I slide into an empty seat and tap my red-painted nails on the desktop. My eyes sweep across the classroom, observing everything. Different personalities are scattered everywhere. There's a cluster of blonde athletic girls all laughing with boys who all look so similar I wouldn't be surprised if they'd been cloned. All with the same hair, same clothes, facial expressions, you name it. There's a couple of goth kids, not wearing a speck of color, with dark makeup on their faces.

I needed to get to know at least one person. Someone to teach me about how everything works: the people, faculty, classes. A small Asian girl sits at her desk, her mousy brown bangs hanging over her eyes and I can spot her playing with the bracelets around her wrist. Her hair falls just below her chin. She looks like she could be easily manipulated and someone I can get to become friendly quickly and tell me everything.

She looks pretty cute in her yellow cozy sweater and pleated gray skirt just above the knee. I can tell she wants to fit in but she still has her own personal style. She gets good grades but has a hard time making friends. Well, today's going to be her lucky day.

You may think it's shallow for me to judge a book by its cover, but if you think about it, people only hate stereotypes because they're probably true.

The boy enters the classroom, invading my train of thought. Isn't this fantastic? As if I didn't have to live next to the guy too. I get up and head over to the mousy-haired girl's desk. "Hi there!" I greet her, forcing a cheerful welcoming grin. She stops fidgeting with her beaded bracelets, looking up warily, almost surprised that I'm talking to her. "My name's Jax," I introduce myself and slide into the seat in front of hers. "You?" The girl shifts, sitting up higher.

"I'm Kyle," she says with a new shy smile and I notice a splash of freckles along her nose. "Are you new here? I'm not sure I've seen you here before."

"Yup," I grin. "I don't know anyone or anything about this place so... maybe you could fill me in?" Her brown eyes sparkle. Or maybe there was a hint of green in them...?

"Of course! Oh... wow, where do I start?"

"Start with the people here and move on from there," I suggest. Kyle nods and points a finger to a group of kids with long hair and shabby clothes. They looked kind of dirty. "Those are the druggies. They seem nice enough but it's not a group I really want to be involved in, ya know?" She shrugs. "Next, over there you have the goths. Over in the middle of the room are the jocks and stuff. Not exactly the nicest people in the world." A note of disdain enters her tone when she states that last sentence. I get it. Jocks were usually the worst ones, I think to myself, remembering the popular girl cracking jokes about my parents.

Next Kyle gesture towards another group. "Those are the band geeks. Sweet, but kinda weird." My gaze shifts to the boy with the vibrant bright blue eyes without thinking. I open my mouth, about to ask her about him but I'm cut off by the teacher.

"Everyone please take your seats," she smiles. "Good morning, class." The boy comes over to me and Kyle and sits directly in front of me. My heart beats a little faster. A kid stands beside him, clearly confused. Apparently, the boy had taken the kid's seat. "Piss off," the boy growls low under his breath. What an asshole.

A chorus of half-hearted "good morning"s ring out across the room. After that, the teacher begins her roll call. Alyssa Adams gets called first, one of the band geeks.

"Kyle Atkins?"

She raises her hand and murmurs "here". The teacher adjusts her glasses, marking Kyle's name off, and clears her throat. "Andrew Biersack?"

He raises his hand. So that's his name. The pale bruised boy with the eyes that looked like the blue flowers in my garden. I watch as he brings it back down and taps his desk with his long fingers. Andrew.

The teacher goes through a couple more B names and I can tell that she will reach mine soon enough.

"Jackson Clark?" she calls out. I cringe. Most of the students search for who that unfamiliar name belonged to. Slowly, I raise my hand too. I can hear Andrew snort and I want to shut him up by kicking him in the back of the leg but I control my anger and sink back in my seat.

"It's Jax," I snap.

She gives me a warning glance over her glasses. I stare right back at her, unflinching. A few snickers are sprinkled around the room. "So you must be our new student. Why don't tell us a little bit about yourself?"

I set my hands on the desk and stand up. I give everyone a bright smile. "My name's Jax. I'm 16 years old and I've been expelled from every school I've attended in the last 6 years." Eyes widen and hushed voices are spread across the room. The teacher quirks an eyebrow. I sit back in my chair and I hear snickering once again.

The class drags on for a while. History is an okay subject for me, but this woman has such a droning voice. I almost fell asleep a number of times. Eventually, it's time to partner up and do book work. I grab Kyle's wrist once she mentions "partners" and I mouth the word to her. After a second she nods and blushes. I look back at the front again, but I catch a glimpse of Andrew's head turning swiftly. If I wasn't mistaken, he might've been about to ask for me to be his partner.

Kyle and I open our books to the assigned page. The boy and blondie end up getting together. It was a pretty risky move, almost asking me about it. I'm sure his girlfriend wouldn't be too appreciative of it. But then again, I recall what he told me at the lockers. "She doesn't care about me," his carelessness unnerved me. "And I don't care about her. It's just the way it is."

"Kyle," I say sharply. "Tell me what you know about Andrew."

She hesitates. "Shouldn't we be doing bookwork or...?" I roll my eyes. "C'mon, tell me what you know," I pause before adding, "Isn't that what friends are for? Don't we help each other out?" Her face lights up. I inwardly laugh a little. This is too easy.

"Okay," she says quietly, leaning forward and I do it too. "I hate gossiping but you didn't hear any of this from me." I nod hastily. She sneaks a look over to where he and his "girlfriend" were sitting.

"He hooks up with at least one different girl each week, maybe even 2 or 3. He's a total player and he's not even that popular, but all the girls are obsessed with him for some reason. It's probably just that they all think he's dark and mysterious or something cliche like that, but really I think he's just ignorant and rude. I personally don't get it." A blush nearly creeps up to my cheeks, but I do my best to conceal it. All those things Kyle said about how the girls thought of him reminded me of when I saw him for the first time. So stupid.

"Yeah, he tried to talk to me when I was at my locker. It kinda seemed like he was flirting or something," I try my best to act like 90% of the normal girls making conversation, especially about boys. Romance isn't something I have any experience with, or know much about considering that getting people to like me, much less love me hasn't exactly been a top priority. But I know that all the girls get all giggly about it, so I thought I'd give it a try to make it more believable. The giggle feels unnatural, but it helped to get Kyle to talk more.

Her eyes grow big and concerned. "Promise you won't fall for Andy," she says. "He's not worth it." I scoff, a little too loud. "Of course not. I don't even know the guy and he seems like a total bag of shit." She looks slightly more at ease. "Good," she exhales. "I just met you and I don't want you to go through all that pain. I can see how badly some of the girls take it after they learn he never loved them and I wouldn't want my new... friend," She's testing the word out. "to go through any of it." I've got this girl right under my thumb.

"Friend?" I ask, a half smile on my face. Kyle blushes again. "Well... I mean, if you're okay w-with it..."

"Of course," I tell her, pulling out a Sharpie and write out my number on her arm. "Text me sometime, okay?"

"You know what's kinda weird?" she asks. "We technically both have boy's names, and I haven't really met any other girls with masculine names before. And by the way, I don't think you should hate your real name because it's actually really cool."

The bell rings and I force a smile towards her attempt at kindness and my "thank you" is barely audible over the noise.