I crashed into something. That's not the weird part, because I do that very often. The weird part is that I wasn't even aware I was walking in the first place. I was daydreaming. And crashing into the pillar in the middle of the hallway had just broken me out of it.

The daydream where I was in my old town, at my old house, with my old friends.

"How's your skull? And your dignity?" I heard a female voice ask.

"Do you know where the office is?" I asked hesitantly.

I turned to face the girl in front of me. I had been wandering the halls aimlessly, looking for the office, but had no luck. Seeing as I crashed into a pole.

She had long, straight red hair with blue eyes and freckles dotted across her nose. Luck had certainly been in her favor with genetics.

"Yeah." She said, turning on her heel and walking away.

I stared at after her with a blank expression, then quickly went after her.

"Um... can you tell me where?" I asked.

"Go down that hall, right there," she said, gesturing to my right, "and you'll see it. Unless you're blind."

"Sometimes I wonder." I joked helplessly.

"Have you tried carrots?" She asked.

"Thanks for the help." I said, turning on my heel and going down the hall.

After I turned down the hallway and walking for a minute, I finally reached the office.

"Name?" The man sitting in the receptionist chair asked.

"Chance Freeman." I muttered.

"Okay, here's a schedule and locker information. Have a nice day." He said happily and handed me two sheets of paper.

"You too." I said as I turned around to read the pages.

My classes seemed bearable. I had math, art, science, geography, health, and Spanish.

We hadn't had a health class at my old school.

But, I guess that was the past. And this was the present. And most likely my future, too.

Hooray.

If you couldn't tell, this move was not a choice. My mom had been offered a new position for work and she wanted to take it, so we moved from Rhode Island to Norwood, Massachusetts.

Obviously, me and my twin sister, Elise, were not too happy about this. But we're trying to get over it.

Speaking of Elise, you might be wondering why we didn't register together. The answer is simple: I can't keep up with her. Ever.

In school, in sports, in popularity, everything.

You name it, she has the advantage on it.

As soon as we got to school, she was flying through the halls, pushing through crowds and greeting new people. She's quite the extrovert.

But I'm actually okay with being in her shadow. I'm not a fan of attention. Usually it makes me want to die.

But, on a different topic, I had class in five minutes and no idea where I was going.

It was math. I wasn't bad at math, but I had never loved it. I don't know anyone who did.

On my schedule it said that my first class was in room M106. 

Looks like I'd have to rush around to find it. I just hoped I wasn't late to my first class on my first day.

I looked to my left and started to jog down the hall, praying that I was going in the right direction.

My prayers were answered when I looked at the first room in the hall, already filled with students, and saw it was room M101. That means that my first class was just five rooms down.

I checked my watch. Still three minutes to go.

Letting out a breath of relief, I slowed my pace and walked to my class, room M106.

I arrived and was met with an almost full classroom and a seemingly nervous teacher. At least I wasn't the only one.

There were only two open seats left. One in the front row, so that one was crossed off my list of options. The other was next to the pretty girl who had (kind of) helped me in the hallway.

I walked slowly over to the seat next to the girl. She was sitting cross-legged in her chair with her nose in a Percy Jackson book.

"What's your name?" She asked as soon as I sat, not looking up from her book.

"Chance Freeman. What's yours?" I asked.

"Hart." She answered bluntly.

"There's no one sitting here yet, right?" I asked for clarification.

"Yeah. You just sat on my ghost friend." She answered with an eye roll.

I looked away and nodded, taking a deep breath and silently praying that the rest of the day would be better.

********

When the bell rang, I jumped out of my seat and started toward the door.

"You do know we have ten minutes in between classes." Hart said from her seat.

"Um, well I didn't get a chance to find my locker before class so I'm gonna do that now." I replied.

"Is it weird having to use your own name in a sentence?" Hart asked.

"Hart. Your name is Hart." I answered, dumbfounded.

"I'll take you to your locker." She announced, standing up and grabbing my paper from my hands.

She read over it slowly, then handed it back to me and walked out the door.

I stood there a moment before realizing I should probably be following her.

I ran from the room, catching a glimpse of her bright red hair in a crowd before she disappeared into the sea of people.

"Shit." I muttered under my breath.

I started into the crowd, pushing my way through as I occasionally spotted Hart, following her to the best of my ability until the crowd deteriorated.

I spotted Hart up ahead, standing at a locker and playing with the code, and jogged up to her.

"Are you trying to open my locker?" I asked, shocked with the manners of this girl.

"I'll forget the code by lunch anyway." Hart replied. The locker popped open and I set my bag down on the ground, opening it up and taking some books out.

"Hart!" Someone yelled from across the hall.

"Who's that?" I asked curiously, turning around.

