AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi peoples! How are you? This song pretty much describes Katie and how she's always been kinda on the outside. Let me know what you think! I love hearing your suggestions or ideas. Happy reads (:

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I left the ending ambiguous, because that is the way life is. — Bernardo Bertolucci

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KATIE

DECEMBER // WEEK 2

I walked out of Mr. Pin's class thirty-five minutes later in an absentminded daze from his lesson. I'd been more focused on my make out session in Blackie's. Unfortunately, Mr. Pin's wise words of wisdom bounced off me like the water dripping from our leaky sink at home, so the whole class was kind of a blur.

As I turned to walk to Spanish, I felt a light tap on my shoulder, like a bobby pin had fallen out of my braid and onto my t-shirt. My hand wandered to the back of my neck to check my slightly messy braid but instead, found a girl with piercing blue eyes staring at me. She had long, dark brown, pin straight hair and was much taller than I was, but that didn't come as a surprise. Most people, except maybe the munchkins featured in the Wizard of Oz were taller than me, and even that is up for debate.

"Umm, hi," I said, cautiously looking up at none other than one of the prettiest girls at King High—Avaline Castleton, otherwise known as Ava. I knew she went to Northshire, but she had quickly made a name for herself here, fitting right in with the popular crowd. Not surprising. She looked almost exactly like Nina Dobrev, an actor from one of Isabel and I's favorite TV shows, Vampire Diaries. I didn't normally watch television, seeing as my mother could barely remember to keep our fridge stocked, let alone pay for cable, but Isabel had gotten me hooked... somehow.

"Hi! It's Katie, right?" She asked with the voice of an angel... smooth as water. Holy hell, she knew my name. I would have replied to her question like a normal person but I was still in shock that Ava Castleton was speaking to me, so instead, I gave her a slow, confused nod.

"Yeah, sorry, you're Ava," I finally snapped out of my trance and said something. She had some of the bluest eyes I had ever seen, like her own personal ocean. They were an icy blue rimmed with a deep sapphire — absolutely stunning. I waited for her to grow fangs and suck me dry of every drop of blood, but that did not happen.

"Hey, it's a pleasure to meet you," she smiled and I noticed how prominent her dimples were. They looked so familiar but for the life of me, I couldn't place my finger on where I'd seen them before. She stuck her hand out and I shuffled my books to my other arm so we could awkwardly shake hands. "You're in my Spanish class with Señora Marsala next period, right?" she asked me. I giggled a bit because Alex Martini, another one of the hockey boys is in my class always called Señora Marsala, Señora Mar-salsa. I guessed Spanish wasn't his strong suit, but how he managed to make it to Spanish 4 was an enigma.

"Yeah, me nombre es Carolina," I confirmed, using the name Señora Marsala called me as we started walking in the direction of Ms. Salsa's classroom.

"I sit in front of you in class. Yo soy Sofía," She re-introduced herself to me, as if her Spanish name would make a light bulb go off in my head. Of course I knew exactly who she was; everyone did. But she was one of those girls and I just never had the courage to actually talk to her — I mean, literally everywhere she went, she was surrounded by guys, like she was a magnet and they were helplessly attracted to her. Talking to her seemed more intimidating than some of the men my mother brought home, and she was stone cold sober.

"Oh yeah," I played it off like I didn't worship the ground this girl walked on. Ava abruptly stopped walking and leaned against the hallway's purple lockers. After all, purple was the color of royalty and the name of our high school was King High, so it was basically a no brainer for the school colors... therefore, everything was either purple, black, or white. I studied a note left on someone's locker and waited for Ava to speak up.

She took a deep breath, as if trying to prepare herself for what she was going to say to me next. "I need help in Spanish, and I see all of your test grades. I don't mean to, but they're just kind of there. I'm sure you see Alex Martini and Tory Vale's grades all the time, since they sit behind you and naturally, you pass the stacks of homework and tests back to them." Her words came out rushed, like she was afraid I was going to interrupt her, but she was the one dictating this conversation so there was no way in hell I was going to talk; Ava was Queen Bee and I knew my place. I waited patiently for her to continue. She exhaled slowly. "So... I was wondering if you could maybe tutor me?" Ava looked at me like a little kid who had been caught for stealing someone's favorite crayon.

"I don't know about the whole tutoring thing..." I looked down wearily. Oh. My. God. Avelina Castleton just asked me to tutor her. She could have asked anyone in the entire school, like a hot boy but instead she asked me. I also knew that Ava had enough money to but the school, let alone a personal tutor, and here I was turning her down. God, just smite me now.

