Just Another Love Story

Chapter 1

I wake up at 6:00 just like any other Monday, but this is not any normal day. This is my 17th birthday. Birthdays can make any Monday better. I hear my parents, well my mom and sister walk to my room. My dad first tried to leave after my mom told him that she was pregnant with me. After I was born, they wound up getting pregnant with my sister one night when they got drunk and he decided he could stay and help her raise us. It went well until Marta turned three and stopped needing parents as much. It wasn't a month after that when they figured out their divorce papers.

I slowly hear the door creak open and my mom put my 'breakfast in bed' on my desk and I pretend to be asleep. I hear them whisper to each other then my sister turning the door handle to start to close my door after my mom gets out.

I press the button on my phone that turns off all the lights in the house. They silently freak out for a second, then realise that it is a power outage because it is November 30 and snowing. They have no idea that I connected the electrical circuit to my phone last night. I grab the edge of my sheets slowly and time it just right for when they're about to close the door. I then turn on the lights in my room using my phone. They both turn around expecting for the lights to be on behind them, though they're not. While they continue to flip switches, though it won't do anything, I quietly sneak up behind them and grab both their shoulders. They whip around and I let out the laughter that I have been holding in this whole time. They look so confused and my mom starts fuming while my sister joins me on the ground, rolling around with laughter.

As soon as I control my breathing enough to speak, I say "Good morning!" while still giggling.

"I see you're awake," my mom grumbles at me on the floor, still mad, while my sister is hiding her chortles of laughter.

"Did I scare you?" I ask teasingly, knowing she can't stay mad at me because it's my birthday. While she contemplates her response, I stand up.

"I see you're awake," she repeats, avoiding the question but is still grumpy, and still hiding a smile.

"Oww! You're stepping on my hair!" Marta yells. I look down and see her artificially red hair under my foot, for she has not stood up yet from laughing on the ground.

"Oh I'm so sorry!" I yell not trying to be sarcastic, but actually feeling guilty. That is one of my weaknesses, being afraid of hurting anyone. On the outside, I look and seem tough, but on the inside, I am a guilty ball of regret. I lift up my foot and let her scurry out from under it. "So what's for breakfast?"

After a hearty breakfast of toast and peanut butter, my favorite - and only - breakfast meal that I will eat I rush off to school. I arrive at the bus stop just as the bus pulls up. I see Quincy's strawberry blonde hair rising above everyone else's heads. Everyone else's hair is brown or black here, me and him being the two at this school that have naturally other-colored hair. I scramble ahead of everyone else to get in line behind him. He doesn't think I like him anymore, so I act like we're just friends. We normally sit together because I always get in line behind him to get on the bus, but today his girlfriend, Samantha, is with him. When Mr. MacBeth, our bus driver, opens the door, we all get on.

I'm about to sit at the seat a few seats back from where we normally sit, when he calls out to me, "Marrissa! You can sit with me."

I must look confused because he says, with a wavering voice, that Samantha can sit where I'm about to sit.

I respond with a nervous "OK," and sit down.

"I was thinking about breaking up with Samantha today," he whispers to me.

A rush of hope flows through me but I quickly cover it up with a genuinely confused face. "But you just spent the night with her."

"No, I didn't. I have no idea why she's here."