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School. How I loathed that word. It was even worse when you had to say ‘new school’. The only thing I had to look forward to was William showing me around, and meeting Natasha and Ben.

It was seven in the morning. I had planned on getting up a little earlier then that, but when my alarm had gone off half an hour earlier I was tempted to throw it across the room. Now I stood in front of my closet with a decision. I didn’t want to show off, but I did want to make a good impression. I found it a little difficult to accomplish both of these things at the same time. After much humming and hawing about it I finally put on a black tank top, dark red plaid hoody, dark skinny jeans and a pair of black flats. The hoody wasn’t really baggy, but I didn’t have to worry about covering up yet. I decided I’d cross that road when I got to it.

While I curled my hair I thought about my baby. I’d told myself countless times that I didn’t want it; a baby shouldn’t be born this way, yet I couldn’t help but think that if I chose to have an abortion, that I’d be making a mistake. I’d talked to my mom about it a few times as well, and she told me that she’d thought about having an abortion when she found out she was pregnant with me, and now she couldn’t imagine her life without me and told me that she would have made a big mistake if she had gone ahead with it.

7:45, I couldn’t help count down the minutes. William was coming at 8:15 to pick me up; he said he would take me earlier to help me find my classes. I went and had something to eat, though I found it hard to eat because I was so nervous. My mom knew it, too.

“Everything will be fine. Just remember that you don’t have to tell anyone anything until you’re ready.”

“I know. Morning, Dad.”

“Morning. Ready for school?” He was about to ruffle my hair until I shifted quickly away and held up my hand.

“I guess so. Hardly slept at all though.”

“I don’t think anyone did.” He grinned and shook his head, lowering his hand. “Well, I have to head to the office so I’ll see you when you get home. Good luck.”

“Alright, thanks.” I finished eating and headed back up to my room. 8:15. On my way out of my bedroom I caught my reflection in the full length mirror and couldn’t help but stare for a second. Say good-bye to this body. I thought sadly. The doorbell rang. Wow, I’d never known a guy that had been on time before. Then again, I’d never really known anyone who had been on time. I heard my mom open the door and greet him. Natural instinct told me to hurry my a** up and get downstairs before she said something embarrassing.
He smiled at me, careful not to cut my mom off while be spoke. “Morning, Alex. You ready to go?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll see you later, Mom.”

“Good luck and have fun, Alex.” Well, at least she didn’t get all gushy and teary. She was learning.

He opened up the trunk for me and I hauled my things into it without word. He didn’t say anything until we had started driving away.

“Are you nervous?” He glanced sideways at me.

“Incredibly. Thanks for taking me.” I stared at my hands, feeling really awkward.

“Not a problem.” He paused for a moment, and then turned his head slightly to look at me again. Opening his mouth to say something he seemed to think about what he was going to say for a second; then closed his mouth and turned away. “A word of warning,” he said when we parked at the school. “Use it if you wish. But stay away from James.” He seemed rather serious about this, and I wondered what was so terrible about him. I was about to ask why when someone came up to the driver’s side and opened his door hurriedly. It was a girl - a very pretty girl.

“That’s Natasha.” He grinned. “Natasha, this is Alex. She just moved here a few weeks ago.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully he didn’t hear it. He tried to hide a smile. Oh, maybe he did.

“Hi,” I said. Before I could think of something else to say, William interrupted me, not on purpose but the matter seemed somewhat urgent.

“Where’s Ben?”

“I don’t know.” There was a bit of a strain in her voice. “Hi, Alex. Sorry, but I can’t seem to find my boyfriend.” She flashed me a smile that seemed so sincere and calm I couldn’t be sure if the strain in her voice had really been there. It wasn’t until then that she really took a look at me, and I became aware that it was unnecessary for me to still be buckled and seated in the car. “Could you help me find him, William?” I wondered how anyone could possibly say no to her. Her presence was slightly overwhelming as I stood next to her with my books, waiting for William to make up his mind.

“I – Sorry, Natasha, I promised Alex I would help her find her way around.” William smiled at me, and I felt guilty.

“No, it’s okay, I can probably manage to find my first class at least.”

