So now I'm on the way home. It's just catching a bus for 10 minutes, that comes every ten minutes and then walking for a minute or so. Then home sweet home to a barely there family and a too-cool-for-you younger sister.

My house is small, a paint peeling off gate that's no higher than my waist blocks the entry to my house, inside is what could be called a garden or just dead plants and a pathway to my front door, which was also green and peeling. The inside however was white, with wood floors. The rooms were small but reasonable.
Dinner at 7, bed at 11, being boring on the computer. Done.
Goodnight. Happy first day of school.

February 21st 2010

Second day of school starts with PE. My teacher is a rather short bald man with muscles running through his body yet still managing to have a belly.
After a quick analysis of the class he calls out "Since NONE of you bothered bringing your PE uniform you're going to have to play a game of indoor soccer in your normal clothes"
Football I mumble under my breath wondering why America hadn't gotton the hint yet " because honestly none of you want to do work yet right? So, split into teams of 7 we can have two games going on."
I joined a random team considering none of my friend happened to be in this class. I was quite preoccupied staring at the wall instead of paying attention to the match and I didn't have to do much as my team managed to keep the ball upfront. That was until halfway through the period and we swapped courts.
"Hey!" Some guy who was playing up front called to me. "Keep your head up!" I looked to see the ball and a player charging towards me. I love football and everything but it's in school and indoor… how much could you care? "OI" voices from in front of me called.
"Block that faggot!"
I felt a body slam into me and I saw the ball flying off in the opposite direction. Before I knew it I was on the floor, a skinny boy on top of me.
"Eh, nice block Clarke" He said with hesitation, he pulled himself off me awkwardly. "I'm sorry" He looked down letting his fringe almost fully cover his face and he offered his hand to me to take. I took it and he pulled me up. "Again, I'm sorry"
"It's 'right" I mumble until I put weight on my leg. "Oh shit! What'd you do?" I fell back to the floor, my body not knowing how to deal with the pain properly.
"Shit, I'm sorry" He repeated, except this time it actually sounded like he was paying attention.
"Right" I mutter pulling myself up again, however now the teacher had noticed. He walked over, the whistle he had just used to pause the game in his hand.

"Um," He started. Of course he didn't know my name. "Jake, since this is your work, you can accompany Miss to the nurse to make she's alright"
Before I knew it, I was being hauled up Jakes arm around my stomach holding me tight and dragging me towards the door.
"I don't know your first name." Jake said suddenly and we reached the stairs.
My arm was now around him, clutching onto him with my dear life. I don't even know what happened but I felt like my leg was being sawed off with every step.
"Does it really matter?" I muttered through grasped teeth.
"Well yes, see we usually call people by their first names."
"Not me," And his head turned down to look at me. "I'm more of a last name girl. The chance that you find someone who calls me by my first name is unlikely."
"I'll find it out" He said, his eyes now staring ahead as he literally lifted me up the steps.

"I guess I know we have P.E together now. I think we'll have to be spending a lot of time together on that project for English" Jake stated rather emotionlessly.
I looked at him again for the first time today, his hair was, as usual in his face. He was wearing dark blue skinnies and a t-shirt with ETF printed on it. Still, I don't know what the band is. His tshirts are so pointless.
"There no sympathy for the dead" He stated, noticing I was looking at his shirt. "It's a good band"
Uhuh. Never heard of it. "Cool"
We continued walking up the steps in what seemed to be a very awkward silence.
"So, you're into football?" I choked out as the silence was about to kill me.
"Soccer is a great sport. It's the worlds sport"
"Football is perhaps the greatest sport around yea"
At this point, he had his face turned, his eyes looking straight through me. "It's definitely soccer." He said in a theres-no-way-to-respond to this tone. I coughed awkwardly.

We finished going up the stairs and rounded the corner to the nurses office. His grip loosened and I could actually breathe. "Miss Clarke injured her leg during our game of indoor soccer."
I fought the urge to say football.
"Follow me Miss Clarke. You can go back to class." She dismissed Jake.
"I'll see you in English."

Jake walked off. I was given ice and left alone for the rest of the period.

I 'ow'-d my way to English and took my seat.
The English teacher took his position upfront of the class. "You know what we notice, but don't pay attention to until it's pointed out to us? The fact that no matter how hard we try, or don't, we will never know what it's like to live outside of our own lives. Each person lives in the comfort of their own body, home and eyes. We can try to assume, I'm sure we've all thought 'They are so thinking this about that'. But our vision on them is still blurred on how we take in the world, things like arrogance, pride, purity take effect as well as being cynical, a pacifist or just evil. This is also changed given age, place in society and upbringing. But this, is all very obvious stuff." He finally breathed. "You're all thinking about how you know that Right? So I want you just for a second, look out the window and the look at the person next to you and imagine what they are seeing."

