Mine
A. N. Senerella
Copyright © 2017 by A. N. Senerella.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Dedication
To Tiffany McGuire. You believed in me before anyone else did, and you gave me a friend when I needed one. I'll never be able to tell you how thankful I am for your inspiration and kindness when I needed it.
To Scott Newell. Sorry I wrote this during your class instead of taking notes for two years. You're an amazing teacher, and one hell of a friend. I know I can go to your class when I need a break or someone to talk to. Thanks for putting up with me for what's almost been three years now.
To Mary Anderson. You were my first English teacher in the first school I ever truly loved, then my Creative Writing Two teacher, and you kept things fun and interesting for all of us. Thank you for helping me push my limits as a writer.
To Reneé Motter. My first Creative Writing teacher, you helped me form new styles and ways of thinking. Your class was excellent and I wish I could take it again.
I don't feel like teachers get the credit they deserve, but these four in particular impacted me in ways that will change the rest of my life, and this was the least I could say for them. I didn't like who I was when I met these people, and I had no faith in my abilities. Each of them helped me fix that, one day and one way at a time.
Oh, and also to Sam McCracken, because while I was typing up this page for the hundredth time, she said, "Oh, and to me, just for fun, lol". You helped motivate me to finish this book when I thought I couldn't do it. Thanks.
I love you all.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 1
Just like any high school, mine was always buzzing with gossip and rumors. Not that I paid much attention to them. If I heard them, I’d listen, but I never gave them much credibility because I’d played the game Telephone as a kid and I knew how badly things got distorted when passed from person to person. Especially when there was one kid that wanted to stir things up a little. Today was different though. Rather than gossip, everyone was talking about some new guy and setting up competitions to see who could get his phone number first. I remembered four months ago when the same thing had happened with Franklin, the poor guy. He was still dating one of the lowest lowlifes on the planet, and he didn’t seem to care that she was cheating on him with roughly five other guys. Some guys were just desperate, I guess.
My day already sucked. My penguin pendant—the one I’d worn around my neck since I was in elementary school because of my love for penguins—had disappeared. I’d woken up ten minutes late and had to get a ride with Sierra and even though I loved her—she was one of my best friends after all—she was definitely not someone I wanted to be near in the morning. She was one of those people who woke up in the morning as if she was going to Disneyland or something. I, on the other hand, was the kind of person you had to roll out of bed and, by doing so, you’d be at risk of being beaten for waking me up. Her perkiness was normally kind of nice, but in the morning it made me want to choke her.
The night before, my hair had dried weird, so it was falling in tangled waves halfway down my back instead of being in a messy bun where it was normally stored. I hadn’t even tried to yank a brush through the tangled mess, but it still looked kind of neat; windblown, almost. Except, the way less hot version of whatever image that sends through your mind.
Now I was at my locker, glaring at it because my combination wasn’t working. Once a month or so this would happen, causing me to have to go get a janitor to open it for me because it was jammed for no reason whatsoever. Lucky me.
I sighed sharply in anger at the locker and kicked the bottom of it, hard. Luckily, all my shoes had steel toes so it didn’t hurt me, but it clearly messed up the locker a little bit. Not enough for anyone to notice it, but enough that I had a small panic attack from seeing it. Something clicked when I kicked it, and I thoughtfully pulled on the latch, swinging the locker open easily. “Finally,” I muttered victoriously. After tossing my books in without bothering to make them tidy, I turned around to start walking and ran straight into the chest of some guy. I gasped sharply, apologizing under my breath.
“You looked like you were having trouble.”
“I’m fine.” Ugh. I didn’t want to start a conversation; I wanted to get to my first class and get it over with so that I could just move on with my day and go enjoy my weekend. “Please move.” I sighed when we did the thing where you kind of step in the way, mirroring the other person, so neither of you can pass.
He stepped to the left with a lengthy stride to let me pass.
I walked around him quickly, but something caught the handle of my backpack and almost sent me flying backward from the sudden resistance to my gait.
“How’ve you been, Anika?”
I glared up at the boy, looking at his face for the first time, feeling as though my stomach had sunk through my feet. Oh. Great. It was Brady. This moron was the most irritating person I’d ever known in my life and was one of the more ‘popular’ guys in the school. All the more reason to dislike him, in my opinion. “I’d be better if you would let go of my backpack.”
He snorted.
I struggled, then sighed. “You know what? I don’t have time for this crap.” I slipped my arms out of the backpack and pulled my phone out of my pocket, texting Sierra that I needed to borrow some paper and pens for first period because someone had decided to play keep-away during passing period. Once I reached my Astronomy class, I assumed my regular seat in the back left corner of the room at the small cluster of desks that were completely uninhabited except for me. The bell rang, and there was no sign of Sierra. I groaned mentally. This was going to be miserable. Maybe the teacher would let me borrow a pencil.
