One Step Forward

o n e

I slam the locker door shut and hear a dull thud from within. Oh well.

"So," I hear a voice pipe up behind me and turn to my right to find my best friend, and forever partner in crime, Art leaning against the locker right next to mine. "Heard you trashed a car and didn't get...immediately busted because someone," she pauses to point at herself. "Disabled the cameras because she's a fuckin' genius."

I roll my eyes but don't bother hiding the smile after it. "Yeah, I have someone to thank." I pretend to look around. "Wonder where she is, though."

Art nudges one of her badass combat boots against my white sneakers and raises a brow at me, the piercing following the brow in its movement.

I raise my hands in surrender and pretend to bow down before her. "All hail the magnificent Artura Picasso Collins."

I hear a snort before she loops her arm around mine and leads me to class. "I fucking wish my daddy was Picasso. Instead, I'm stuck with a pompous asshole dressed in Armani who travels country to country, looking down on various ethnicities for a living, and does God knows what else over there."

I chuckle when I notice a few people within earshot looking at Art like she's lost it.

She never had it, to begin with. So, she's got daddy issues. Big deal. I have parent issues. Both have been on the move ever since Dylan and I were old enough to be left alone with nannies.

The nannies were okay, I guess. Some better than others. Some were college students who just wanted a place to do their laundry and warm food to eat, and some were old grandmas whose kids stopped calling. Both were generations apart, yet equally sad.

"So," I'm snapped out of my thoughts when Art speaks. "Do you have the next chapter ready for me?"

Guess I should mention the fact that I'm a writer. I'm not good or anything. Just passionate, i guess. And I would kill to be in the Writer's Wrangle Nominations this year.

Our school tries out potential candidates and then the selected few go to an entire camp where they not only get to meet famous writers, but also get the opportunity to create a masterpiece under their guidance. This could either get you published officially or get you an opportunity to co-write a book with your idol.

What I would give to get into Margaret Atwood's brain...

But only the nominated writers go. I want to be one of those nominated writers this year, because they only allow seniors to do this and guess who's a senior? Me. I want to give it a shot. Give it my all.

"Yeah, show it to you during lunch?" I ask her as we round the corner and see the classroom.

She nods her head fervently. "Library."

With that, we walk into the class and balk at the tense atmosphere.

Shit, chemistry test. Why am I not prepared, again? Oh right, I was trashing a car...

Only two empty chairs remain. One next to the smartest lil bean you'll ever meet who's actually nice and let's you cheat while the other is behind her and next to some dude who's hunched over his test, so I can't deduce if he'll let me cheat off of him.

Art and I discreetly glance at each other. And make a dive for the seat next to the cute smartie pants who, ironically, has really cute jeans on today.

I feel a bulldozer hit me, at that second. My life...flashed. Not before my eyes because my eyes were suddenly on a pair of strikingly blue ones.

Wow...damn.