He shook his head, “No, it’s alright, I’ll show you.” Natasha nodded and turned away.

“See you two later.” She was gone before I had a chance to say anything more.

“Well, are you ready to enter our hell on earth?”

“I guess so. It’s now or never. Thanks again for doing this.” I shifted my books in my arms and we started walking towards the school. Already people were looking at my like I was an alien. Then as I thought about it more, they more so looked shocked that I was with William. A few of them looked disgusted, a few girls looked dreamily at William then turned jealous eyes on me. I found it all incredibly hard to ignore but William seemed perfectly fine with it all. He seemed to read my mind.

“You will get used to it all eventually. That is, if you don’t decide you’ve found someone better.” The tone of his voice made me take my eyes off the staring people and I turned to look at him. His face was set, no emotion showing and I found it really hard to tell what he was thinking. Maybe that was a good thing though. He turned to me then and smiled; completely erasing my mind of whatever it was I’d been thinking about before, and I smiled back.

We entered the school then, and panic soon washed over me. Complete irrational fear took over for a moment – people know I was pregnant, no one would accept me, William would find out what I was going through and would leave me, my family would start to fall apart – where that last one came from I wasn’t quite sure, but it ran through my mind anyway.

“Hey, are you okay?” I faintly heard William ask. “You look a little sick. Do you need to sit down?” I must have managed to nod because he was steering me to a nearby bench. He took my things out of my hands and placed them next to me, crouching down in front of me, studying my face. Gradually my vision focused again and I looked around me. A few people were watching me, but they were mainly focused on being reunited with people they hadn’t seen in a while, completely ignoring me – the new kid, the loser. Alex! Stop it. Breathe. If you were a loser William wouldn’t be talking to you. Unless he’s a loser too... No, that wasn’t likely. I shook my head and smiled feebly at him.

“Sorry about that, I didn’t get much sleep last night.” I picked up my books and stood slowly, not yet completely trusting my legs to hold me.

“No doubt,’ he smiled a crooked smile at me, then a look of concern crossed his face. “You’re quite pale though… are you sure it’s not something else?”

“N-no, just nerves. I’m fine. Really.” I gave him my most reassuring smile. Whether or not he believed it, he dropped it and led me to the office where I would then find my homeroom and other such classes, with his help of course.

Luckily he was in my first period class, homeroom. We were comparing our schedules, mostly for me, seeing as he was really the only person I knew and irrationally wanted to be glued to his side for the first few days, but I didn’t tell him that.

“Oh… wait, we’re not in that class together.” I tried my hardest not to sound disappointed, I really did. I looked up as Natasha entered the room, very cute guy in tow. I assumed this must be Ben. Holy damn the guys in this school were hot.

“Hey, guys. Alex, this is Ben. Ben, this is Alex. William introduced me to her briefly this morning, but I didn’t have much time to talk to her because I was looking for you. Sorry about that Alex.” Natasha and Ben took seats in front of William and I.

“That’s alright. Hi, Ben.”

“Hello.” I was half expecting him to say more, but that was all before he turned his back and checked out his schedule, consulting briefly with Natasha. I gave a worried look towards William but he just smiled and shook his head.

“Don’t worry about him,” he whispered. “He just takes a little while to adjust to a new person in the group. It, well, it hasn’t happened before.” His smiled widened slightly, slightly showing off his pearly whites.

“Oh, Alex, you’re in Biology with me.” Natasha said suddenly. I looked down at my schedule and realized that this was the one class that I wasn’t with William. I held back my sigh of relief. At lease I wasn’t alone. The bell rang all of a sudden, making me jump a little in my seat. The teacher who had been sitting quietly at the front of the room stood then, and looked over his class. A straggler came in a moment after that, then people started to quiet down. Apparently, this teacher wasn’t much of a talker, one of those that simply demanded attention merely from his presence. I wasn’t going to like him.

“Good morning class. I’ll go through the rules and regulations after O’ Canada and the announcements for the sake of the new students, then there is a brief assembly after that. For the new people in the room, my name is Mr. Stevenson. If you hadn’t found that out already.” His eyes flickered to me, then another person across the room who was sitting by herself. I figured she must be another new student. I wondered if I should go say hi to her sometime that day.