Most people would probably not leave their backpack with someone like Brady, but the truth was that when I was angry, I truly didn’t care about anything. Someone could come up to me and grab my leg and I would probably just saw it off to get away from them before I slowed down and asked them to let go of it. Therefore, I no longer had a backpack.
Eh. It would probably make its way back to me eventually.
As always, Mr. Shrem started class late. When he rushed in, I shook my head, smiling. He was my favorite teacher. “Sorry, students. There’s a new student in the school, and he was having a hard time finding the room.”
Sure, Shrem, I scoffed mentally, smiling.
“This is Foster
Woods. He’s an incoming junior from Alaska, I believe.” Shrem motioned vaguely to the boy standing in front of the chalkboard. The first thing I noticed was that he was huge. Most of the guys at this school were between five ten and six two, but this guy looked like he was seven foot twelve or something from the way he towered over Mr. Shrem. He had black hair and a slight arrogance in his stance that bothered me for whatever reason. The second thing I noticed was that his eyes were locked on me. Which, in all likeliness, was probably what I should’ve noticed first, but I wasn’t one for eye contact. And finally, the last thing I noticed? He had my backpack.
How the hell? Brady had it last time I checked. Ugh. New to the school and already buddied up with the village idiot. Great choice. Whatever. As long as I got my backpack back, I didn’t really care that he had it.
His gaze was intense and I shifted a little bit, thinking that if he saw me looking at him, he would look away from me. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Foster’s eyes were locked dead on mine, and he didn’t show signs of looking away. I couldn’t tell what color they were from here, but I assumed they were blue. Black-haired boys with blue eyes were always the bad boys in this school, and he definitely had the “bite me” vibe. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Shrem cleared his throat awkwardly. I loved how awkward he was. “Um… Foster, care to share a few things about yourself?”
Foster was still looking at me. “I’m seventeen, I’m a junior, and I’m not available. I say that because I’ve been asked several times and it’s getting rather bothersome.”
At least six girls groaned in defeat. I laughed, rolling my eyes and looking away from Foster. There were slight chills touching my spine; he had been addressing the class, but I had felt like he was talking only to me when he spoke. Stupid, I know, but the eye contact made me feel like it was a little more directed than it actually was. Maybe that was just what eye contact did, though.
Shrem laughed a little. “Alright. You can take a seat wherever you like. Anika’s entire table group is open, so feel free to go sit over there.”
Why? Why would he do that? No. Come on, Shrem. Why?
Foster walked over to my table group and took the seat diagonal to mine, facing me but not directly in front of me. He didn’t say anything but tossed my backpack carefully over the tables so that it fell into the seat next to me.
Surprise flashed through my body for a moment before I nodded to him to say thanks.
He nodded back.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my Astronomy notebook, looking down at my notes and flipping through them while Mr. Shrem explained something I probably wasn’t interested in hearing about. When he set a test down in front of me, I almost jumped in surprise. I looked at him for an answer, but he just laughed and shook his head. The test stared up at me evilly. I hated those things with their imaginary numbers and hard to understand words that I wasn’t sure actually existed. Penumbra. Who the hell knew what that was? It’s not like I was a scientist.
I glanced up, and Foster was looking at me like he was expecting something. It was tempting to just blurt out “What?” but he had been nice enough to give me my backpack, so I decided to ignore it and just turn back to my test. After ten minutes, I was pretty sure he was still watching me. I could feel his eyes on me, and I did my best not to look at him. His eyes were burning holes into me; I could feel it. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop. Looking. At. Me,” I quietly growled between my teeth to the boy less than three feet from me. What was his problem? Was he trying to cheat on the test or something? Poor choice on his part; I didn’t know any of the material either. Ha, sucks to be you if you’re trying to cheat. I felt slightly victorious. Did that count as a victory?
Foster didn’t reply.
The rest of the class continued like that. I could just feel him watching me. The whole time. It was kind of creepy. So, when the bell rang, I almost bolted out of the classroom. Just outside of the Astronomy room, though, someone grabbed my backpack and yanked hard. This time, I flew backward into someone. When I spun around, I punched blindly.
Mitchell doubled over instantly and my eyes widened.
“Oops,” I said awkwardly.
He groaned. “If I didn’t love you, I would hate you right now.”