I was about to say change my mind and agree when Ava made it worth my while. "I'll pay you!" she blurted out.

"Done," I replied before she even finished her sentence. I needed money seeing as most of my money from my shitty, minimum wage job went to pay for the stack of bills. "Where do you want to meet?" I asked more quietly. This was probably one step below a drug deal, but that was fine with me. I didn't want to draw any attention to us. Ava didn't deserve to be seen with a nobody like me so I kept my voice down.

"The library would work well for me. Maybe around 4:30? Twice a week? We could work out the details of payment and everything else later," she trailed off and bit her lip nervously. "Also, you would mind meeting with me today? I really bombed that last test."

I saw a familiar glint in her icy blue eyes and felt a sinking feeling deep down inside me. It was the same expression I see on my mother's face every time she felt ashamed. I wanted to help them both so badly... I would do anything it took to wash that look away, also the fact that if the Queen Bee asks you to do something, you don't say no.

"Absolutely," I nodded and Ava gave me a heartfelt smile. We walked the remaining five steps to our Spanish class and made our way over towards our respectable seats. I relaxed into mine, feeling the hard seat support my legs like it was trying to mould itself into me. It was reassuring to have had a conversation with someone who wasn't just trying to find out about my life, like whether or not I was actually the coach's real daughter or his new daughter from his new family. It's not like there was really difference though. They were worth his time and I wasn't, simple as that. I had no idea who his new family was and I had no intention of finding out. All I knew was that they went to King High.

"Hola, chicas bonitas!" Señora Marsala greeted us with a warm smile, like it was still the second block of the day. Most teachers agreed that the second block of the day was the best block to teach because that's when the students were actually awake but they weren't hungry yet. I was pretty sure that if it wasn't for her large iced coffee every morning, she would basically be a desiccating vampire — zombielike, like Nina Dobrev in the last episode of Vampire Diaries. Though, it was kind of hard to imagine Ava Castleton desiccating; that would never happen to her if she was a vampire.

Nonetheless, that was my cue to start letting my mind wonder out in window. I wondered what sort of state I would find my house in when I arrived home from school this afternoon. Would I find that we had no electricity because my mother forgot to pay the bill? Or, as I've found on too many occasions, would there be no hot water because my mother decided that the water bill was not an important bill? I sighed and just planned on staying the night at Isabel's hoping my mother would take it easy tonight and not let any creepy men sleep in Grandma's rocking chair.

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I sat in the library and waited for Ava to show up. The library's architecture had always resonated with me, because I'd never seen another building like it. The room I was in kind of looked like an upside-down boat: the ceiling would be the hull with its intricate arches places randomly. There were cubicles outlining the library's perimeter so students could work alone and have their own space; whereas, in the centre of the room there were long rectangular tables that seated four people. They were more for group work or kids who needed a lot of elbow room. I was seated at one of the rectangular tables looking at the student artwork and action shot sports pictures that hung on the olive green walls. There was a poster for the hockey team, a team picture of our soccer team after they won States and a lacrosse stick from like 1984 hanging on the wall. To top it all of, there were various trophies strategically placed around the library to remind students where their mind should be if it were to every wander.

I glanced at the gigantic, painted clock above the building's entrance. It was 4:45. Were people usually this late to tutoring sessions? What was the appropriate amount of time to wait for her before it was acceptable for me to go home? Not that I wanted to go home, but I had no excuse to hang around the library all night.

I had already finished my Spanish homework and my calculus homework and was beginning to tap my pencil impatiently on the table when I heard the doors to the library slam. I looked up to see Ava and her long legs running towards me. I know library doors were not supposed to slam or close loudly but this just showed how much my school cared about academics.

She threw her stuff onto the table earning angry glares from some people. "Sorry I'm late! Coach let us off the ice late today. He made us do this one drill till it was perfect. I could literally do it in my sleep if I had to," Ava apologized profusely and quickly earning shhhhh's from about half the library. So she was a hockey player. I guess she didn't really like to brag about that because that was not the first thing that came to mind when students talked about Ava Castleton

She plopped herself into the wooden chair beside me and pulled out her Spanish books, setting them down forcefully. I stifled a laugh and tried to focus. "Okay," I started, not really knowing where to begin, "Why don't we go over the homework from today? Wordlessly, Ava pulled her crinkled, torn homework out. Did World War 3 happen inside her backpack or something? It looked like something exploded in there. "So...what did you have the hardest time with?" I asked.

