I sigh, trudging through the gates of hell, completely drenched from the rain this morning.

It's the second day of yet another academic year in this hellhole of mine, and it's raining.

Maybe today wasn't the best day to wear white, was it? You stupid cow.

I should've checked the forecast. It was supposed to be another lovely autumn day today, and with it being my favourite season, I feel betrayed. School was inevitably going to be bad, but the weather just let me down here. All the exuberant auburn around me has been drained to murky brown, making the building increasingly imposing as my minuscule frame approaches it.

Walking down that pathway to my school prison, I wonder why on earth I decided to try to look better than normal today.

It's not like anyone would appreciate the effort anyways. It's not like anyone would care.

I hardly make it two metres through the main entrance of the school before the devil starts speaking, "Oh my god, Nerd, are you that desperate for attention you go around getting wet, so people would look at you?" The high-pitched drawl resonates in my ear, making it itch. That voice itself is torturous.

I stop. Can't I ever just get a break?

Slouching my shoulders, I sigh, clearly there is no better way to start off a Monday morning. There's nothing quite like immature banter, is there? I shrug, hoisting my backpack further up my shoulders while ignoring her comment. Maybe if I don't respond, she'll go away.

Is she so desperate to incite some sort of feud when the first week of school hasn't even completely gone by yet? She could've waited at least a little bit, if not to allow some form of adjustment to the monotony of school, but to at least think of a better snide remark. This was a truly pathetic insult on her side. What level of idiocy is she even on, can she not see it's pissing waterfalls around here?

I mean we're inside. But that's beside the point.

Contrary to my belief that ignoring her will force her hyena like self to find some other meat to gorge on, I instead aggravate her more. She pulls herself upright from her perch against a locker and saunters up to me. I try to make a run for it but fail miserably as she blocks my escape route.

It's amazing how she manages to move so fast with stilettos as tall as that.

"Hello, I asked you a question," she interrupts my train of thought and I blink at her. She snaps her fingers in my face, claw like acrylics colliding. I remain standing there, stoic, as she pokes my face. She's coming very close to testing my limits. Count on her to make an encounter go from zero to Indian soap opera in less than a second.

"What did you expect me to say, Mandy?" I snap and push her grimy hands off me as she pokes my cheek again. Who knows how many hand jobs she's given today?

She pauses.

I pause too, cocking my head waiting for a response. Cue awkward silence.

Clearly it doesn't take much to confuse her pea sized brain. I glare at her, while she stands there in silence.

Slowly, a smirk forms on her face, "You're right, what would you say? You know that, despite trying so hard, no one will ever notice you. Because you're irrelevant. You can try whatever you want to get someone's attention, it's not going to happen. Because you're nothing."

Gee, that's heart-warming.

Giving up, I roll my eyes once more and brush past her, heading off to my locker to fish out some dry clothes. It's fortunate she doesn't decide to pursue furthering her endeavour in making me feel like a worthless piece of crap; she probably realised that she's done enough damage for now. I shake my head and continue walking, consciously deciding to ignore everything she just said there, because she is an intellectually challenged bimbo who sports a serious fake tan when bikini season is long over.

She's probably right, but who cares? It's not like she's revealing something new.

Pushing past the hordes of people hustling about in this confinement, I ponder over for how long I'd have to be enduring such torture. I already know the answer to that; one long, painful year. A year of my life, wasted. The only thing that offers me some consolation is the fact that after it's all over, I'll be out of this place.

And I won't ever be coming back.

Reaching my locker, I sigh again, already exhausted though the day has hardly begun. I spot my friends by my locker, which also happens to be adjacent to theirs. They're all chatting away their time before the first bell rings. Maybe they'd be able to cure me of my supreme grouchiness.

"Hey guys," I call out, the lack of enthusiasm in my voice apparent. I immediately frown in disappointment with my acting abilities.

You'd be a terrible actress.

"Oh, hey look its Ash- oh god what happened to you?" Axel says, and I resist rolling my eyes at that. Sometimes I wonder whether there's a brain under that mop of dirty blonde hair. He's full of questionable ideals. Like the fact that he always thinks he's right and his idea of 'right' is pouring ketchup on top of the fries instead of by it.

My dad always used to say that there are two ways of doing things in the world: the wrong way, and the German way. While I have nothing against the Germans, I can't relate. Therefore, naturally, I adapted it to suit my subtly narcissistic self.

"Try torrential rain you dimwit," I finally mutter and push past my gang to grab my hoodie out my locker. I input the combination to my lock and allow it to swing open, revealing books and a plastic bag with a bunch of clothes. I pull out my literature books, although we're having a quiz in English today. Yes, it's the second day of school and we're already suffering through a quiz. That's the problem with A levels, the torture lasts two years. This 'necessary' test is to make sure we've read our piece of literature that we're going to study, so that afterward we can jump straight to analysing.

Fun, I know.

Next, I retrieve a hoodie from the bag, along with sweatpants and a t shirt. I'd say they are about three days' worth of stuff in that bag; I've learnt to be prepared for whatever shit fest life decides to throw at me. On many occasions it was what the canteen calls 'Spaghetti Bolognese' that magically landed on my shirt from one of my tormentor's plates. On some occasions they were spare clothes I needed for a sleepover at Rita's to avoid a confrontation at home. On one occasion it was hydrochloric acid from one of my test tubes that got toppled over by someone 'by accident' that had me pulling off my shirt in front of everyone. That taught me to keep my lab coat tied up at all time in chemistry, and I didn't hear the end of it from Mandy and Co for a long while.

"Well someone clearly woke up on the wrong side of her bed this morning, maybe because I was taking up all the space on the right side," JT laughs. He's the perpetual pervert of our group, but we all love him (debatable) and his incessant blabber. That, however, was not one of his finest 'jokes'.

