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Chapter 1: First Impressions

Tyler was walking beside his best friend, Josh, as they talked to mentally prepare themselves for the first day of their sophomore year. They mainly rambled about the new music program that was going to be initiated at their school this year. Tyler kept looking around distractedly, as if he'd never walked to school before, even though he's been down this route millions of times before. Josh just took that as an opportunity to keep shoving him playfully to try to get him to focus.

"Hey, wanna race?" Josh looked to him.

"Yeah. Name the conditions."

"We race to the flagpole outside school. Winner gets bragging rights and the loser has to clean the winner's room."

"Deal. I've never lost, so have fun cleaning, Dun." Tyler smiled mischievously and bent down to tighten the laces on his high-top converses.

"Oh, you're going down, Joseph." Both boys bend down and prepare themselves. "On three. Ready?" Tyler nodded easily. "One...two...three."

They both dashed off, trying to get ahead of each other. They were both dying of laughter the whole time, probably looking like idiots as the wind blew their hair everywhere.
Tyler was winning, but Josh wasn't that far behind him.

     And just as they were nearing their "finish line", Tyler fell over and an unsuspecting girl toppled over with him after being ran into. The very flustered-looking girl ran her fingers through her half-black half-pink hair and brushed off her skirt.

"I am so sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going." Tyler stood and offered her a hand, but a boy with bright red hair shoved his hand away and helped her up instead. The girl said nothing, but the one who'd helped her spoke for her.

"Clearly."

"My friend and I were racing, I didn't mean to—" The red-haired boy cut him off.

"Save it." He looked to the girl. "C'mon, Melanie." He started to walk into school and she went with him, slightly looking over her shoulder at the boy who'd knocked her over. Tyler just offered her a sympathetic smile when he managed to make eye contact with her.

Josh came up beside Tyler and whispered in his ear, his smile a mix between mischievous and victorious. "That just disqualified you. Have fun cleaning, bud." Tyler groaned but then sobered up.

"That guy just completely fought her battle for her. Like, babying her. I don't see why he feels the need to do that, I mean she did look all soft and innocent just then but..." He'd started rambling. Josh put a hand on his shoulder and shushed him.

"Hey, calm the ranting. That was Melanie Martinez. Y'know, the kinda odd girl with ADD who's always getting bullied? That boy is her best friend Gerard, I know him to be very protective of those he's really close to. He probably feels like he has to fight her battles for her because she's constantly bullied for things that are beyond her control. And she is pretty soft and innocent. He just didn't want you to hurt her." Tyler nodded.

"I didn't know...I feel so bad, Josh..."

"It's okay, Ty Guy. Let's get inside." They walk this time, side by side, into school, talking about how they were excited to be a band and get to devote half of their school day to their music. But Tyler, for some reason, just couldn't get his mind off of what had happened with Gerard and Melanie, and how bad their first impression of him must be now.