I looked at the window, it was a bright day, but all the was outside was trees. I looked at Jake… What did he think? Was it.. 'the trees block out the sunshine, cause that's what life is.. blocked sunshine. Meaning happiness. Meaning sad.' Or something like that.
…What was Jake thinking I was thinking?
I looked over at him to figure it out but his gaze was focuses directly outside the window.

"So, you all had no idea did you? You were thinking about what their personality and/or outtake on life was right then, am I right?" He stopped to look at us. "So, what do you say we need to learn how to leave our perception of reality behind and look at someone else's. I have paired you all up boy and girl except for a couple uneven numbers. I thought the gender difference might make it a little bit more difficult for you."

He re-read the roll of partners, and yes I was actually paired with Jake. So now, I have to learn the thoughts of Jake or something. How will his outlook on life affect me.

"Also, what we don't notice" The teacher carried on killing my train of thought. "Is how some people live completely different lives than us while they are sitting right next to us. More than just different groups like 'popular' and 'loser', I mean… how have they been brought up? What have they witnessed? How has that affected them and so on" Again he paused for a breath. "So you're assignment is to find out how your partner has a completely different life from you. It may be presented in whatever form. Focus on focus of the world, that will make your task easier."

I looked at Jake out of the corner of my eyes. He was so different to me and I had to learn that way. I'm happy in my bubble.
The teacher than handed out a couple worksheets about words that describe characteristics about people which we had to learn and note down and stuff.
The window was again all I needed to know.

The period passed slowly, in which all I found myself doing was looking at the worksheet, memorising a word and trying to use that word to find a way to look out the window from its perspective. To put it easily: I failed and within the next three minutes I had already forgotten the word.

The bell rang and I waited for the class to exit before bothering to get up.
"Need help?" Jake asked me as I pulled myself out of my seat.
I rolled my eyes and put my arm around his waist.

He pulled me through the corridor. "I reckon we need to get to know each other." I looked up at him quizzically before it hit me. "Oh, for the project"
"Yeh" He said, I could basically hear him trying to make himself sound confident.
"Good, so I guess we can meet afterschool, go back to your house or something"
I was about to reply with a very uncertain, yea.. sure.. I guess so when I noticed everyone staring at me. Well, me and Jake.
Girls who I had never talked to before where staring at me mouthing 'Jake? Why?' and a couple more fag coughs from some of the guys that passed.
Jake simply kept staring at me ignoring them.
I wanted to hide under a rock.

He tightened his grip around me to get my attention. "So…?"
"Sure" I choked out, not taking my eyes off all the people staring at me.
This is the most anyone had ever looked at me and I did not like it luckily we were right outside my next class. He pulled me in the door and sat next to me. "You have this class?"
"Yep" I pulled his fringe over his eye and fiddled with the bracelets on his right arm.
The period was silent, the teacher was boring and the only vaguely exciting thing that happened during the period was some boy asking the teacher if he liked cheese. If that explains it.

So just like the day before nothing really happened. Although, every couple people did stop to ask why I was hanging with the emo boy. I also spent lunchtime with a couple of girls which I would call the closest people to my friends.

I also learnt that a surprising amount of people don't actually know my name at all and the few that do only know me as Clarke. Anyway, the main girl that I hung out with was Paige. She's basically who I'd talk to when I had a problem although conversations between us didn't flow so well. Well conversation with me and anyone didn't flow so well.

So anyway, the day ended and Jake was silently following me to the bus stop. He stood to my left, his head down and his arms crossed tightly across his waist.
There was silence as we waited for the bus to come. He was staring at his shoes and glanced at me every couple seconds.
I kept my eyes staring directly forward.
He started playing with the bracelets on his arms.
"Um" I watch him fiddle with the bracelets on his arm.
"Is your house far?" He says without looking up.
"No, not really" And there was silence.

5 minutes of silence later the bus came. He got on awkwardly and sat next to me, his face swapped to a look of disgust when I sat around the middle.
"You sit in the middle..?"
"Yep" I said.
He sat down next to me silently fiddling with his bag and putting his headphones on.

I jumped as they played from around his neck extremely loud music that was basically a guitar sounding like it had been smashed against something and 3000 drum sets all going at once. Suddenly screaming started and he bopped his head along to it.

I gave him a stare that went o_o . Exactly like that.
"Turn that off" I said calmly.
"Why?" He took out his ipod and checked the song changing it to the next which sounded exactly the same.
"Because it's shit." He stared at me mutely.
"This is not shit, I bet you don't even listen to music"
I store straight forward out of the busses window. He waved his hand in front of my face. He laughed and said I knew it under his breath.
"I do listen to music… sometimes" I trailed off. There were the occasional times when my sister managed to put the radio on in the car