While he was droning on and on about the rules, which seemed pretty much the same as those in my old school, I couldn’t help but feel good about the fact that I was sitting next to William with all these people looking curiously at me. It gave me a weird sort of feeling, hard to describe. What I couldn’t figure out though, was why William, Natasha, and Ben weren’t more popular. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Natasha run a hand through her short, spiky red hair. She was really pretty, I felt so insecure around her, being around all of them really. Although I loved Ben’s shaggy brown hair with the occasional blue streak in it, nothing beat William’s pitch-black shaggy locks, and the way his bright blue eyes stood out against his pale skin…

I shook my head and forced myself to pay attention to the teacher’s voice, just in time to hear him say it was time to head to the gym for the assembly. I had been shown where the gym was, but not from that room, so I got into the mass of people beside William and let him lead the way for me; I couldn’t really rely on anyone else seeing as they were going in all different directions trying to find other people.

I was squished between Natasha and William on the bleachers, Ben tight beside Natasha, and I couldn’t help but notice the small but rather significant gap between William and the guy whom I didn’t know on the other side of him. About the second I noticed that, the guy turned and looked at me. Normally I would look away from someone’s intense gaze, but there was something about this guy that kept my eyes on him.

His eyes were very dark, but so intense that I couldn’t look away. He looked rather pale, but maybe it was just the lighting. His hair was a dark blonde, not short, but not long. His features were soft, but he had a sharp, determined look to him. I almost opened my mouth to say something but stopped when William turned his head to look at me. The other guy spoke for me.

“Hello,” he said, just as William had been about to speak. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I was wondering what your name is.” He spoke softly, but from the look on William’s face, I knew there might be a problem.

“Alex.’ I said bluntly, suddenly not wanting to talk to him. The way he looked at me was… well kind of creepy.

“You were as a matter of fact interrupting something, but now I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. Thank you for that.” William said coldly. I didn’t really think he had been interrupting anything, but maybe there was some kind of territorial issue between them… or, something. Guys were weird that way, and I wasn’t about to try and find out. I’d probably confuse myself all to hell. This guy however, didn’t seem to be paying attention William, and simply kept talking to me.

“I’m James. Are you enjoying it here?” His question bothered me, mainly just the way he said it and the fact that he was completely ignoring William. I shot a look at William but he was staring straight ahead, and I couldn’t quite make out the look on his face without putting myself in front of him and staring. Even then I wouldn’t be able to tell what he was thinking, although it would probably turn to annoyance. I returned my attention to James.

“It’s… all right I guess.” I shrugged and looked away from his scrutiny. If he was still looking at me, I did my best to ignore him. I think I was rather successful. Unfortunately, all that went to hell when I was attempting to find my way back to my homeroom, seeing as William had suddenly had the urge to speak with Natasha and Ben, alone. Funny, he didn’t seem like the type to abandon me like this. Well, I’ve been wrong about guys before. Way too many times before.

“Need some directions?” I heard a voice in my ear, and jerked quickly away from the sound. Natural need for liking my personal space and preferred guys I didn’t know to not be in it, caused this reaction. “Sorry, did I scare you?” He had a smirk on his face. He was laughing at me, that a*****e! Then I remembered William’s warning. ‘A word of warning… stay away from James.’

“I’m fine. Thanks.” I tried to make it look like I knew exactly where I was going.

“Where are you headed?”

“Mr… Stevenson’s room.” I muttered.

“Well, you’re going the wrong way for one. Just ask next time, okay?”

“Yeah. Whatever.” I muttered again. This guy was annoying.

“So, did William leave you all by yourself”

“He had to talk to someone.”

“But, he left you by yourself.”

“I can take care of myself. I hardly know him anyway, he doesn’t need to baby sit me”

“Of course not.” He smirked again. “But if you ever do need a babysitter,” he glanced at my stomach, “I wouldn’t let him do it for you.”

He simply walked away. Just like that. No explanation, no questions. He just... walked away.