Walking home was one of my favorite parts of my day.  It gave me a chance to plug my headphones into my phone and listen to some music that one of my friends up in New York had created and uploaded to a music sharing website. 

A vast majority of the kids who wrote their own music and sang used it to upload new music to see how it would fare with their audience and although my friend's hadn't garnered much buzz as of yet, I was doing what I could do help her go forward. 

I had tried to post some of my own music on the website as well, but after what happened I just couldn't bring myself to look at anything music related.  I was glad that the theater auditions ran over and I didn't have to try out that day, and I told the teacher I just wanted to be a stage hand.  She seemed disappointed because of my musical background but didn't press the issue and I thankfully escaped that class unscathed.

I bonded with one other person over the course of the entire school day, the girl who had done an amazing job performing in theater class, and I realized that she was a girl I vaguely remembered from when I had previously gone to school there and she was sort of an outcast like me, only she didn't have a popular friend like I did, she was completely on the outside.

Dark brown hair, almost black, I recalled how she laughed at my expression when I saw her outfit for the first time.  Let's just say there was a very profane statement written on it and one of the letters had a piece of duct tape over it.

"I like it!" I had said, trying to convince even myself I realized.

She just laughed and waved her hand in a manner that said she didn't mind.

"No worries.  You didn't turn your nose up at it, so that means we're going to be fast friends."

A genuine smile overtook my face when she said that and admired her short almost pixie cut hair that was about a million times darker than my own strawberry blonde shade.

"I'm Eva," she had told me and I instantly liked her even more.  Eva was the name of my great grandmother who had passed away when I was little, but I always remembered her giving me extra treats when my parents weren't looking.

"I love that name.  I'm Caroline," I told her, handing out my hand for her to take.

She surprised me by foregoing my handshake and pulled me into a hug.

"I already know who you are, girl.  You're famous around these parts."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

"And why is that, exactly?"

"Well...you know...you basically called the King of the school an asshole..."

My eyebrows shot up at that statement.

"King of the school?  When I left he was barely apart of the popular crowd.  Kieran didn't even care about anyone but himself.  And anyways, he deserved it, knocking me to the ground like that!"

My outburst caused the middle aged scruffy bearded teacher whose name I could not remember for the life of me to shoot me an evil glare and a very loud "SHHHHH!"

My cheeks basically became flammable after that happened but we continued speaking in more hushed tones.

"Yeah, he may have been uncaring before you left, but like you, people change.  He really did when he went away somewhere for a whole year, it happened like right after you left.  Apparently he got into fights and did some illegal stuff, and he ended up in a place for troubled teens or somewhere instead of going to jail.  It was a huge thing!"

"Wow.  So then, when he came back he was just suddenly popular?"

It didn't make much sense.  Usually people wanted to stay away from people like that.  He was practically a convict.

"Girl, you gotta realize.  He came back looking like Eric freaking Northman from 'True Blood'.  Tall, ripped and dangerous. Who would want to stay away from that?!"

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

"Eric Northman? 'True Blood'?"

Sighing, she shook her head and pinned me with a disappointed stare.

"Oh honey, I have much to teach you. I want you to come over and we can binge the first few episodes in one night. What are your plans this Saturday?"

"Totally free!"

"Perfect. Here's my number, text me Saturday and I can come by and pick you up!"

I stared at her in amazement. How was it so easy to actually make a friend?

"You've got yourself a deal. But only if you give me the what for and who's who in the school, who's dating who, who's off limits, who's single...this girl is tired of waiting around for guys who thinks she exists just to satisfy their sick need for torture and bullying."

"Woah, yeah I can do that for you. We're gonna have a lot to talk about with all that pent up rage."

My eyes about fell out of my head.

"It is not rage!"

And once again the teacher had to chastise me with the loud, "SSHHHHH!" only this time, I was positive I saw a line of spittle escape his lips and land on the brown desk of the student in the front row. Ew.

"Sure, girlfriend. Suuuuure."

I was glad that I had made a new friend, and one of the female variety that I could actually talk to about guys.

The song switching to a hard rock song that I had on my playlist brought me out of my memories from earlier that day and I walked to the beat of the song, the strong lyrics and chorus matching to the tempo to my life at that moment.

I didn't realize someone was calling out to me until I felt a warm hand clasp my shoulder tightly. Immediately and without thinking, my right hand was planted on that stranger's hand and I gripped it tight, just like I was taught.

I could feel the hand start to try and pull away but it all happened in slow motion. I grabbed the foreign hand and squeezed as hard as I could, and I used my momentum to swing my body around so that the arm that hand was connected to was twisted around in a very painful manner.

My eyes widened in fear and surprise when I realized that it was Jake. Well, this would be hard to explain.

Quickly yanking the earbuds out of my ears and dropping Jake's arm, I helped him recover realizing that he was still groaning in pain from the fact that I might have almost broken his hand and his arm at the same time.

"What the hell?!"

"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry! I learned self defense classes when I moved to New York and you snuck up on me! You could've just tapped me on the shoulder..."

"Oh really, so this is my fault now? God! Argh!" he yelled out in pain. I took a few steps away from him, realizing that he needed to gather his bearings before I tried to rationally speak with him once again.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, Care. I know you didn't mean to hurt me, but damn girl you're strong! Self defense classes huh?" he asked once he took a few deep breaths and pinned me with a stare that was hard to forget.

I gulped.

"Y-yeah. Um, a lot of martial arts and stuff like that," I told him, scratching my neck awkwardly while he picked up the pace beside me.

While I didn't lie about the fact that I took self defense classes, for at least a year and a half in a grungy gym that smelled of dirty old socks and man sweat might I add, I did fib a little on the reason as to why I took up the classes in the first place.

But he didn't need to know that, no. No one ever needed to know that.

"Mind if I walk you home? Same house right?"

I smiled to myself. He remembered.

"Yeah, s-same house."

His blue gaze found its way to my face again and I couldn't help but blush. He always did do that to me.

"You're different. You look different, and you also dress different, too. Just how much did New York change my Care-bear?"

I laughed at his signature silly nick name.

"Well, not much. Look, I'm sorry I didn't text or call really and fell off the face of the planet when I moved. It was just...hard."

"Yeah I get it. Being somewhere new and trying to make a fresh start must've been hard for you to keep around a boring old best friend like me," he said begrudgingly, although I could tell that he was smiling on the inside. I could always tell when he was genuinely sad or angry or when he was just messing around with me.

"Please don't take it like that, its not how it was I promise. I guess it was just hard to know I had someone as awesome as you at home and out there I had no one. I guess I just wanted to wallow in the fact that I was alone and then I had to make myself move on"

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But you're back now, no more wallowing in self pity for you. Because you, my dear, are going to be hanging out with your best friend until the end of time!"

I laughed at his melodramatics as we made it a few more steps closer to my white Victorian style two story home.

"Of course, forever and ever!"

"...and ever and ever and ever and the day after that, and the day after that-"

"...and the next day, and the next day, and the next-"

"Okay okay, enough of that. I can go on forever if you don't stop me," he lamented.

"Oh I could go on forever too. Forever and ever and ever and ever and the day after that and the day after that and the next-"

Suddenly he cut me off by stopping me from talking.

With. His. Lips.

Screech!

Author's Note:

How did you all enjoy the chapter?!

Who would you prefer Caroline to be with, even though we're only 3 chapters in: Kieran, or Jake? OR ERIC FREAKING NORTHMAN????!!!

Until next time my lovely readers,

-Kristen :)