I felt someone shake me gently awake.

I moaned, pushing the hands away, mumbling something about 5 more minutes...

"Renee, wake up," I heard a soft voice say. I knew whoever this voice belonged to wouldn't stop bothering me until I opened my eyes. So I pried them open and looked up to Aiden leaning down over me. I blinked up at him, confused.

"We've got 30 minutes until class. And you have to eat breakfast this morning since you didn't eat dinner last night," he said. I blinked at him again.

"When did I fall asleep?" I asked.

"You went to bed at like 7. I left the room and came back at 10 and you were still asleep. They packed away the dinner by then, though. Which is how I know you didn't eat," he replied.

"All right. I'll get up," I sighed. He stood up straight and smiled down at me as I sat up in bed and stretched. I remembered vaguely waking up at midnight to go write in my journal. I glanced at my desk. Sure enough, my red leather-bound journal was sitting there. I stood up and tucked the journal in my suitcase and then went into the bathroom to change.

I closed my eyes as the water from the shower hit gently. It was nice of Aiden to be concerned about my eating habits. After the incident, I would go days without eating, simply because I had no appetite or I forgot. It seemed like food was secondary to the issues at hand.

As I dried my hair and changed into my uniform, I realized I wouldn't be able to go check on Mikey this morning. I prayed that he would be all right and knew that if there was a problem, Janet was willing to solve it.

I stepped out of the bathroom, surprised to see that Aiden was still there.

"You haven't left yet?" I asked.

"I figured we could eat together," he replied. I stared at him for a moment before going to pull my boots on over my knee high socks.

"I'm ready," I said shortly. He nodded and grabbed his bag. I shouldered mine as well and followed him out to the elevator.

"Hey, man! What's up?!" a guy I assumed to be Aiden's friend shouted as we waited for the elevator. He was African American, tall with broad shoulders, and rather good looking. He stood next to his, his perfume wafting around me. I scrunched up my nose. His cologne was a lot stronger than Aiden's. I didn't like it.

"Nothing much. About to eat breakfast," Aiden replied.

"Dude, you've got like, 15 minutes," the guy said.

"I know. Late morning," Aiden answered, glancing at me with a small smile on his face. When he looked at me, the guy turned to look, too.

"Oh! Hey! I'm Justin," the guy said.

"Renee," I replied curtly. He smiled at me and then glanced up at Aiden with a smirk. Aiden shook his head. I knew they were silently communicating about me. I was sure Justin was wondering if we were together and Aiden just answered that we weren't. Justin was now giving him an 'I'm sorry' look. Aiden shrugged.

In the time that this exchange was going on, the elevator arrived. We got in and pushed the button to the first floor where the dining hall was.

"So you ready for the soccer season?" Justin asked.

"Yeah. Coach made me captain," Aiden answered.

"Yeah, I heard. Big responsibility, man," he replied. Aiden nodded and glanced at me. I gave him the tiniest hint of a smile and continued to look down at my feet. Justin and Aiden continued to talk about soccer and I tuned out their conversation for the remainder of the way down to the dining. I was grateful to be out of the enclosed compartment when the doors opened and we stepped out. I followed the boys to the food bar to get food, keeping back. We had 7 minutes to get to class.

"Let's get something to go," Aiden suggested to me. I nodded and picked up an apple. He cocked an eyebrow. "No wonder you're so skinny. You don't eat," he said, picking out a granola bar and handing it to me.

"I'm not that hungry right now," I said.

"You will be later. So save it," he replied, giving me a stern look. I frowned. I felt almost like he was treating me like a child, although I knew he was just being a good roommate and looking out for me.

"Let's bolt. Gomez is going to kill us if we're late again," Justin said.

"What's your next class?" Aiden asked as we walked out of the dorms building.

"I have French," I replied.

"We have Spanish. That's in the same part of the building," Justin told me. We picked up our pace and nearly ran to the school building. We hopped up three flights of stairs to the third floor and then parted ways. I walked into my French class just as the bell was ringing. The teacher glanced up at me as I walked up to her. She had blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She must have been a real French beauty when she was young.

"Bonjour," she said.

"Bonjour. I'm a new student," I told her. She scanned her attendance list on the computer.

"Renee Dubois?" she asked. I nodded.

"All right. You may take a seat anywhere. We don't have assigned seats," she said. I thanked her and turned around to find a seat. To my indifference, I saw Ben, who smiled at me. I nodded at him as he pointed to a seat next to him.

"Still taking French?" he asked me as I sat next to him.

"Obviously," I replied quietly. He smirked at me and then we looked forward to listen to the lecture. We didn't talk the rest of class. Madame Bourke went over conjugation with us and we did silent activities. At the end of class, I hung back to get any assignments I needed to catch up on.

