"Want some?" I held the handful of bacon out to the driver.

Ali just shook her head of dark curls and reached for a piece. Her lightly bronze colored hand brushed mine ever so slightly. It was warm in contrast to my freezing ivory one.

"I'm really sorry about dragging you into school early this whole week. If it weren't for that calculus test I have to make up, we'd all be getting more sleep," Ali said finishing the bacon strip in a quick couple of bites.

I didn't mind going to school early. It gave a chance to get away from my hectic family and study for finals without having to worry about my brother barging into my room. Sure there were rules in place to keep him from doing that but when did little boys listen to rules?

"It's not me you have to worry about complaining. It's Blaze."

Blaze, our other friend, didn't like waking up. Not for school and definitely not earlier than he already had to. But walking the mile to school in the cold sounded less appealing to him than waking up half an hour earlier.

"Speaking of Blaze, we should probably go get him or we'll get an earful," said Ali taking the car out of park and easing it out onto the road.

The wheels caught the second they touched the road and we both breathed a little easier. You never know how the roads will be in the morning, especially after the first snow. Today they were sanded and all ready to go.

Ali and I chatted on the drive to Blaze's house several neighborhoods over. We discussed finals, plans for the winter break, and the upcoming track season.

"If Acadia thinks we're just going to hand the league banner over to them like last year they've got another thing coming," Ali muttered darkly, her normal, soft-spoken nature replaced by a darker attitude.

Following a string of injuries and illnesses last year, Acadia High School had walked all over us and the other schools in our league to claim the league banner and the number one spot. It had been embarrassing for all of us but Ali had taken it particularly hard. She'd been sick that day, I remembered, I'd been the one making sure she didn't pass out when she finished her events. If she'd been well, we would have at least stood a chance.

"They're not going to take it from us," I tried to be reasonable. "You want to know why?"

Ali turned the car down a row of houses and pulled into the driveway of a small, tan one. She laid on the horn.

"Because we're going to start training early and not let little setbacks be the death of us," I finished. "Was the horn really nessacary?"

"Do you want to get out of the car?" Ali turned to me, her chocolate eyes narrowed.

I caught a glimpse of the thermometer on the control panel. 24 degrees Fahrenheit. I shook my head.

The figure advancing down the driveway had a backpack slung over one shoulder and was attempting to wind a scarf around his neck with the other. His wavy dirty blond hair was unkept and stuck up in several odd places like it hadn't been brushed at all that morning. His lips were set in a very thin line and his pale skin was made paler by the cold.

"Morning ladies," he said through chattering teeth as he slid into the backseat.

"Morning," we chorused in response.

Ali pulled the car out of the driveway and we started off towards school. The houses soon gave way to larger buildings and shopfronts as we drove closer to the school and the center of town.

Springport wasn't a very big town. Its population of 2,000 saw to this. The town was made up of small, family-owned businesses like the grocery store on Clerk St and the clothing boutique on Browns. Springport was the very definition of a small, backcountry town.

It took us less than five minutes to arrive at Springport High School and park. The old brick buildings rose out of the ground in perfect little rectangles and all of them were connected. It's constructed so that when there's bad weather, the students don't have to go out in it and potentially freeze.

As soon as the car turned off, Ali was out and already hurrying towards the school and her awaiting calculus test. Blaze and I took a little longer to leave the warmth of the car. He'd fixed his hair so now it was pushed to one side and no longer looked like he'd just woken up.

He glanced over at me and offered me one of his gloves.

"You need to ask your parents for gloves for Christmas," Blaze said, his smokey voice sending shivers down my back.

"I know, I just keep forgetting." I slipped Blaze's glove onto my right hand and stick the other one in my pocket.

"Keep forgetting and you might end up with frostbite," Blaze's eyes teased me but he said it in such a matter of fact way.

I reached the doors of the school first and pulled them open.

"Wouldn't that be a shame? Getting frostbite right before finals week?" I laughed bitterly thinking of the tests that awaited me in a weeks time.

"Now that would be quite a shame," Blaze replied, a note of humor laced his voice.

We continued on like this until more students begun to arrive and the first warning bell sounded. Blaze and I split up. He was headed to the science wing for physics and I was off to meet with Ali for US history. We settled into our desks and waited for the teacher to start lecturing about recent events. And so started the last normal day of the fall semester.