Hey guys! Here's the first chapter. Hope you like it!

Life is confusing as hell.

I could never understand it. The moment you think something's going well, everything collapses around you like you're just an insignificant object stuck in a storm. The moment you think your life is going to go to shit, a ray of hope shines through the empty darkness. It's freaking weird. You could get hit with anything, anywhere and you'd have never seen it coming. But nothing compared to what I got hit with that day.

No literally, I got shoved by someone.

Turns out, that one moment changed my life.

Let me start from the beginning.

***************************************

"Shit, shit shit!" I cursed, trying to pull my boot out of the gross sticky mud. It came out with a weird squelching sound and I kept right on running. The wind was practically in my face and I struggled to move with my bag, and trying to keep my hoodie on. I finally managed to reach the subway and quickly got a ticket. I continued to hurry, otherwise I would miss the next one and officially be late for school. Again.

I leapt like I was freaking Jackie Chan or something, and managed to squeeze past the subway doors just before they shut and skidded to a halt. Panting like crazy, I finally zipped up my bag and tried to straighten myself up. I couldn't see it, but I could tell my hair was a mess. Not the best way to present myself at school, but it'll do. I finally looked up to see an old lady sneering at me in disgust, with her mouth hanging open.

"What, you've never seen a girl trying to get to school before?" I snapped. She shrunk from me a little and wobbled off to go find a seat. Whoops. Probably should have been nicer. Not my fault she's judgy though.

I just stood, using the support from above me. Soon enough I got bored and just started going through my phone. It buzzed with a message from Megan-

"Get ur dumbass here already. I ended up arriving early I'm bored."

Rolling my eyes I texted her back-

"Relax Meg, I'm on the train."

She gave me a thumbs up and I put my phone back in my pocket, waiting impatiently for my stop. When it finally reached, I hastily tried to push through the sea of people to get to the door, until I was pushed into a railing from behind.

Cursing, I turned around ready to yell my head off. "Uh, hello?! Are you blind?"

The guy who bumped into me didn't even give me a second glance. He just ignored me and walked out the door. I couldn't make out his face, all I could tell was that he was wearing a grey sweatshirt and had a tattoo on his arm that read "B4L". Whatever the heck that means. Who on earth would tattoo that on their arm?

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" I yelled over the crowd but he had already vanished. Sighing, I just stepped off the subway and ran to school.

I managed to reach just in time, panting like a dog with my hands on my knees in front of Megan. She just rolled her eyes at me. "Seriously Alex? You've got to learn how to drive."

"Thanks... for your... help." I said in-between breaths, managing to stand up and give her one of my signature death stares. Unfortunately, it's never worked on her though. She just ignored me and walked to her locker. Asshole.

I walked over to my locker which was next to hers. No matter what, every single year we've made sure our lockers were next to each other. Once, we ended up kicking some poor kid out to a different locker. It was more Megan than me but oh well.

Let me tell you a little something about my best friend. Megan Austin. The single most amazing girl I have ever met. She hopped onto the monkey bars with me in kindergarten, and we've been best friends ever since. Being of color, she also used to have a tough time making friends because of racist jerks, but we both got along great. She loved strawberries, and especially fashion design. We both have a collective dream of going to Stanford, but different degrees of course. Oh, and did I mention she's freaking beautiful? Like princess pretty. I feel like a godamn potato next to her.

Just as we were opening our lockers, we heard an extremely annoying high-pitched laughter behind us. Cringing, Megan and I turned around.

Kayla Montgomery.

The most annoying, fake bitch on the planet. Even her shiny blonde hair was fake. She was your typical bratty rich kid, having fun off daddy's money. I don't know what people saw in her. Sure, you could say she's somewhat... good looking, but she stinks worse than a fish that's been rotting on the docks for three months. Her personality is like that. We saw her walking behind us with her whole popular posse- cheerleaders and jocks. We could see her desperately clinging onto a guy's arm, batting her eyes and twirling her hair. Shawn Hunter, captain of the basketball team. You could say he was definitely...hot. A total jerk though. He wasn't even paying Kayla the slightest attention, and just kept talking to his friends. I snickered.

"A whole lot of dumbasses." Megan muttered. I smiled. "True. Anyway, which class do you have first?" I asked her. She groaned. "Chemistry. What about you?"

"English."

"Not bad. I'll see you next period?"

"Yep."

With that, she grabbed her books and walked off to her class. I started rummaging through my locker trying to find my stupid English textbook, but I couldn't see it. Annoyed, I looked in my bag but realized it wasn't there either. Confused, I looked in Megan's locker to see if I'd accidentally put it there. We both knew each other's locker combinations. I smacked myself on the forehead when I finally realized where it was. I'd left it at home on my desk like an idiot. I was working on an assignment yesterday, and put it in my bag but leaving the book on the table. Just brilliant.

