Chapter 1: Those Six Eyes

The lights blinded my hazel eyes. They flashed everywhere. I couldn't see. Paparazzi surrounded me. This was the life I've always wanted. The fame. The fortune. Everything. To be known and not ignored by the world. I had the talent they wanted to see, finally. I wasn't invisible and lonely. Parties every night, waking up in some random hotel room the next morning. Photo shoots, red carpets, Oscars, Grammies, movies, albums, concerts, movie premieres, etc…

My eyes opened.

Reality check- you're sober and it's a Monday, which means school. Which means first day of high school. Your still here. Trapped in this horrible life. It won't get any better. I sighed and threw the covers off of my once warm body.

My feet touched the white carpet and I made way to my bathroom. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, my vision cleared and I saw my terrible looking face in the mirror.

I groaned turning on my in-wall iPod and turning it to shuffle. 'Not Afraid' by Eminem blasted in my ears. I turned the shower on and stripped down. When getting into the shower, pins felt like they were poking skin until I realized that the shower was freezing cold. Oh well, it's a great way to wake up anyway. Five minutes of washing later, I stepped out of the shower, refreshed and feeling clean.

I put on a pair of light gray skinny jeans, a black fitted graphic tee, black converse, and a diamond necklace. I quickly combed my hair before putting it up in a ponytail with two strands on either of my face. I went downstairs to the kitchen.

"Good Morning Sydney." My parents greeted me.

"Mornin" I lazily replied grabbing orange juice from the refrigerator and pouring it into a glass.

I sat down in a chair across from my parents when Sheila entered the kitchen. Her pink fuzzy robe fitted her snuggly with the belt of it trailing after her like a tail.

"Good morning family!" She exclaimed, of course looking like she was wide awake right when she just got out of bed.

"Good morning Shelia." My parents said. I stayed silent as I sipped my orange juice and checked for messages on my blackberry phone.

"And of course I get silence from my dear emo sister." Shelia snickered. "But its okay, I always knew she was never a morning person."

"For the last time, I am not emo! I'm just unique."

"Whatever you say…" Shelia grabbed toast from the toaster, spread jelly on it, and stuffed it in her mouth, retreating upstairs.

"You better hurry to school." My mother told me. I took my back pack and slung it over one shoulder before heading out to my 2010 Jaguar XF in the driveway and started the car.

"Wait! Wait!"

I turned to see Shelia running out the front door, well more like skipping, to my car.

"Can I ride with you?" She asked already putting her purse and backpack inside my car.

"Since you're halfway inside my car, why not?" I said. We drove to school in silence. Shelia was texting the whole time so she stayed pretty quiet. Once we reached school Shelia exited my car and caught up with her friends. I entered the school by myself but was instantly greeted by my best friend, Amanda. The pretty, the hyper, and the skinny one.

"Sydney! Sydney!" She yelled running up to me.

"Hey Mandy." I smiled at her.

"Oh my god! They're everywhere!" She exclaimed throwing her hands up for effect.

"Who is 'they'?" We both started to walk to our lockers that were assigned to us over the summer.

"Newbies! From other middle schools or from different places!" The deal with our school district was that all of the middle schools in the area join together as one big high school. That means a lot of freshman.

"Oh…" We reached our lockers and emptied our backpacks putting our books on the floor and putting our backpacks inside the locker. I slammed my locker shut to find my crush for three years standing next to me but of course his back was to me, talking to Mandy.

"…okay okay! Leave now! I'll see you later!" Amanda said and pushed him away from her.

He smiled and walked away. I sighed, watching him leave.

"Ugh….Sydney why must you have a crush on my brother?" She grimaced.

"Because your Zach isn't some drooly, disgusting, mean, guy." I answered. Zach was just simply amazing. He was good looking and nice. Well not nice enough to talk to me for the years I have known Amanda but still. He had sky blue mesmerizing eyes and brown hair that looked so soft that I just wanted to run my fingers through it all day.

"You need help."

Amanda was blessed with a good homeroom teacher by getting Ms. Harris. Ms. Harris was the nicest homeroom/math teacher anyone could get. I was cursed with the worse homeroom teacher though. Mrs. Greene (how could there even be a 'Mr'?) was a mean horrible terrible teacher. Everyone hated her because, well for one she was definitely not attractive, and because it was rumored that she once duck taped someone's mouth to shut them up. Since then every freshman that has entered her class has stayed silent until asked to speak.

I walked into homeroom and put my books on my desk.

Since it was the first day and I didn't know anyone in my homeroom so far I stayed quiet and listened to the teacher call names to see if everyone was here. The bell rang and we all exited homeroom going to our next class. My next class was art. I went into the class and sat down at one of the tables, still not knowing anyone. Someone sat down beside me. I glanced over and saw a guy-about my height- tan, straight black hair but still short, and with almost onyx eyes. He looked over to me and nodded upward before turning back to the notebook in his hand.

"What's your name?" My voice spoke, surprising me, and him.

"Michael." He answered.

"Sydney." I looked down at the palm of my hands waiting for the bell to ring to make class start but apparently I never heard the buzz.