I spotted a girl with red hair, identical to Harts, walking towards us.

"Foul bitch. Don't talk to her. She spits on puppies." Hart grumbled, along with a string of curse words.

"Hart." The girl said, coming to a stop in front of my locker.

"Fuck off." Hart moaned, leaning against the lockers and tilting her head back.

"Is she your sister?" I whispered to Hart.

"No." Hart denied.

"I'm Hart's twin sister, Charley." The girl said with a grin.

"Why can't you die in a fire?" Hart moaned.

"What's your name?" Charley asked me.

"Chance Freeman." I said uncomfortably.

"Wait a minute, are you Elise's brother?" She asked.

I nodded. Looked like wherever I lived, and whatever school I was at, I'd always be 'Elise's brother'.

"Yeah, have you seen her? I lost her." I asked.

"I just had geography class with her. She's hilarious." She said, ignoring my question.

"Run through oncoming traffic." Hart moaned.

Charley glanced at Hart and rolled her eyes with a disgusted look.

I saw something flash in her eyes and her whole demeanor changed, and suddenly she wasn't the seemingly nice girl I had just been talking to.

Suddenly she had a hand on her hip, and a scowl on her mouth. If you weren't looking for it you wouldn't see it, but there was a slight squint in her eyes.

But all the same, she spoke in a sickly sweet voice.

"Listen, I wouldn't try to get too close to Hart. She's kind of moody, and pretty much just a horrible person. So if you'd rather be friends with me, instead of her, I think we'd both understand." Charley said, grinning widely at me and blinking, which made me way too uncomfortable.

"Uh.... I think I'll take my chance with this one." I said with a fake smile.

"You did it again." Hart muttered.

"Seriously?" Charley asked. She acted as if no one had ever picked Hart over her before.

"Jump into a pool of hungry sharks, please." Hart groaned, hitting her head on the locker again.

"Yeah. At least she seems like she has a heart." I said, smiling and glancing at Hart. As much as she tried to hide it, I could see the small smile forming on her lips.

"Well then..." Charley said, clearly upset with my decision. "good luck." She gave one last awkward laugh before walking away from my locker.

"That's your twin?" I asked in disbelief.

Hart nodded.

"Wow. That's horrible. You know, she seemed so nice when she came up here, but then she just...." I paused. "ripped into you like that. Talk about insecure. I haven't even known you a day but I can still tell I'd rather be your friend than hers." I rambled as I continued putting my books into my locker.

"Thank you." Hart whispered, playing with the bracelets on her wrist.

"Why are you thanking me?" I asked with a smile. "I should be thanking you. You helped me find the office and my locker, and steered me clear of that two faced bitch." I laughed.

"Everyone else thinks she's a god." She muttered.

"Well not me. That'll have to be enough for now." I said with a small smile as I closed my locker and slung my bag over my shoulder.

"I have science now." Hart said.

"I'll see you at lunch, then." I replied.

"See ya." She said, and I walked away.

**********

"How was your day?" Elise asked, matching my pace as she met up with me at the main entrance of the school. We started our walk home together, and I was grateful for the cloudy weather.

I hated direct sunlight. It was so hot, and made me sweat. But I also hated rain. It always put me in a bad mood. To me, the perfect weather was cloudy, blocking the sun and no rain.

Elise was the exact opposite, though. She loved the sun and the rain. She claimed they were both beautiful. She said the sun put her in a good mood, and rain made her want to dance. (I said she was a freak). But cloudy weather was sad weather for her.

I thought it was stupid to base your good mood off of a fiery ball of gas in space. Yes, I based my bad ones on rain, but I have the water cycle to back myself up.

"Mine was actually pretty good. Not at all what I expected. How was yours?" I asked.

"Mine sucked." She grunted, kicking a rock on the sidewalk.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Everyone hated me." She sighed.

"I doubt it. You're so easy to get along with." I said, putting my arm around her shoulder. "Something pretty interesting happened today." I said, hoping to take her mind off of her day.

"What was it?" She asked, intrigued. Elise was always a sucker for gossip.

"So I met this girl named Hart, and her twin came up to my locker and tried to make me pick which one I wanted to be friends with. So of course I don't to be friends with someone who makes me pick a twin, because that is the biggest crime you can commit ever, right?" I asked, over-exaggerating my words and hand gestures in an attempt to distract her.

"Right." She grinned. One thing that I was pretty good at was cheering Elise up whenever she was sad. She put so much energy into pleasing other people that sometimes she just needed to be reminded that I'm here for her.

"Who was the girl?" Elise asked.

"Her name was Charley." I said.

"Oh, really? I met her in my geography class and she seemed really nice."

