Burn it Down

~Megan's POV~

"Mom, I'm telling you this school is fucking nuts." I said to my mother. It was the end of my first day and I already didn't ever want to go back.

"Watch the tone, young lady." She warned me.

I sighed heavily. "I'm not kidding! I made 2 friends today and one had to go to the nurse's office because some kids slammed his head into the corner of the locker."

"I'm sure they will take care of that." My mother said. Sometimes she didn't care, or was busy not listening to anything I had to say. She didn't like to take care of me.

"I don't think that's it, mom. The nurse was laughing at him and blowing it off like it was nothing."

"Well, did he say stop laughing these kids hurt me? Did he tell her what happened?" My mother was going through her magazines and catalogues. She didn't want to deal with this now. We had finally began to settle in our new house.

I paused. "Well...no...but--"

"Then how is that the nurse's fault?" Her eyes came up and looked at me and I wanted to stamp my feet and shake her.

"Because I told her! I said someone had pushed him on purpose into the locker, and they pushed him into me."

"Megan...sweetie. I'm sure it was an accident. Just give it some time." She was clearly getting annoyed.

"It WASN'T! They did it on purpose to hurt him! That school sucks!" I turned on the balls of my feet and ran up the stairs to my room. I closed the door and flopped down on my bed and turned the TV on.

For some reason, and I couldn't tell you why, after only a few minutes I got extremely bored. The sun was still up and it was warm enough, so I left my room.

"Mom, I'm going for a walk. I have my phone." I called.

"Okay sweetie, just try to be back before it gets too dark." My mom called back before I was too far gone to hear her.

You might think she was a bad parent, but she wasn't. Apparently this was a great area with the lowest crime rate in the city of Denver. But considering what I had been told about Central High School, I wondered if the crime was something I should worry about too.

I didn't know where I was headed. I heard my mother say there was a park around here so I pulled out my phone to look at what was around me on Google maps, and sure enough, a few blocks away, there was a park. So I headed that way.

The park was nothing special. I liked the views though. I love mountains and sitting in the lush green of the park while staring at those snow capped mountains in the background always made me feel at ease and relaxed. I started tuning out when someone tapped on my shoulder making me fly off the bench I was sitting on. When I regained some composure, I turned to see Luke who was nearly pissing his pants laughing at me.

I got up and looked at him and huffed. "That's not funny!"

"It is, a little bit. You have to admit."

I stayed quiet until my little flare of anger washed out of my body.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him. He was dirty, and the bottom of his jeans were wet.

"Funny," he said, smiling. "I was going to ask you that. You do any rock hunting?"

"No," I said. "but it sounds fun, I guess?"

He smiled at me like he was going to show me the world.

"There's a stream not too far back. You can find fools gold, some fossils, other minerals. You can come with me if you want."

Suddenly I really wanted to. I had a friend that was a boy for once. I usually only hung out with girls.

I reached into my pockets and pulled out a hair tie and tied my hair up so it wouldn't be in my face while we were doing this and I looked at him. My clothes were still the same I wore to school so getting them beat up or dirty was the least of my problems.

"Okay, I'll go with you. I just don't know what to do with my cellphone."

He stopped and pulled out a plastic baggy handing it to me.

"Just put it in the baggy, make sure it's tight and shove that shit right in your pocket. Boom, waterproof."

I stared at him like an idiot wondering why I had never thought of it. I did as he said and he waved me to follow him. Jogging after him we ended up at the bed of the stream.

"Okay," he told me. "Looking along the bed is cool, but you find the best rocks in the water. Look for anything that looks different and grab the fucker."

I hunted for rocks with Luke for hours ignoring my mother's calls until I was positive she might call the police to tell her I had just been busy and unable to answer the phone. Luke walked me home, waving to my mom from the porch. She waved back and seemed to like that he was gentlemanly enough to have walked me home when it was so dark.

"Luke, did you need a ride home?" My mom asked. She thought he was handsome and she really appreciated that he seemed so nice.

"No ma'am, I live right up the street. I'll be okay. Thank you so much for your offer."

"Okay..." My mom said. For some reason she didn't want Luke to leave either. I had no guy friends and she was thrilled I managed to snag one. I didn't know if I should tell her I may have two. "Does your mother know where you are?"

"Yes ma'am." He smiled at her.

My mother had no option but to smile back. "Alright. Well have a great night Luke. Thank you for bringing Megan home safe and letting her go out and have some fun with you."

"No problem. It was my pleasure." He smiled and waved again and my mother was immediately taken with him so when I told her a few weeks later he had asked me to the school Homecoming dance, she was over the moon.

And of course, I told him yes.