"So Sydney…did you come from one of the middle schools or did you move here?"

"One of the middle schools." I answered.

"Oh cool! Me too!"

Buzz

Michael's head turned to the front of the class and my head did too but my eyes didn't. I watched Michael from the corner of my eye as the teacher spoke defining art and the 'beauty' of it. Michael occasionally would either doodle or write something in his notebook but I never saw what it was. I have to admit…after hearing his voice Michael did sound…a little…not a whole lot…cute. The way he tilted his head, moved his lips, but no sound came out, to describe what he was writing or drawing, and the way he would bite his lip and look up as if he were paying attention but he really was just trying to figure out what came next in his drawing, fascinated me.

Michael looked up and turned to me.

"I see your not listening to her crap either." He said quietly. I rolled my eyes and nodded. "You know…you're actually pretty cute."

I softly chuckled. "Right…" I said sarcastically.

"No really."

Why was I cute? Usually I was a drab with black with light brown highlighted hair, hazel eyes, tan skin, and maybe fat it depended on whether you called it curves or not. That was basically me for you.

"Anyway, what school did you go to?" I asked trying to change the subject. Michael hesitated before answering.

"Williamson Middle school." He bit his lip and looked down then looked back at me. Oh. That's where all the-or at least it was rumored- that all the kids whose parents could not afford a good middle school sent their kids and it was also rumored that lots of kids got held back there. You were one of the lucky one if you graduated and I'm guessing Michael was one of the smart ones.

"Oh…well I don't believe the rumors anyway." I said.

"No one does unless you count those losers that have nothing else better to do than talk about everybody behind their backs and tell everyone about it."

One of those people were Mandy but I let that slide. I never got involved with rumors.

"So I was wondering-." Michael began.

Buzz

Everyone got up and started slowly filing out of the room.

"Don't forget! Essay on the symmetrical shapes I taught you in class about!" The art teacher yelled to everyone as we exited. Shit. I wasn't paying attention to a single word she was saying.

"I'll meet you there. Same place. Same time." Michael winked then walked away and I smiled after him.

"Oo la la. Who was that hot guy?"

I turned around to see Amanda's narrowed eyes watching Michael's retreating figure.

"Michael."

She wolf whistled and we started to walk down the hall together. Next period we both had study hall together in the library. Probably my most favorite place in the world. The library had books and silence. Two things that were my favorites. Mandy slammed her books down on a table.

"Sh! Mandy!" I whispered. She shrugged, flipped her black hair, and then pulled out her cell phone from her purse and shoved it halfway in her pocket going behind one of the bookcases, out of the librarian's view. Amanda started to browse through the books so then anyone around her wouldn't get suspicious then when everyone finally left the area she pulled out her cell phone and started dialing. I was the only one that knew about her secret boyfriend, Keith, back in Vermont. She met him on winter break last year and fell in 'love' and they have been texting each other, talking, IMing, video chatting, etc ever since. Even though she claims she's single she has attached herself to him everyday.

I started to flip through some fantasy books, putting the ones I wanted in a pile in my arms, and then moving on. The books started to pile up and block my view of what was in front of me. I tried moving down the aisle to my table-or at least where I thought my table was- and then I rammed right into someone unexpectedly and my books dropped all over the floor. My automatic reflex was to pick them up because this has happened to me a lot of times.

"Sorry." The person I bumped into mumbled.

"It's okay."

We put our books in our own pile on the floor. Then I looked up at the person's face and saw the face of a cute guy. He had dark wavy messy hair and a light tan but not too dark. He picked up his books in a hurry, smiled at me, then jogged off.

I wonder who he was, I thought to myself.

"Well…I didn't know you were cleaning the library."

I looked up to see Amanda over me with a smirk on her face. I laughed.

"Come help me." Amanda and I gathered my books together and put them on a table. As Mandy did some work for next period I read the beginning of fantasy books. She started coughing obnoxiously loud.

"What?!" I whispered harshly slamming my book down. Her eyes were on someone above me so I looked up to see Michael.

"Hey" He smirked at me. I blushed and then twisted around properly so I could look at him right.

"Hey Michael what are you doing here?"

"I was going to go on one of the computers over there and saw you here. With a friend of yours who is…"

"Amanda." She answered.

Michael smiled then when turning away my heart did a flip and the butterflies were unleashed in my stomach because Zach came.

"Oh sorry man." Zach said when bumping into Michael. "See you later Mike!" Zach said when Michael walked away.

"You know Michael?" Amanda asked her brother.

"Yeah and why was he over here?"

"Well he was here to talk to Sydney."

Zach's eyes flickered down to me and he looked away in confusion and frustration. "Hm…" and then Zach walked off.

"Loner…" Amanda said in a sing-song voice. "If you keep crushing on him you're going to be Mrs. Loner…"

"Shut up." I said sticking my tongue out at her. She dropped the topic and continued back to her work. I looked around to see where Zach went and then my stomach dropped. Zach was standing by the bookcases staring at Mandy and I.

And I'm pretty sure he heard the whole thing because he was frozen in place with a shocked expression on his face.

Shit.