Alone

How often does it rain in August in California?

Apparently the gods, or whatever's up in the sky, were trying to give me a warning today. I should have known, it never rains on the first day of school. Not here at least. Sunshine, California; home of the phonies, the fakes, the liars, the cheaters, the emos, the preps, the punks, and me. I would say the outcasts, but we don't have a group, so to pluralize us is a mistake.

Well, I'm not really an outcast. I'm more like... none of the above. See, an outcast is that loser in the corner with no friends and no one to give a shit whether they die or not. That's not me. I'm proud to say that I'm a loud smart-ass with quite a few friends. The thing is... well, I'll get into what the thing is later.

I drove my old, beat-up white ford to school. In the rain. First day of junior year, here I come.

The parking lot was shockingly empty. It makes sense that most kids would want to walk since rain is so seldom in these areas, but just the fact that there were only two other cars in the vacinity made me feel a little uneasy. I sat there for awhile, scoping to make sure I was supposed to be here. Is there a holiday this Monday; school starts tomorrow? What time is it?

Sure enough, seven-thirty on the dot. I guess everyone is just going to show up late.

My iPOD blasted A Day to Remember in the speakers as I sat there in mild confussion. I was about to fall asleep as a mellow song started when suddenly BAM!

I jumped out of my skin as a body crashed into my parked car's windshield. What the fuck was that?! I jumped out of my driver's seat and ran around the hood. On the floor, blood smeared all over his face, was my friend, Alex.

"What the hell? Are you ok? What just-"

Then the seemingly-unconscious body jolted and sprang up to my face. "HA!" he yelled.

"What the hell was that?" I asked.

"The real question is what the hell are you doing sitting in your car while the rest of us are gathered comparing schedules and talking shit about all the obviously pregnant girls?!" He exclaimed, grabbing my hand as he got up and pulling me out of the parking lot.

"No one's here yet." I denied.

"No, no one's outside because it's raining, genius." he laughed. Suddenly everything made a bit more sense to me. "Anyways, we haven't seen you, like, all summer. I thought you were in the witness protection program, but everyone agreed you were more likely to have been in hiding because you murdered someone, not for witnessing it." he laughed. Strange how we're already sixteen but he hasn't changed since I met him when we were twelve.

I met my gathered friends. We don't really make much sense together, I realized as I took a good look. We have Katie, the punk. Then Jeremy, the emo. Alex was pretty preppy. Then there's me. I guess we all just have out own thing going on. For some reason, these differences disturb me.

"Hey, Danni!" Katie exclaimed, jumping up and giving me a hug. I must say, no one can give hugs quite like Katie.

"Where you been hiding forever?" Jeremy asked. A bell cut through our reunion. "Uh, answer that at lunch. Please tell me you have second lunch, too!" He said. Apparently there were so many people that we needed to have multiple lunches in the schedule.

I looked down. "Not this year." I mumbled. Everyone got silent. "Well, at least we'll most likely have a class. Or see you after school. We'll meet right here." I said, ensuring that we would be able to hang out. And that's when I realized that this year, a lot of things were probably going to be different.

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"Welcome to AP English!" Mr. Agundez greeted us as the tardy bell rang. Oh boy, another year with preps all thinking they're smarter than everyone else in the world. Why must my councellor insist on placing me in the "smart" class?

"I thought it would be fun to start the year by giving you an opportunity to introduce yourselves. I want an essay, however long you want, describing you by tomorrow, and then you are going to read it aloud tomorrow. So, without further adu, let's get started." he said, passing out a prompt just in case in the four seconds he was actually addressing us, we weren't paying attention. I hate school.

I pulled out a piece of paper, but writer's block hit me instantly. What do I write about myself?

Pen on paper, no words coming out. A bunny being eaten by a wolf that had chased it was drawn in the upper corner. A squirrel who had half of its fur melted off after a volcano erruption was on the back. Five minutes left in class.

"Hello, my name is Danni." Well, that's a start.