“I’m adopted? Why did it just occur to you to tell me this?” I yell at my parents my face beginning to turn red with anger.

“We’ll talk about this when you get home, you need to get to school before your late, again,” my mom tells me as she tosses me my keys.

“Whatever,” I mutter, storming up to my room to get my book bag. “Bye,” I tell them as I walk out the door, I slam the door so hard I can hear the windows of the second floor shutter. We live in an old Victorian, two story house, right on the edge of Maryville, Canada.

“Hey Ivy, I missed the bus, could you give me a ride to school,” my friend since second grade, Lindsey, called from next door.

“Sure,” I call back as I unlock my car door, but as I was getting in I noticed that she hadn’t moved, then out of no where she collapses.

I shout her name as I run over to her, her red hair is spread out underneath her like a Japanese fan, blood is dripping from her head, slowly rolling down the pavement towards the road. I kneel down beside her to see if she is breathing, but she isn’t and she is quickly turning pale.

I look over at my house, my parents are walking through the front door on the way to their cars, about ready to leave for work.

“Mom!” I yell, and she glances over at me, it only takes her a couple of seconds to realize what’s happening before she nudges my dad with her elbow to tell him to follow her and then runs over to where I am now standing.

“Ivy, go get Lindsey’s mom,” my mom orders, and I dart for the door nearly tripping on the last step on the porch. I pound on the door nearly punching Ms. Winston in the face.

“It’s Lindsey,” is all I say, and then I run back to my friend’s side. I guess Ms. Winston understood what I meant because she followed out, even though she was only wearing a thin silk nightgown, and it was almost winter.

She gasps when she sees Lindsey, her hand going up to cover her mouth.

“Call 911 Ivy,” my mom orders again, and I pull out my phone and dial the number.

“You should get to school,” Ms. Winston say turning to me, shock still written all over her face, showing like white does on black.

“But wh-,” she cuts me off.

“I’ll call if I hear anything,” she says, and as if on cue the ambulance shows up.

“Whatever,” I say, walking to my car before it gets blocked. I didn’t say anything else because Ms. Winston used a tone in her voice that made me know that if I said anything else she’d put up a fight.


I got to school fifteen minutes later, the tardy bell was ringing as I pulled into an empty parking space. As I got out of the car a car that I have never seen was looking for a parking space, the car was a silver mustang with two thick black stripes starting at the hood and ending at the trunk, sort of like the design of Bumblebee on Transformers.

Inside the car was also someone I didn’t know, a guy, a, umm, really hot guy, and he pulled into the space right by me.

Now that he was closer to me I could see details better, he had black hair, green eyes, and was about a head taller then me.

“Hey,” I suddenly hear him say to me, his voice is pretty deep but not deep enough to where it was hard to hear him.

“Hello,” I say trying to not make my voice sound shaky from the memories of this morning’s events.

“Are we late to class?”

“Yep, but only by a couple of minutes.”

“Crap,” I hear him mutter, he’s not very good at it.

“I’m Ivy,” I say after a couple of moments, trying to not make awkward silence happen.

“Damian, I’m a sophomore, you?”

“Same.”

“Cool, could you show me where Mr. Wentz’s room is?”

“Yeah, that’s actually what my first hour is, too.”

“Thanks.”


On our way to first hour we had to stop by the office to get tardy slips. I could tell that all three secretaries thought that we were trying to skip class and got caught. (That’s what they have thought about me ever since that happened to me.)

As we walk to Mr. Wentz’s room I look at Damian’s schedule.

“What classes do we have together?” he asks.

“All of them, which I don’t think has ever happened.”

“Cool, so is it okay if I just follow you around today so I can find the classes easier?” he asks just as we walk by Lindsey’s locker.

“Umm, sure, I guess you can,” I say not really paying attention, the memories had started playing back over in my head as soon as we had passed be her locker.

“Is everything okay? You look upset.”

“Something happened to my best friend this morning and now I’m afraid she won’t make it.”

“What happened?” he asks me sounding sincere. When I look up at him, his eyes even seem to be filled with sorrow.

“I honestly have no idea, she asked me for a ride, and when I told her that I would she wouldn’t move and then out of no where she collapses, when I went over to see if she was okay she wasn’t breathing and blood was pooling underneath her.”

“I am so sorry, I hope she gets better.”

“I just need to hope for the best, but every time I see something that reminds me of her everything that happened this morning flashes through my head like it’s my fault,” I reply to him as we get to Mr. Wentz’s room.

“Late!” Bradon shouts as we walk through the open door.

“Thank you for the announcement Bradon, but we did not need you to interrupt the class for it when we can all see that they are late,” Mr. Wentz tells him. Turning to us he says, “It looks like we have a newbie among us today,” everyone but me and Damian start to laugh I didn’t need to look up at Damian to know that the blood was rushing to his cheeks.

“Today we got a new seating chart, Ivy, you and Damian can sit at that back table,” he says once the class was quieted down.

As I was walking to the back table I could already hear people gossiping about me and Damian.


During second and third hour me and Damian already had rumors about us spread throughout the entire sophomore class.

“We have A lunch, so we first go to lunch for thirty minutes then to our fourth hour class,” I told him on our way to the cafeteria.

“Who’s our fourth hour?”

“Mrs. Shell,” I told him. “Then Mr. Korte for fifth hour and Mr. Lora for sixth and seventh hour, reading and writing block, and don’t call Mr. Lora, Mr. Laura, call him Mr. Lou-Rah.”

“Umm, that’s a very odd last name.”

“Don’t even try to call him Mr. Laura or he will give you detention, he doesn’t care if your new or not. He once gave detention to a Teacher-For-The-Day, just because she called him that.”

Whenever I look over at Damian I could tell he was trying to hold back a grin or a laugh.

“I’m serious!”

“”I know, it’s the look that was on your face that I’m laughing about,” he told me defensively.

“Okay, do you want to eat inside or outside?” I ask a few moments later.

“Inside, it’s too cold to eat outdoors.”

After we got our lunch me and Damian sat at a bench in the back of the cafeteria. The school had a table like thing that was built along the back wall of the cafeteria, and above the table is a window so you can look outside while you eat.

Almost as soon as I sat down my phone started ringing, I took it out and looked at who was calling, Ms. Winston, instantly my body fills with dread as the memories from this morning, yet again, invade my head.

“Hello,” Ms. Winston says as soon as I pick up.

“Is everything with Lindsey okay?” I ask, terror beginning to settle in the pit of my stomach. If Lindsey was okay Ms. Winston would of told me she was as soon as I answered instead of saying hello to me.

“Sorry Ivy, but she passed, the doctors say that she fainted from lack of blood flow to her brain, and when she fell she broke a piece of her skull off because she hit a rock hard enough, when they did X-rays they found that the piece of skull cut into one of her major nerves that flowed throughout her brain.”

As soon as I hear that I go completely speechless, I could hear Ms. Winston calling my name on the other end of the line, her voice filling with guilt.

“I gotta go, I’ll call you in a bit,” I say to her and then slam my phone onto the table in front of me.

“Is everything okay?” I hear Damian ask me, I had forgotten he was right next to me

I shake my head, trying to fight back tears as I did. “Lindsey didn’t make it,” I tell him. I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore and they stream out of my eyes.

“I am so sorry,” Damian told me, as he wraps his arm around my waist.

I cry for the rest of lunch period.