"Everything," came her quick reply. I didn't believe her until I looked at her homework. There were red marks everywhere, denoting what was wrong, and I had to say... Señora's corrections on Ava's homework could almost pass for a five-year-old's drawing of a castle and a dragon, except way less colorful. All that was missing was the burning villagers but if you squinted really hard, the markings on Exercise A, #1-8 took care of it. Plenty of burning villagers there. Picasso would be jealous.

I looked away from her homework. It was hopeless. We were clearly going to have to start from square one. "How about we don't we make flashcards for the vocabulary for chapter 5,"

"Hey, that's what Jake and I do for history." Her eyes lit up.

Jake. The name Jake Roswell immediately popped into my head, but it was a common name at our school so I doubted that was the Jake she meant... but soon I couldn't take it anymore. I had to ask. "Who's Jake?"

"My cousin. We study together a lot," she continued, "Except he takes French so he can't really help me with this. He also doesn't know I'm doing this bad." I let out a breath and nodded, trying to turn my focus to helping Ava. I pulled out a stack of stark white flashcards with neat blue lines from the tiny front pocket of my black backpack.

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An hour and a half later, things were starting to come together and Ava finally understood that embarazada meant 'pregnant' and not 'embarrassed.'

I heard the heavy pounding of feet and the beloved library doors slam once again. A boy with pants lower than Ava's Spanish grade came running over to us. "Ava, Skills Session starts in like ten minutes!" said a sandy blonde hair. His green eyes resembled moss. "Did you forget again?" he sighed as he paced around impatiently, clearly not wanting to be anywhere BUT an academic building.

Ava laughed. "No, Calum, I didn't forget we had Skills Session tonight. You texted me like eight times today."

He stopped, realizing that Ava actually might be busy. "Aves, are you studying?" he gasped, but recovered easily. "I mean—it's totally okay if you are. Just you know, our team has a reputation to keep up." The boy flipped his hair over his shoulder jokingly. He looked at me, acknowledging my existence. "We're supposed to be really dumb." he whispered... to me, I think. I didn't say anything in response in case he wasn't actually talking to me. "Like Dougie Hamilton is the smartest dumb kid I know. Classic façade." He winked at me. Wow big word for a hockey player, but somehow I got the feeling that Calum was smart, like Alex.

"Yes I'm studying. That was also in my reply to your eight text messages. But never mind the fact that this is a library." she giggled. "C'mon, Calum, you're one of the smartest boys on the team." Ava nudged him with her shoulder as she rolled her eyes, confirming my thoughts.

"You promised you wouldn't say anything!! Now our slacker image is shot to hell." He threw his hands up in the air feigning exasperation.

"Well seeing as I'm the only girl on the boys hockey team, I think that image needs some polishing." Ava started shoving stuff into her purple backpack. Playing for the boys was definitely something that Ava must keep under wraps. Why wasn't the entire student body talking about the fact that she played on the boys team? Props to Ava for keeping a secret. "Besides, you think I would miss an opportunity to learn from the gifted Jacob Roswell?" She did a little sarcastic curtsy after slinging her bag over her shoulder.

Jacob Roswell? My heart skipped a beat when Ava said his name, as if my cardiovascular system knew something about him that I didn't. I felt my stomach drop and churn in excitement; now imagine what it would do if I actually saw him again.

"Hmmm.... No," Calum answered with an easygoing smile. "The kid's a dick though." He crossed his arms.

"Calum..." Ava frowned.

"And for the record, I'm way more gifted." He pouted.

"So can we meet again on Monday, same time, same place?" Ava asked me as Calum began tugging on her backpack, leading her towards the door. "I promise I won't be late."

"Definitely," I didn't care if Ava was late again. She could do whatever she wanted. She was Ava Castleton.

"Oh wait!" Ava dropped her bag by Calum's feet and walked back over to me. She dug her hand into her light washed jeans that made her look like a model and came back with neatly folded money. "Here's $30." She held out the money to me and I, in return, looked at it like it was a foreign concept. "For tutoring me today?" Ava asked me, yet pressed the money into my palm. Instinctively, my hand closed around the money.

"Of course," I answered numbly. She left me with one last smile before wrapping her arm around Calum's waist and walking out the doors to the library.

And then there was silence, except for the roaring of my thoughts. Blackie's. Bathroom. Coffee everywhere. Blue eyes. Ten hours. Him. I suddenly found it very hard to get his name out of my head. Jake Roswell.