"How fluent are you in French?" she asked me.

"I was going to AP French in my other high school this year. My grandparents were born in France, so I used to visit them quite a bit. I guess I'm pretty fluent," I said. She nodded.

"Yes, Dubois is a French surname," she said. "Well, if you have time this week, I'd like you to come meet me after school or during study hall. I'll give you an oral and written exam to see where you stand. I'm pretty sure you'll do just fine. If that's the case, you won't have to do any of the previous assignments," she told me.

"Sounds good," I replied.

"Au revoir, Renee," she said. I replied to her greeting and then walked out. I was surprised to see Ben was waiting for me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey. You didn't have to wait for me," I told him as we began walking towards the stairs. He shrugged.

"You doing all right?" he asked me after a short moment.

"I'm fine," I replied, looking down at my feet. He was silent, but I knew he was itching to say something else.

"What class do you have?" he asked me.

"I have 3-D design," I answered.

"Art-freak," he joked, nudging me. I almost smiled.

"Whatever, science-geek," I replied. He laughed and I felt the corners of my lips twitch up slightly.

"You want to get lunch later?" he asked. I shrugged. "I'll take that as a yes," he said, smiling at me. Then he went off to his AP Physics class and I walked down another flight of stairs to my art class.

I loved art. It was so calming. I could get lost in art the way a person could get lost in a good book. It was a way for me to escape from the tension and worries of this real world and fall into an imaginary one where creativity was the only rule.

"Very good, Renee," my teacher, Krissy, told me with a smile. She insisted on us calling her by her first name. It was probably because she was so young. She reminded me of the 70's for some reason. I knew that if she was her age around that time, she would definitely be a hippie. She had a tangled mess of hair on her head, wide blue eyes, and an eccentric style of a printed skirt with a flowy blouse and dozens of bangles that clinked together when she moved her hands.

After my art class, I had study hall. I decided to catch up on some of my other assignments during that time, so I secluded myself to a corner of the room, away from the other students in my class. Once study hall was over, I met Ben in the dining hall for lunch.

"How was art?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Relaxing," I answered simply. "How was physics?" I asked him.

"Relaxing," he replied, a small smile on his face. A girl with a high pony-tail came over to us, greeting Ben with a wide smile.

"Hi Ben!" she chirped.

"Hey, Jen. This is Renee. She's a childhood friend of mine," Ben replied.

"Nice to meet you," she said to me with a kind smile. I tried to return it, but was only able to muster up a weak smile.

"Jen's my girlfriend," Ben explained to me. I nodded.

"Jen and Ben," I said. She laughed.

"We can't even have a nickname for ourselves, because then it would just be one of our names," she told me.

"Unless we did Jenjamin," Ben pointed out.

"Or Bennifer," Jen added. They both laughed and I couldn't help but smile a little. They seemed like a good couple. "So, where did you move from, Renee?" she asked me, plucking a grape out of Ben's plate.

"I went to the public school," I answered. "About a half hour from here," I added. She nodded.

"Her aunt and uncle own the school," Ben told her. She raised her eyebrows at me.

"Ooo. Connections," she said a grin on her face. "How long have you two known each other?" she questioned.

"A while. We haven't seen each other since the beginning of high school though," Ben replied.

"Aww," Jen said appropriately, smiling gently at me. I wished I could return her smile. I just couldn't though. I seemed to have forgotten how to truly smile. It was strange how friendly people were at this school.

"Hey, Renee," I heard. I looked up to see Aiden. His friends walked ahead of him. Ben's eyes turned cold as he looked at Aiden. Aiden ignored him.

"Did you get to class on time?" he asked. I nodded. "It's good to see you eating for once," he said with a smile. I glanced down at the almost untouched food on my plate.

"Yeah," I said lamely. He glanced at Ben and Jen and then nodded at me.

"I'll see you later, then," he said and then walked off to join his friends.

"You know Aiden Brooks?" Jen asked when he was out of earshot. I nodded.

"Stay away from him. He's always up to no good," Ben warned. I frowned.

"That'll be a little tough, considering he's my roommate," I said. Ben coughed and glared at me.

"What?!" he shouted, a little too loudly. Some people around us looked over at us curiously.

"He's your roommate?!" Jen exclaimed in a low voice. I nodded.

"He's a boy, though!" Ben said.

"I know. They're at capacity for girls, though. His was the only room that had an extra bed," I explained.

"Oh, that figures. Remember, Christopher didn't come back this year," Jen told Ben. Ben nodded.

"Right. His parents thought he was too reckless," he said.

"Because he hung out with Aiden all the time," Jen told me. I looked at them both.

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"That Aiden is not good news. He acts like the sweet, innocent kid that every teacher adores. But he's the devil inside. He's always getting other people in trouble for his own stupid antics," he said.

