Raven

Chapter 1- Highschool

The car slowly pulls into the parking lot and the caramel bricks of Riverside High school slowly come into view. I let out a small sigh as the butterflies squirming inside of me pick up pace and I grip the straps of my backpack even tighter.

This is it. The first day of the rest of my life.

It has been three whole months since I have seen anyone in my grade. I have heard there may even be new kids flocking in from other middle schools, joining our messed up class. I am nervous, I'm not gonna lie. People can change over three months, I know I have. In middle school I was able to keep up a positive attitude, avoiding drama of any sort, but I have a feeling high school will be different.

I feel my throat tightening as a see a few of my peers walk inside the school, knowing that I soon will have to join them.

"I know it may seem scary at first, but it will be fine. Just stay positive! After all, you haven't seen those friends of yours for a while, so you can work it all out with them," My mom says cheerily, noticing my eyes nervously glued to the front of the school.

"Right. Yeah, um I'll see you after school then." I detach my pale hand from my backpack and push open the car door, swinging my legs out. Pushing back a stray hair, I close the door, waving to my mom as she backs the car out of the lot and drives away. Once the car has turned the corner, out of sight, I feel my nerves start again as the sense of comfort from the familiar car leaves me. I take a deep breath and start to walk to the big, black doors.

As I pull open the heavy door, a feel a gust of cool wind flutter through my long dirty blond hair. I had just straightened my hair this morning to make it less of a wavy mess, like it usually is. I bite my bottom lip nervously as I gaze at my surroundings. The long hall looming before me is lined on both sides with large red lockers. There are big signs above them saying things like, "Riverside Pride!" and "Welcome Freshmen!", the white poster paper popping brightly against the pale, yellowish wall. Crowds of people are separated into small groups, leaning against the lockers and chattering noisily.

I quickly adjust my backpack and start to powerwalk through the crowd, slipping past people quietly, and accidentally bumping into a couple of girls, mumbling "sorry" as I pick up my pace. Soon I am at the end of the hall and am greeted with a large room filled with round tables and people blabbering around the tables, laughing and smiling. I look around the room desperately, trying to find familiar faces among the crowd. Too many people are moving around constantly that I can't seem to find anyone I need. I move over to a tall vending machine, standing by itself in a corner. As I lean against the side of the cool metal, I pull out my phone and open Messages to the group chat.

Luna: hey where r u guys?

Ethan: we r in the lunch room, in the back by the wall

Luna: i dont c u

Ethan: just meet me by the vending machine

Luna: im already by the vending machine stupid!

Ethan: well how was i supposed to know that????

Ashley: guys could u not its literally the first time we have seen eachother in 3 months and ur already fighting

Luna: ugh fine just meet me here, by the vending machine ethan

Ethan: kk

I slide my phone back into the small pocket at the front of my blue and white striped backpack. I had only bought the bag last week and it is already slightly ripping at the seams from the amount of weight in notebooks, folders, and textbooks that were crammed inside. I push my hair behind my ear as I stand up properly, searching the crowd for the familiar messy light brown hair that is Ethan's.

After looking around for what seems like 5 minutes, I feel a set of thin arms wrap around me from behind, catching me off guard and slamming us both into the vending machine.

"What did you do that for?" Ethan looks at me with his hazel eyes, rubbing the back of his head.

"Well my bad for not expecting to be attacked by my best friend on the first day of high school." I try my best to look angry at him, my hands at my hips, but end up stifling a coming laugh.

Ethan smiles at me warmly before responding, "It was supposed to be a hug."

"I know." I laugh and hug him properly, feeling his soft blue jacket against my bare arms.

"Why are you wearing a jacket? It's like 80 degrees outside," I ask Ethan, pulling away from the slightly awkward hug.

"I don't know, I thought it might look cooler than without one, like 'I'm so cool that I never get warm even though it's really hot outside' kind of cool." He folds his arms across his chest and scrunches his eyebrows close to his squinted eyes. He looks truly ridiculous.

"Might need to work on that a bit," I comment as a pull his arm, walking toward the back of the lunchroom. "So where is Ashley?" I ask him as I let go of his arm. We are standing by the creme colored wall at the back of the room.

"Well maybe if you didn't drag me away without my consent, I could've shown you!" He defends, rubbing his arm from where I gripped it.

I sigh. "Okay, so where is she then?" He smiles wickedly, looking behind me. I quickly turn around to see Ashley standing behind me, smiling brightly.

"Ashley!" I exclaim wrapping her tightly in a hug. "I feel like I haven't seen you in ages!"

"I know, same." She says, pulling away. "It's great to actually see your face again instead of just words on a screen."

"Yeah, so how was your summer?" I start. I know it's not a very original question, but I haven't seen her in a while and I actually want to know.

"It was pretty good actually, considering you were in Missouri all summer."

Over the summer break, I was in St. Louis at my grandma's house. Usually in the summer we only stay at her house for a couple weeks, but we decided that that was hardly enough time considering all the things we wanted to do there. Not only does my grandma live there, but my cousins, aunts, and uncles do too, so we had an endless amount of fun. Even though it was really exciting, I still missed my friends a lot, and texting them just wasn't enough.

"Sorry for stranding you here like that, but I missed you guys a lot too."

"That's okay," Ethan and Ashley say in unison and we all pull into a group hug.

"Wow this is really cheesy," I say laughing as we all pull away.

"I know right, why did we do that?" Ethan agrees.

We all just laugh until an announcement blares from the speakers throughout the school commanding us to go to our first period class.

"Well, bye guys, see you at lunch!" I wave as I take out my schedule. I grip to it tightly and walk up the large staircase wearily to my first class.

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So that was the first chapter of "Raven"! Sorry, it's not that interesting yet, but it will start to get more exciting next chapter! This is my first story on here and it's not that good yet, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon and it'll be better. I don't really know what else to say so byeeeeee!!! XD