Piper June.

Piper June was absolutely, positively, without a doubt, nothing more than the most ordinary girl Rosewood High had ever seen.

In her junior year of high school, the only thing that made her stand out just a little bit was that she volunteered to be a part of the school's tutoring program, unlike her fellow classmates, who had to be bribed by their teachers. She didn't mind helping someone out with their classes, and it would look good on her college applications, so she didn't see the harm in it. In fact, the day this whole mess began (though no one would realize this until much, much later) was supposed to be her second day at it.

Her only problem was that the person she was supposed to be tutoring—E. Finnely—never showed up. She didn’t know who the person was, or what they looked like, so it wasn't like she could walk up to them and ask them what happened. Piper didn’t even know the person’s full name. She was only doing it for the extra credit—even if she didn't really need it—so, she’d sit there and wait, most likely to be stood up once more. It wasn't like she had anything better to do anyway.

She pushed the thought out of her mind and hadn’t really given it that much thought until Jude brought it up as they ate their lunch in the crowded cafeteria. They usually sat at an empty table in the back of the room and kept to themselves. Jude’s sister, Teresa, and her boyfriend, Clark Kennedy, were busy having a quick make out session in the washrooms, so they were unavailable for a while.

Piper's lunches usually consisted of a sandwich, a small salad, some cookies, and a bottle of water. It never changed because Piper wasn't particularly fond of change, and it worked for her, anyway. Jude, who was pretty nosy, started going through Piper's planner, flipping through the pages aimlessly.

“Tutoring E. Finnely?” she questioned, reading from the small notebook. Jude frowned at Piper, wrinkling her nose at him. "Who's that?"

“Huh?” Piper asked, wiping her lips with a crumbled napkin. “Oh, uh, I don’t know. Whoever it is never showed up yesterday.” She washed down her food with a sip from her semi-warm bottle, shrugging. “Who do you think it is?” Jude shrugged too, shutting the planner and sliding it across the table to her friend. She had a feeling, but she didn't want to freak Piper out in case she was wrong. It was a common last name, after all. Sort of. (Not really.)

“A person, hopefully,” she laughed. Piper faked a giggle or two, wincing. A few bruises graced her pale ribcage, making laughing or deep breathing hurt. Jude, the ever observant friend, looked at her dark haired companion. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she fibbed, smiling. “Just peachy.”

In reality, she wasn’t feeling so hot to begin with, and Jude bringing up the elusive E. Finnely didn’t make her feel any better.

Piper sat through all of her classes after lunch with only a slight jitter, feeling anxious. Even during study hall, as she read her book on theories on the make up of stellar nebulae, her mind was elsewhere. She couldn't focus, not at all, and it was really starting to get to her. She hadn't even met the kid and already he was messing with her thoughts. In her last class for the day, AP Calculus, she couldn't even take any notes. I'll have to get Jude's, she thought as she glanced down at her blank page. She gathered her belongings at the end of class, following Jude to their locker.

Originally, their lockers were far away from each other, but seeing as Piper was just slightly unsettled, Jude concluded that it wouldn't really hurt anyone if they just shared a locker. She didn’t really mind, because she knew Piper would do the same thing for her if the tables were turned.

“Can I have your notes?” Piper asked nervously as she retrieved her things.

“Sure, PJ. Need a ride home today?” She nodded. “I’ll be round at like four then?” Piper smiled at her after they said their goodbyes and went their different ways. The blonde wallflower walked down towards the library, knowing not what she was getting herself into.



Ezra Francis Finnely wasn’t much better off.

First, he had gotten pulled out of one of his few enjoyable classes, crafts with Mr. Heath, in the middle of drawing a really awesome sketch of the back of Quinn's head. Then, as if that hadn't been enough, he had been dragged off to the vice principal’s office to receive a lecture.

Mrs. Clearwater was a middle aged woman who wore her brown hair pulled back in a tight and surely uncomfortable bun and always insisted on wearing wretched tweed suits that were unflattering to her body shape. Ezra and Mrs. Clearwater were on a first name basis. By 'first name basis,' I mean that he insisted on calling her by her first name instead of using her last name and the honorific “Mrs.” like the rest of the staff and student body.