My mouth opened slightly as I glanced at Aiden sitting with his friends. He was talking animatedly with his friends, who were laughing at something he was saying. Was what Ben and Jen were saying true? Was he really a bad person? But he had been nothing but nice to her since she got to Rosestone. Was it possible it was just a charade?

"Even though he has a girlfriend, I'd still be careful. He's slept around quite a bit," Jen warned me. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. How had I managed to become roommates with a person that had such a terrible track record?

"You can always hang out with us if you need a place to stay," Ben suggested. Jen nodded vigorously. I smiled meekly at them for the offer, but continued to gaze at Aiden. He seemed so nice...

                                                         ~~~~~~~~~~

"Music," Mr. Len began, "is a way to free the soul within you. You can put your entire being into the lyrics of a song, into the music of the song," he said. "Music is the universal language that brings us all together. You don't need to know Spanish or French or Korean to understand what a song is saying. You just have to listen to the music and feel it inside of you. That's when you connect. That's when you free yourself," he finished.

Mr. Len was the teacher for the Music and Lyrics class. There was only one class like this. There was one class for band and one for orchestra and Mr. Len taught all three. But this class, the one I was in, encompassed everything. It had a wide variety of talent in it, ranging from vocalists to lyricists. Apparently, the school was cutting down funding for the music program, which is why there were so few classes left.

And just my luck, Aiden was in this class, too. I assumed he was here for playing guitar. I had been the last person to walk into class and had no choice but to sit next to him on the risers, since no one else was. He kept bumping his knee into mine and smiled at me every time I looked up at him.

"New girl!" Mr. Len shouted suddenly. I jumped where I was sitting and looked at him. He was relatively young. He had longer hair that fell above his shoulders and a trimmed beard on his face. He wore ragged jeans and a faded grey henley.

"Come on up here and show us what you've got," he told me. I felt my mouth open slightly.

"I-uh-I-" I stammered.

"You-uh-you-uh-you," he replied, with a glint in his eye. Then he pointed to the spot next to him on the floor and looked at me expectantly. I got up hesitatingly, and walked up to him gingerly.

"Don't be scared. I don't bite," he told me. "Right class?" he asked the kids.

"Yeah he does!" some kid yelled with a smirk.

"He's got foot long fangs!" another girl joked.

"Then I'd be a walrus, not a monster," Mr. Len said with a smile. The class laughed and I shifted uncomfortably on my feet next to him. "All right, new girl," he said to me, glancing down.

"Renee," I corrected.

"Renee. New girl. Whatever. Show us what you've got to offer," he said. Then he stood back near the edge of the risers, folding his arms over his chest. I took a deep breath.

I was nervous. I never used to be. I had been singing ever since I was a child. I didn't want to take this class, but I was taking choir in my old school and my counselor insisted I take this class at this school. Ever since the incident, I stopped singing and playing piano. My parents had always enjoyed it. They always supported me. It was one of the things that always brought us together. And now that we were further apart than anything, I couldn't bring myself to continue with music. It was hard. It hurt too much.

But now I was on the spot and I had to. I swallowed and went up to the grand piano in the center of the room and seated myself. With shaking hands, I pulled up the cover and set my fingers on the cold keys. It had been a few months since I last sang and played piano.

I felt the eyes of the class on me and could feel my cheeks growing red. I wanted so badly to start crying and run out of the classroom, but I held myself strong. I had promised I would be strong.

The song came randomly to me. My fingers moved smoothly on the piano, as if I hadn't taken a break at all.

"Seems like it was yesterday when I saw your face. You told me how proud you were, but I walked away. If only I knew, what I know today. Ooo, ooo," I began. My fingers moved effortlessly on the smooth black and white keys of the piano. I could feel a pain well up inside of me and heard a collective intake of breath from the people in the classroom.

"I would hold you in my arms. I would take the pain away. Thank you for all you've done. Forgive all your mistakes. Oh there's nothing I wouldn't do, to hear your voice again. Sometimes I want to call you, but I know you won't be there. Ooo. I'm sorry for, blaming you for everything I just couldn't do. And I've hurt myself, by hurting you," I continued. I kept playing, but something inside me froze.

I couldn't finish. I stopped playing, feeling the warm sting of tears in the corner of my eyes. I got up and pushed the bench away. Mr. Len dropped his arms to his side and I shook my head at him seeing a concern in his eyes.

"I can't--" I whispered.

And then I bolted out of the classroom.

_______________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Sad =(

Mr. Len is in the sidebar. I chose the guy from Raise Your Voice. He was a music teacher in that movie, too. =) He'll have a more important role later on in the story.

Leave me a comment with your thoughts. The song is by Christina Aguilera. Have a listen. It's the one Renee sings.

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!!

XOXO