I groaned and slammed my locker door shut and went to class. I'd manage somehow. Hopefully my teacher doesn't kill me or something.

I walked through the door and took my usual seat in the second to last row. Once, everyone had shuffled in, Mr. Jones started the lesson. "All right everyone turn to page fifty-four in the textbook, we're going to be working on relative pronouns today."

The noise of shuffling textbooks filled the classroom, and I nervously raised my hand.

 "Yes, Ms. Peirce?"

"I don't have my textbook with me today, Mr. Jones."

"Oh, that's alright hm... why don't you share with Mr. Hunter today?" He pointed towards where he was sitting. I nodded and walked over to sit next to him. A bunch of girls in class sneered at me, giving me envious looks. One of them even gave me the finger. Jeez, how desperate are these losers? Shawn didn't even give me a second glance and just pushed the textbook towards me. Rude.

Mr. Jones started the lesson, and everyone started somewhat paying attention. Shawn didn't care though. He just kept sketching something on the table. I looked around and noticed everyone else hurriedly writing in their books. "Um, you sure you don't want to write something?" I asked him. That's when he finally actually looked at me. "Huh?"

Wow, is this guy stupid?

"You sure you don't want to write what Mr. Jones is teaching?"

Instead of actually replying, he just held out another pencil and kept sketching on the desk. God, what was wrong with this guy? I decided it wasn't worth the argument and begrudgingly took the pencil from him. Then I stopped when I noticed something on his arm.

A tattoo that said "B4L."

"Hey! You're the jerk that shoved me on the subway today!" I whisper shouted. He groaned and looked at me with an annoyed look on his face. "What do you want now?"

"You're the asshole that shoved me on the subway."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did, I saw your weird tattoo."

He shrugged. "Whatever." Then he just kept on sketching. It was taking all my strength not to strangle this guy. Who did he think he was? Stupid so called popular kids. The whole bunch of them were idiotic. Pathetic even.

I kept writing notes for the rest of the class, basically doing the asshole's work for him. After doing some activity questions, Mr. Jones told us to stop with around five minutes left in the class.

"All right class, good job. The reason I wound up this lesson early was because I wanted to use this time to tell you about your new group project. You'll be working in pairs, making a portfolio of this entire school year. I want you guys to tell the story of your lives throughout the year working together. Pictures, essays, poems and stories. Pretty much anything to express yourself in anyway you want. This counts for twenty-five percent of your final grade, so don't take it lightly."

I internally groaned. Group projects are so annoying, and now we have to do it for a whole year? This is going to be hell. Mr. Jones started going around the class making the pairs.

"Whitney and Justin, Jake and Luke, and Alex how about you go with Shawn since you're already sitting together? Josh and Dianna..."

This time I actually groaned out loud. I'm stuck working with this douche for the rest of the year now? Half an hour was already half an hour too many. I'm definitely going to end up doing all the work on this stupid project.

Everybody got into their groups and started discussing what they were going to do. "So, do you have any ideas?" I asked Shawn.

"Nope, not really."

Oh yeah, this was so not going to be fun.

****************************************************

"Wait a minute, you're telling me you're going to work on a project all year with Shawn Hunter?"

"Yes! Anyway, he was so rude I-"

"The Shawn Hunter?"

"Oh my god, yes Megan, are you even listening to me?"

"Freaking Shawn Hunter?"

I gave up on her and went back to eating my tater tots. It was lunch time now and we were sitting in the cafeteria, while Megan just went on asking the same question all over again.

"Wow, I don't know how you're going to survive all year working with him. If I were you, I have no clue how I would restrain myself from jumping his bones."

I looked at her in disgust. "Seriously? The guy's a dick. I doubt he even knows how to piece two words together. He's slow as hell."

She smirked. "That's not what I heard." I smacked her in the arm. "Shut up Meg."

"Hello, ladies! How are we doing on this fine day?" Said a voice from behind Meg, and he then slipped into the seat next to her. I smiled when I realized it was Tyler. He was another friend of ours. Goofy, crazy and secretly smart. He was one of those guys who could throw a party on a Monday night, get tanked, and walk back into school the next day like nothing happened. He loved to wear sunglasses, and was well liked by the student body. He gave less than a shit of what people thought about him, and that's the one aspect of him I've always liked. Oh, and he was also on the boys basketball team.

"Tyler, this stupid bitch is going to be working on a project with Shawn Hunter all year." Meg told him.

"Oh, damn. The dude is crazy. We have gym together; you wouldn't believe the crap I hear in the locker room. The shit he pulls with girls is messed up. Be careful around him." He took one of Megan's tater tots and popped it in his mouth. She frowned and hit him across the arm.

I scoffed. "Like as if. I'm not interested in becoming one of his mind addled barbie zombies."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Oh, really? I may be straight Alex, but even I'm not blind enough to see that the guy is good looking. Don't fall under his spell."

"Believe me, I couldn't."