It wasn't like Mrs. Clearwater let him, but oh well.

“Do you understand me, Ezra?”

“Andrea, I know you know that’s a rhetorical question. I got you, girl,” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

“Ezra, you can’t just skip tutoring. I don’t want to keep seeing you in my office.”

“Are you saying you don’t like me anymore? I thought we had something special,” he sniffled, sarcastic tone heavy, looking away with his nose in the air, arms crossed across his chest.

“Ezra!” she rebuked harshly, slamming her hand down on her cluttered desk, glaring at the student before her irately.

“You just love saying my name, don’t you Andrea? Not that I really mind.” He smiled brightly at her, wriggling his eyebrows suggestively. She scowled, mouth drawn into a thin line. She took a deep breath and fixed her thin glasses.

“You can't be so self centered, young man. People have things to do after school and their lives do not revolve around yours. That poor girl sat there and waited for you for an entire hour yesterday. She's got a lot of things to do, and she's willing to take time out of her very busy schedule to tutor you. Personally, I think it might be a lost cause because we both know you don't care about anything. If she wants to help you, I can't stop her. It's a free country. However, if I hear you skip it again, I can suspend you so quickly it'll make your head spin. Do you understand, Mr. Finnely?”

“Mr. Finnely is my father and I’m sorry to say that you have me mistaken for somebody else. You should probably start taking your meds, Mrs. Clearwater.”

“Ezra Finnely, you cheeky little—” she began to screech, only to be cut off by the shrill sound of the bell. Ezra popped out of his seat with a shrug, grabbing his binder of chicken-scratch-like notes.

“Saved by the bell, good bye, Andrea. I'll see you around.”

“You’re not going anywhere. You'd better sit down right now, Ezra!”

These words were wasted as he slammed the door on his way out, walking into the stream of the student body. He pulled on his sunglasses over his eyes, shooting a smile at a few people here and there.

“Dude!” Quinn exclaimed, as he walked out of last period Spanish. “In trouble again, huh?”

“Me? In trouble? Never!” Quinn laughed as they walked to their lockers, which just so happened to be right next to each other, so, as they retrieved their belongings, it was the perfect opportunity to prattle on about their plans for the weekend.

“You're going to Tracy's tonight right?” Ezra rolled his eyes, stuffing his binder haphazardly inside his locker and exchanging it for his chemistry notes. He sighs.

“I have better things to do.”

Tracy's parties kind of sucked anyway. (And she was Jenny's best friend, too. He'd like to avoid her at all costs.)

Ezra's plans involved going to The Cross and getting so wasted he couldn't see properly, like he had done every Friday for what felt like the longest time. The Cross was where all those pill popping hipster kids–cough like Ezra cough—hung out during the weekend. It wasn’t religious in any sense of the word. It was an abandoned subway tunnel that was cold, damp, and not too moist—perfect for teenagers who wanted to get plastered and high as a kite without the interruption of adults or the police. The only reason it was called The Cross was because the entrance was through the side door of a cathedral in Manhattan, two blocks down from St. Paddy's.

Obviously, not every one could go.

No one ever talked about it, or the fights, or the trips, or anything. You just showed up, got high, hooked up with someone, and left. Ezra loved it, and he never really had a bad time.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a library to get to.”

“You're going to the library?" Quinn asked, eying his friend suspiciously.

"It's a magical place with these things called books. You read and study them, Quinn. It's a wonderful thing, you should really check it out sometime." Ezra slammed his locker with a sigh, small smile on his face. "Catch you later.”

Quinn was quickly lost among the throng of students exiting the school. Ezra headed in the opposite direction, towards the school library. Some kids waved, some gave him high fives, some glared, some shoved him, some ignored him. Ezra didn't care. It didn't matter if anyone liked him or disliked him. He didn't think he was anything special. (Well, not really special, anyway.) Other people did. He wasn't going to bother trying to understand them.

He sat down at an empty wooden table, putting his feet up on it. He started chewing a piece of gum. So engrossed was he that he didn't notice when someone set their things down on the table. The light thump pulled him out of his thoughts.

“Excuse me? Can I help you?” he inquired, taking off his sunglasses and hanging them on the collar of his shirt.