"Yeah, she seemed nice to me too, until she started trashing Hart right to her face, and telling me she was 'moody' and a 'horrible person'. She got so confused when I said I was sticking with Hart. Acted like no one had ever done that before." I told her with a sigh.

"Woah. Gotta watch out for two-faced people." She said, clicking her tongue as we turned onto our block.

"I bet you'll have a better day tomorrow. Maybe people were just off because it was the first day." I assured her.

"I hope so. Do you want to eat that leftover cake and watch Netflix with me?" She asked.

"You know me too well." I said with a laugh as we walked up our front steps.

As soon as Elise opened the door, I felt a few drops of rain hit my skin, and I knew one thing for sure. She would feel like dancing today.

********

"Hey guys. How was school?" Mom asked, walking into the living room.

"It was okay. How was work?" I answered.

"It was tiring. But I'm glad I took the position. Thank you guys again for being so cooperative." She said with a tired smile.

"It's no problem. I think we'll do fine at the new school. I'm just glad you're happy." Elise said.

"Me too." I agreed.

"Listen, uh, I need to talk to you guys for a minute, okay?" She asked with a small frown.

"Sure." Elise said with a nod, glancing at me.

Mom walked over and sat down on the couch.

"So, my boss informed me today that my schedule is going to get a bit...hectic. And long. Early mornings, late nights. So..." she said, taking a deep breath. "I don't know how much we'll be seeing of each other during the week."

"What?" Elise exclaimed.

"I know honey. We'll be together on weekends when you guys aren't busy. I'm so sorry." She sighed.

"It's okay mom." I said, putting an arm around her shoulder. "We'll have the weekends."

"When does this start?" Elise asked.

"On Monday." Mom replied.

"Okay. We'll just make sure to hang out more this week." Elise offered.

"Thanks loves. I'm gonna go take a nap, okay?"

We nodded goodbye, and she disappeared into her room.

********

"We need to be at school in 10 minutes." Elise said, popping her head in my room as I was getting ready for school.

"It's like a 5 minute walk, Elise." I answered as I pulled my shirt over my head.

"Are you ready yet?" She walked into my room and sat on my bed.

"Yeah. Let's go." I answered, picking my backpack up from the floor.

We jogged down the stairs and out the front door, staring our walk.

"Are you excited for day two?" Elise asked.

"Actually, I kinda am. Wanna walk in with me instead of ditching me this time?" I asked, nudging her shoulder and laughing.

A sheepish smile appeared on her face.

"Sorry 'bout that. I just wanted to run around and maybe meet some people."

"Hey, don't worry about it. Hart helped me so I was fine. She's kinda weird, but you can meet her if you want."

"Someone's got a crush." Elise said, raising her eyebrows up and down.

"No. It's not like that. She's just my friend." I said, glaring at her.

"Whatever. I wanna meet her." She said.

A minute later, we arrived and entered the school building.

I took Elise by the wrist as I led her to my locker.

I spotted Hart by her locker down the hall and waved her over.

She was leaning against her locker, with her red hair in curls, white jeans shorts and a blue Panic! At The Disco shirt.

Hart reached my locker. "Who's she?" She asked.

"I'm Elise, Chance's twin sister." Elise answered.

"Oh." Hart answered.

"You're Hart, right?" Elise asked with a smile.

"Do you know Charley?" Hart asked.

"I know of her, but don't plan on actually knowing her." She answered.

Elise was great with people. She could make friends in her sleep if she wanted to.

I, on the other hand, had trouble with it. But I guess Hart was the same way.

Hart looked down at her feet and chewed her lip.

Elise turned to me with a questioning look, but I just shrugged. She wasn't used to people not answering her, directly, or at all.

"What's your first class?" Elise asked, changing the topic.

"I have math with Chance." Hart said, turning and playing with the code on my locker.

"I thought you said you'd forget the code." I said.

"It stuck in my brain." Hart answered.

She opened the locker and stepped aside, allowing me to put my books in.

"Well, I'll catch you guys later. The bell's gonna ring soon. Bye!" Elise said, turning and waving to us.

"Bye." I said.

We started our walk to math class, and stopped at the water bubbler to get a drink.

"Red Martin is staring at you." Hart said.

"Who's Red Martin?" I asked, standing up and wiping my lip.

"Cliche idiot. Jock. Point guard on the basketball team. Popular. Heartthrob." She stopped and looked at me for a minute.

"Is he still staring at me?" I asked.

"He's looking at you weird." She said with a small smile.

"Is he hot?" I asked her.

"Why?" She asked, puzzled.

"Well I mean if he's hot, and he's looking-"

"Are you gay?" She asked.

I cleared my throat. "Well... I mean... I guess if I had to say, then, uh... yeah." I stammered.

"Cool." She said. "We should get to class."

"Sure." I said, and we continued walking.