It was all suddenly very funny to me. I started laughing at my other best friend as he pretended like he had been shot or something. To be fair, I probably hit him pretty hard. So what? I was irritated and creeped out. Really it was his fault. Mitchell glared up at me from his bent position and I grinned at him. “Well, you shouldn’t have grabbed my bag like that. Brady did it earlier and it pissed me off pretty bad.”
He straightened himself up and sighed. “I changed my mind. I hate you.”
I snorted. “Nah. You love me.”
He glared again and I blew him a kiss dramatically. “Next time, I’m gonna hit you back.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Come at me, Ross.” We play-fought all the time, and I always called him by his last name when we did. I raised my fists teasingly and Mitchell brought his fist backward so that he could do his lame punch thing; basically, he would pretend to actually punch me pretty hard, but his hand would slow down dramatically at the last second and barely tap my shoulder. I lightly kicked his shin and laughed, and he started to do his stupid habitual punch, but suddenly someone had him by the elbow.
I stared at Foster.
The look on Foster’s face… Well, have you ever heard the phrase: “If looks could kill?” This one could wipe out a country.
Mitchell turned around in confusion and Foster roughly pushed him away, against the locker.
“What the hell?” I yelped, grabbing onto Mitchell’s other arm and trying to pull him away.
Mitchell looked terrified. He was only five foot nine, just two inches taller than I was, and he was not exactly a body builder. In fact, he was captain of the chess club, if that hints at all toward his body type.
Foster looked dead into Mitchell’s eyes, his arm like a bar across the smaller boy’s chest to keep him against the locker. “What were you doing?”
I glared angrily and shoved Foster’s arm. “Let go of him!” I ordered.
His eyes shifted toward me in consideration, their dark blackish-brown depths looking down into my blue ones. “He was going to hit you.” As if that explained it! Why the hell was he attacking Mitchell? It’s not like he had done anything to him!
“No, he wasn’t. That’s just some stupid game we play.”
“It’s definitely stupid,” he agreed, coldly.
“You know what else it is? None of your business. Let go of Mitchell.” Foster removed his arm from Mitchell’s chest and I yanked him toward me suddenly, away from his attacker. I was certain that my evil eye could match Foster’s, and his look of suppressed anger was now just an acidic glare. I didn’t look away from him and instead met his glare with my own. We stayed like that for a while before Mitchell tugged on my arm gently, pulling my attention away from Foster.
“Anika, we have to go now,” Mitchell muttered into my ear. “You’re causing a scene.”
“He’s causing the scene,” I hissed.
He was right, though. There were roughly ten people just staring at me and Foster, waiting to see what would happen. Finally, I tore my gaze away from Foster and grabbed Mitchell’s hand, towing him away from the hallway.
My phone buzzed, and I ignored it. It was probably just Sierra apologizing for not bringing me paper or a pencil. This boy was weird. He’d attacked Mitchell, and he’d gotten my backpack out of nowhere and returned it to me. I sat down on my seat in the choir with my friend and grimaced, looking at him apologetically. “Are you okay?”
Mitchell rubbed his chest lightly. “That hurt,” he grumbled.
“I can imagine it did.”
&nbs
p; “What was that all about, anyway?”
“As if I know.”
He sighed and my phone buzzed yet again. Really not the best time, Sierra.
“Are you okay?” I repeated, glancing over the rest of his visible skin for any injuries. “You don’t look too beat up, so I guess you can’t be too bad.” His face flushed red as I looked him over and I laughed. “You’re such a loser. I love you.”
“Losers are better anyway.”
I grinned. My phone buzzed again.
For the love of—
I pulled out my phone and looked at the messages.
is he a friend of yours?
or are you two dating?
either way, if I see him put his hands on you in any way i’ll break off his arms.
I stared at the unknown number. Putting two and two together, I realized it could be Foster. Three things about this bothered me. One: he was threatening Mitchell. Two: the entire line of questioning and his statement were creepy. And three: how in the hell had he gotten my phone number? My thumbs flew across the screen as I replied.
Is this Foster?
yes.
The reply came so quickly that I was certain he had been waiting for my reply. I felt like I was going to be sick. There was something wrong with this guy.
How did you get my phone number…? You’ve been at this school less than a day.
brady gave it to me.
Oh. Wonderful. Just great. Note to self: beat the crap out of Brady next time I see him. It didn’t surprise me that he had my number because I’d been paired up with him multiple times on school projects. Not that he had remembered to actually help me on almost any of them. Clearly he remembered enough to have my phone number, though. Boys were so infuriating.
Don’t touch Mitchell again, or else.
is that a threat?;)
Yes. Do. Not. Touch him.
this is backward. your the one thats meant to be listening to me, not the other way around.
Mine Page 1