“Actually,” Piper said quietly, “you can. I’m looking for someone named E. Finnely…?”

“E?” he questioned. “His name is Ezra, and that’s me. Hi there.”

“Hi, Ezra.”

“Are you going to introduce yourself and sit or stand there and stare with your mouth hanging open? 'Cause you know darling, that’s how you catch flies.” She sat down, hair covering her face as she blushed lightly. She pushed it out of the way carefully.

“I’m P-Piper June.” She played with the sleeve of her stripped jumper, looking down at her black oxfords. This was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea. Maybe she could talk to Mrs. Clearwater about backing out of this thing.

“P-Piper?” He tested it, smirk on his face. “Short and sweet, I like it.” She smiled, opening her book and flipping through it, wondering where she could start. “But, I think I’ll call you June. It suits you more.” She shrugged, acting as if she didn't really care what he called her. Inside, though, she was puzzled a bit, because a boy named Ezra—how exotic!—liked her name and was calling her June, of all things.

He held her attention at first because of his face. He had cute cheek dimples, and a thin, silver hoop going right through the cartilage of his nose on the right side. She’d seen people with piercings before—like Jude—but never a boy with his nose done. She'd ask Jude about it.

“Let’s start with your homework.” He frowned slightly, but obliged her nonetheless, pulling a wrinkled sheet from his binder for chemistry (and every other subject he took, seeing as he had no organizational skills whatsoever), already annoyed. He didn't like chemistry and found it useless, and he didn't see why he had to take the class to begin with.

“Oh, this is easy,” she laughed quietly, trying to not wince. Her sides were hurting more than usual. She could wince in front of Jude because Jude knew why—she knew Piper inside and out—but Ezra didn't, and she had no intentions of letting him get that close to her. As far as she was concerned, their relationship wasn't going to go much further than the library. “It’s atomic bonding! How do you not know how to do this?” she asked, looking at him with a giggle.

“Because Mr. Newton likes to lecture us and drone on like this,” he said, proceeding to poke fun at his elderly professor, thus earning yet another giggle from Piper. If he knew how hard it was to even provoke a slight smile from her, he’d feel rather proud of himself. Piper didn't smile often because she didn't have much of a reason to.

“Okay, so there are a few things you need to know about atoms. First off…”



Piper June walked outside with her backpack balancing precariously on her shoulder. She held her math book to her chest as she scanned the parking lot quickly, looking for Jude's black car. She smiled when she spotted it and started running down the steps, anxious to get home. Jude was falling asleep on the driver’s side, feet up on the dashboard. Piper tapped on the glass to wake her up. Jude scrambled to unlock the passenger door. Piper opened the door and sat down, setting her books down at her feet, her library book resting faithfully on her lap.

“How’d it go?” she questioned sleepily, starting up the car.

“Okay, I guess. He’s actually sort of smart. I don’t know why he doesn’t just… try. ” She sighed, opening the window.

“What’s he like?”

“He’s very...peculiar. That’s all I can really say.” Piper groaned lightly, playing with the ends of her hair. “I have to write an essay for history that’s due on Friday.” Piper June was running on little to no steam, and she knew that her day was far from over. She just wanted a nap, but that wasn't going to happen. “His name is Ezra,” she murmured, looking out the window. Across the street, he was walking along, busy with his phone. She looked back at Jude, who slammed down on her brakes recklessly.

“Ezra? Ezra Finnely? You’re his tutor?!” she exclaimed. Piper nodded, looking at her friend.

“What?”

“He’s…ugh! He’s just such a tool! He's a total jerk,” Jude mumbled.

"How do you know?"

“Because I do!” She glared across the street at him as he walked on, carrying his books under one arm, still not letting go of his phone. “And he smokes, like, all the time.” She shivered. Jude had a severe disdain to people who smoked, or drank, or did drugs. "He's disgusting. Ew."

“Ew? Are we seven? Does he have cooties too?”

“He probably does, he gets around enough.”

Piper frowned at the thought, slightly disappointed. She didn’t think there was anything exceptionally terrible about him. He actually seemed pretty nice. She watched as he made his way down to the subway, wondering where he was going. She ignored Jude’s tirade about the mysterious boy, wondering what the next day had in store for her.