Catalina's POV

My name is Catalina Arellalo. My parents and I recently moved to a village in Mexico called Tacoma. And, today is my first school day at Armstrong Highschool.

As far as I know, my mom is the only person, remaining in her family's lineage. Everyone else seemed to have come in contact with untimely death, which I sometimes fear might come after my mom too. But something that made that fear grow day by day, was me being a single child. I've learned to live with it, and let my guard down. Maybe that's exactly what 'death' has been waiting for me to do.

My father on the other hand... well I can't say much about him. He's always been the type to put family first, so since we weren't given the best slice of life, from being a fetus until now he's been travelling abroad to find a better source for living for us, which caused us to grow apart.

"Catalina! Get up, you don't want to be late on your first day!" I felt a slight sting in my head, as my mom shouted for the fifth time that morning, encouraging me to finally get out of bed and get ready for school.

After getting ready, I went straight to the kitchen, where I found my mom making my lunch for school like every other morning. "Morning!" I said excitedly, but got a rather 'not that excited' response back. "Catalina! Do you know what time it is?" My mom asked, as she quickly made sure I had everything ready that I needed for school.

"You no longer live 5 minutes away from school, get used to it!" She continued scolding, but I just stood there and wasn't sure what I was supposed to say, till she shoved a toast into my mouth.

"Don't just stand there! Go get your things, the bus should be here in about 5 minutes". It was then, I finally realised that, 'this' was actually my first day at the new school and the last thing I wanted was for me to arrive late and then get weird and uncomfortable looks from my fellow students, which I was going to get anyways, since I was the newbie, right?

I found my way out of the building of our apartment, and ran straight to the bus stop, where I waited longer than 5 minutes and I started getting anxious. It was either the bus had already left, or it was late. I tried keeping my hopes high, but after 15 minutes of standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus to finally arrive, I then started walking towards our apartment again.

But, in the process of doing that, a black car with tinted windows showed up in front of me. "Get in!" A man I couldn't recognize requested, as the window in the driver's seat rolled down. Multiple ideas went through my mind at that moment.

'Run back, while shouting to gain attention from people around' or 'Enter the car, and leave quietly' or 'Be as unsuspicious as possible, and call 911, as you enter the car'

I was still contemplating on what to do, when... "I'm sorry, for that. My driver tends to be a bit... Intimidating". She said, with a mischievous smile, that no one would believe to be one.

"Hi, I'm Scarlett Williams". 'Scarlett Williams' I repeated in my head. Both are English names, aren't they? What was someone like her doing here? Here, in the back of beyond?

"I'm guessing you're going to Armstrong highschool" I couldn't figure out how she could possibly know where I was going. "You're wearing the school uniform and so am I, so I figured your next destination is Armstrong highschool?"

'Oh, right! I almost forgot that we wear uniforms'. I thought to myself.

She looked at the watch wrapped around her wrist, before saying... "And, the fact that you're still standing here at half past eight, shows that you're new here since everyone here knows that the bus arrives half an hour earlier than it should".

"Get in. Except you have your mind on a better transportation to school, right now". And without hesitation I followed her order.

'What a way to start a-fresh' I thought.

Throughout the ride I couldn't help, but steal glances of her. It was either she was very rich or the successor of some successful con-artist. Either way, she looked quite expensive, other than the fact that she was sitting in something quite expensive.

The car stopped and it was time to obviously get out, but I waited. I didn't want to be the first to get out. "You know, you can just use the door knob to get out, right?" Scarlett asked, whilst she made her way out of the car.

"Do you know where you're supposed to be now?" I raised a brow in confusion. "Huh? What do you mean?" I knew she was annoyed that I didn't get what she was trying to say, when she rolled her eyes. "Just follow me" And again, I obeyed her order, and followed her. We seemed to have arrived at the perfect time, it was this moment I had been running away from. These mumblings, stares and... glares? I decided not to put in a lot of thought into why I received that kind of greeting even though I expected it. But, something just didn't seem right.

At last, we figured out which class I was going to be assigned to, and fortunately for me, Scarlett was in that class too.

Just as we entered the classroom and I took my seat I was already told to come to the front of the class to introduces myself. "Catalina, please come to the front and introduce yourself". I then stood up from my seat and walked towards my teacher who, was already giving me signals on where I had to stand "Umm... Hi, my name is Catalina Arellalo, I'm 15 years old".

*Silence*... If the looks of my fellow students could speak at that moment 'Can't you read the room?' would be written all over their faces. "Catalina?" She called out. "You know, it would be nice if you could introduce yourself a bit further, than just your name and age" There was this silence again, because I couldn't bring myself to say more than I already did.

"Okay." Ms. Kelly said a little frustrated with the whole situation. "We'll move on with our last topic. Who can give a short explanation?" Since I had no idea what they were working on before I came, I decided to ask Scarlett quietly. "Can you tell me what your last topic was?"

"Photosynthesis." She replied, while raising her hand to answer the question."Yes, Scarlett."
"Photosynthesis provides organisms with oxygen, a gas that many living things need. Oxygen is a product of photosynthesis and is needed for respiration. All organisms respire to release energy and to stay alive."

It was supposed to be a short explanation, wasn't it? I thought.

"Thank you, Scarlett" Ms. Kelly replied.

I would have said that 'photosynthesis is the process in which green plants use elements like water or sunlight to grow and then release oxygen in return', but I guess that works too.

At the ring of the bell there was this strange sound that became louder by the second. Turns out to be the harsh stomping of the students from the other classes as they ran out of their classrooms. What I couldn't comprehend was why the other students behaved like a herd of bulls that haven't seen daylight for years but the students in my class behaved themselves and waited patiently till they were dismissed.

"Okay, you can pack your things. And please read the pages 32-34 in your textbook" Our teacher Ms. Kelly said loudly so everyone could hear even through all the stomping, running and shouting. I packed my things and walked behind Scarlett, through the hallway to our lockers.

"Scarlett?" I called out trying to get Scarlett's attention. "Yeah?" she said, without having any intentions of looking to check who called out to her. "Could you show me where the cafeteria is?" Again it took some time for her to finally answer my question. And I realised that she might be the type of person to take her time doing whatsoever she wanted, not caring if it would affect the person next to her. What's the word? Selfish? Well, I don't know if 'selfish' is the word to describe her type of person.

"We are going to be eating together anyway, so yeah" I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be happy about that statement or not. "Umm... thanks?"

As we entered the cafeteria, it was full and when I say "full" I mean no table was free, I thought maybe Scarlett would suggest us to go somewhere else, but she kept on approaching this particular table. And I was about tapping her shoulder when the students already sitting there immediately stood up and looked for another place to sit. And Scarlett didn't budge or show any type of reaction, but just sat down.

After what happened I just stood there because I was too stunned to speak. "How long do you plan on standing there?" she asked and every single thing that happened that day as long as I was anywhere near her started to add up.

At first I didn't think this was because of her, but now this seems like a very clear reason why I should stay far far away from her.

"Umm... yeah. I should probably take my seat" I replied as I sat across from her and let out a nervous laugh.