I cringe, yeah, that was one of his worst. Count on him to behave like a child at this ungodly hour.

"No, JT, Mandy happened," I sigh, again. This place really takes the piss out of me. "Anyways, I need to get changed."

I push past them to go to the ladies' room to make myself look less like an oompaloompa. How that association came to me, is beyond my profound knowledge.

While happily contemplating how to get away with Mandy's murder, I round a corner, and face plant into someone's hard chest. Or a wall, they felt the same. Which is peculiar, because walls shouldn't feel the same as a chest.

No shit, Sherlock.

Cue the end of the spontaneous moment of blissful ignorance.

I look up to glaring blue eyes, and glare back. I'm not having a field day today.

But oh my, his eyes are exquisite.

"Careful," the gruff voice says, and I roll my eyes.

I'm fainting at those manly vocal cords.

"Right back at you," I sneer, surprising myself with how harsh I sound. I'm blaming it on the voice in my head catching me off guard with her thirsty comments. For the love of God and His holiness, please make it stop.

He squints at me, putting his hands on his hips, chastising me with his eyes, "Come again?"

I opened my mouth, about to reiterate when he cuts me off, "I heard what you said, I was giving you a chance to change your answer."

I bite my lower lip to stop myself from slapping the bloke, as I realise that I don't need more idiotic narcissists breathing down my neck at every turn. I draw in a deep breath to calm down, and then open my mouth to apologise and officially be the world's biggest brown noser.

"Actually, don't worry about it; you're completely drenched and look like you've just crawled your way out the pits of hell," he suddenly announces to me. "It's chill, we're all grouches in the morning, some may just be inspired by the Grinch more than others," he concludes with a beam, and my anger dissipates in waves. Seems like there's at least someone who can act sane around here.

He's an understanding sweetheart, unlike you. Do us all a favour and marry him.

I internally choke, pleading my subconscious to stop spewing such blasphemy while I'm trying to act normal.

I flash him a small smile, "Yeah, sorry though." I then scurry away to the loo, determined to clean myself up before the first period quiz.

It's not until I burst through the door of the bathroom that I fully realise what just transgressed. I just talked to Ethan Stone.

The Ethan Stone, cue jazz hands and suspenseful music.

Also known as the "bad boy" of our grade. Scratch that, school, no wait, town. Yes, this boy is notorious, and for good reason too. Him and his lot of friends too, who think they're at the ultimate height of supremacy.

Wait, did he just say I look like I've crawled out of hell?

And that I'm influenced by the Grinch?

Well, you are a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

I huff, at least he had some sort of common sense and understanding. Even though he may have been a douche with the way he communicated it.

Rolling my eyes, I just hope no one goes off and reports this to Mandy. She's quite likely to rip my head off if she hears I had a, albeit brief, social interaction with anyone she associates herself with.

I shake my head, water droplets spraying around, and decide now is not the time to think about such mundane drama. I need to get myself cleaned up. I head off into one of the bathroom stalls and strip down to my underwear, shivering as I peel off each article of clothing. I definitely have a love hate relationship with the rain. Using paper towels, I dry myself to the best of my ability utterly miserable with my sorry state. When I finally am satiated with my level of dryness, I pull on my clean, dry clothes, shoving the soaked clothes in my backpack with a prayer that they don't soak my books, and step out the bathroom stall. I survey my appearance in the mirror and realise that I somehow managed to forget to wipe the water off my glasses. Extremely odd, considering my vision has been obscured for the better part of twenty minutes by now. I take my glasses off and wipe them with my sleeve, before sticking them in my pocket. I look up at my reflection again and sigh.

Sucks to be painfully average- at best- in the looks department, doesn't it?

I shrug at my reflection, what can I do about it? I then go and stand under the hand dryer.

No, not because I'm weird; my thick, dark brown, curly hair is still drenched and dripping. Uncomfortable, to say the least.

And no, I may be short, but I cannot stand straight under the hand dryer.

Now would be a great time to do some wall sits and feel like you're more than a couch potato.

I roll my eyes at that thought and continue what I'm doing leaning my head under the dryer. That would just blow the water down onto my body. Also, I don't want to seem even weirder than I already am.

So, I stand there for an awkward three minutes, watching fuzzy around-the-edges girls walk in and out the bathroom. Fortunately, the full extent of embarrassment in this situation, thanks to my poor eyesight, isn't felt as I can't see the peculiar expressions I know they're giving me.

No, you just heard them whisper 'what the fuck is she doing?' and 'holy shit, it's that nerd bitch that rejected Ryan Mcauley last year.' Ignorant idiot.

I roll my eyes again and finally remove my head out from under the dryer, stretching my neck to the other side to loosen the catch I've unwittingly created. Pulling in a deep breath, I move to investigate the mirror once more and pull on my glasses.

Oh lord of mercy I'm begging you please, this girl still looks like she's experienced an electric shock.

I frown. Thanks.

And then I realise that the bell rang twenty seconds ago, and I was too self-absorbed to realise it.

"Oh shit!" I exclaim, the words tumbling out my mouth as I scramble to exit the bathroom. Naturally I slip and begin running like Frozone from The Incredibles till I reach the door.

Minus the super suit and style.

Looks like somebody's in trouble, my inner voice sings as I burst out the bathroom and start running for my life to get to that quiz.

Welcome to my life.

•

Hey. Welcome to the first chapter of my book! I hope you liked it, and feel free to show me you did if you get what I mean ;) *cough* vote *cough*

If you've already read this chapter- yeah some pretty major changes went on here, and I hope you're all for it! I decided that this chapter fits a lot more than my initial one.

Thanks!

Aash