"Wake up! Wake up already!" A high pitched voice screamed into my ear, causing me to jolt awake practically rolling off the bed. I looked up in a groggy state, of course it's my mother.

“Five more minutes.” I grumbled rolling to the other side of the bed.

“Get out of bed right now young lady!” She grabbed the sheet off of me. Ugh I was nice and comfy.

"Ugh, what time is it?" I groaned, slowly getting out of bed, nearly jumping out of my skin as my feet touched the cold wooden floor, making my mother scowl once more. If that wasn't enough I nearly tripped on some books I had laying around. I'm not exactly one to clean my room that often. I’m the type that doesn’t put things back where they belong, but I put them in the most convenient spot to me. Most of the time that means right by my bed. I mean who doesn’t want things conveniently close to them? That also means tripping over them often.

"It's already six-forty! You missed the bus. Now I am getting sick and tired of driving you to school. When your father gets home tonight we are going to have a serious talk, young lady!" She scolded, complete with the finger wag in front of my face. I've told her so many times how I didn't like people in my bubble, yet it seems to fuel her getting in my face even more. I don't like being touched, I mean how hard of a concept is that to grasp? I’m getting really tired of having such strict uptight parents. It feels like every small mistake I make she’s up in my face screaming at me. The more she pushes, the more I push back.

I just stared at her for a moment until a big ole shit eating grin ran across my face. "You mean if he comes home tonight?" I shrugged my shoulders to add salt to the wound. Things have been rough around here lately since my father started sleeping with his secretary, it hasn't exactly been a secret. Despite how bad I feel for my mom, all sympathy went out the door when she started taking her anger out on me. The plus side is since my dad started seeing this woman behind my mom’s back, well kind of behind her back, everybody knew, he’s been less strict. Without my dad’s backing my mom’s threats have been empty.

Her jaw hit the floor and she held her hand up as though to smack me but I quickly scrambled to the other side of the room and threw on the first thing I could grab. Ever since her threats haven’t been working on me she has tried to get violent a few times, but she’s just too slow for the most part so for the most part she’s been unsuccessful. I really wish she would work on her anger though. Within minutes I was out the door and on my bike headed to school. It would have been more convenient if my mother would have driven me again, but it's only a few miles away. Being a little sweaty would be better than putting up with her nagging the whole car ride. She’s been insufferable to be around lately, taking her anger out on anyone near her. Even her friends don’t want to be around her anymore, which has just made things worse for me.

About halfway there an expensive looking car pulled beside me, the window rolled down to reveal Ms. Popular rich girl herself; Shelby. "Oh look it's poor Ariella on her bike again!" She sneered. "But I guess you could use the exercise huh?" The car she’s in is probably worth more than my whole house. Sometimes I wished I could live the excessively rich life as well.

"Kiss my ass Shelby." I gave her the finger, balancing the bike with one hand. Ugh I hate the rich girls of my school. I'm not even fat! The audacity!

"Freshman." She rolled her eyes before rolling the tinted window back up. They squealed away, quite literally leaving me in their dust. It must be nice to be so rich you have your own personal driver. We were never rich, but things were much better before my father started giving his secretary the finer things in life. He even forgot my fifteenth birthday to give her a new designer purse she just had to have! He has left us with barely enough money for food each month, spending all the rest on her whims. At this point I bet he’s even paying for her apartment.

I huffed and puffed as the school came into view. I scrambled to get the bike tied to the rack and sprinted into the school. I was sweaty and out of breath but I made it before the first bell, just barely. It gave me just enough time to stop off at my locker before class.

"Hey Ari! Did you do last night's history worksheet? I couldn't figure out number five." My friend Cassie questioned, shoving a paper in my face. “Any chance you could help me out real fast?”

"Uhhhh." I panicked a bit.

She narrowed her eyes. "Again? This is the fourth time this week! Here, make it quick." She handed me the worksheet so I could quickly copy her answers. I don't know what I'd do without her.

I held the papers up against my locker and quickly scribbled some answers on mine as the next bell would ring soon. I tried to change as much as possible so it didn’t look like I copied off of her. I don’t really care if I get in trouble, but I don’t want her to. "Here! Thanks!" I handed her paper back, she quickly scurried off to her first period class. I shoved my paper back into my bag. Unfortunately my first class is up stairs so I didn't make it before the bell rang.

"Miss Fay, you are late again!" My first period teacher grumbled, somebody hasn't had enough coffee yet. "That's after school detention for you. Again.”

I groaned and took my seat next to my snickering classmates. Haha, laugh at the loser! Getting real tired of after school detentions, but hey what are you gonna do?

As my teacher began rambling on about math and numbers, you know the stuff that I totally don't get and will likely never use. I mean seriously when am I going to ever need to find X in a long equation in real life? At the very least I'm never going into the math field; I glanced out the window. It's such a beautiful day today, summer vacation is drawing close so the weather was already warm and welcoming. Except who was that meandering around outside? She looked confused and lost. Her long hair was matted with dirt and leaves. She couldn't be much older than me, so what's she doing outside of school? If she's skipping I totally want to also.

"What are you staring at? Eyes forward! This is why you’re barely passing!" My math teacher yelled at me across the room which caused yet another outburst of snickering from the class. Ugh it's going to be one of those days.

It felt like forever until lunch, going through another mediocre day in class, barely keeping my focus up on the board. Occasionally I'd start to daydream. Honestly it was a bit hard for me to focus but I've got a lot of stuff going through my head right now, but you know, whatever gets me through the day.

"This is the worst!" Cassie complained as I plopped my lunch tray down at the round table beside her. "I have to write a five page essay on the civil war for next week. This is torture!"

"Ugh. I have history next period, guess I know what I have to look forward to." I sat silently for a minute while using my fork to push around the barely edible food on my plate, but then brought up the strange girl I saw first period. "Hey did you happen to see a weird girl walking around outside earlier? I don't know, she just seemed strange to me."

Cassie barely looked up from her own lunch. "Yeah I saw her too, I've never seen her around before."

"Weird, just who is she then?" I wondered out loud. Maybe I’ll just have to figure this out myself.