Raven Reyes and her friends go to Arkadia High. She has a fairly average life, not a lot of drama.
On the first day of Senior year they hear rumors about a new student who has the potential to change her whole life.
And his name is John Murphy.
...
(Raven POV) It's the next day and I'm gonna talk to this Murphy guy if it's the last thing I do.
Today I'm wearing a grey t-shirt, a red jacket, camo jeans, and combat boots. I walk down stairs and see Sinclair making coffee. I stroll up to the island and sit on a barstool.
"Hey, I didn't get to talk to you yesterday. How was the first day?" He asked. He has some really wonky work hours so sometimes we don't see each other. I don't mind though because he gets a good amount of time off.
"Fine, there's a bunch of new kids at the school and their kind of rebels, I guess. I want to get to know one of them really bad honestly." I don't know what it is, but I just need to know him.
"Well, I'm sure it'll work out. After all, nobody can stop you when you put your mind to something." He smiled. He has a point there.
After we talk for a little while I get in my car and head to school. In homeroom I want to talk to Murphy, but I don't really know how. Today he's wearing a black twenty one pilots t-shirt, black jeans and black high top vans. Since he's not wearing a jacket today I can see that he has a few tattoos.
On his right arm he has a black tattoo of a dagger on his forearm, a tattoo of jack skelington on his bicep and a tattoo of stitches that wraps around his wrist like a bracelet.
On his left arm he has a tattoo of a red and purple rose on the inside of his elbow.
I decide to at least compliment them even though it probably won't start a conversation. "I like your tattoos." I smile.
He grins a bit. "Thanks." I nod. I was right, not a conversation starter, but at least it's a good start. The rest of class passes in silence.
Later, I realize that I also have him in language arts. He sits across the room, that's probably why I didn't notice before.
Our teacher walks in and begins talking. "Okay, today we're starting a project." We all groan. "Hey, don't be like that, give it a chance. It's a partner project. You and your partner will make a report and vision board of what you both want to do after high school and how you're going to do it. You have the entire year to do this, but it's not the only thing we'll be talking about. Also, I want it extremely detailed and show how your plans changed through this school year. Now, I'll name partners." I look at Miller who is also in this class, but also to Murphy who's looking at the girl he was walking with at lunch yesterday. I just realized that she has a tattoo around her eye, that's actually really cool. Completely unrelated, but I wonder if their dating.
"Okay, Beth Jones and Sophia Rogers, Nathan Miller and Emori Flag, John Murphy and Raven Reyes." I stop listening as he lists the rest off. "Now, go sit by your partner." I stand and walk to Murphy's seat and drop down next to him.
"Hey, I'm Raven." I smile. "Though I'm sure you figured that because I'm over here." I say after i realize that he'd probably figure out who I was.
He chuckles. "Yeah, I assume that means you know my name already." He grins a bit, but it's doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"That I do, Murphy." I notice Miller sit down next to the girl that Murphy was looking at. "Is she your girlfriend?" I point to the girl.
Murphy laughs. Once he regains some composure he says. "What?! No. No no no. No. Emori is just my best friend. Also, she has a girlfriend." He grinned afterward. He was clearly happy for her.
"That's awesome, I'd love to meet them. Now, for the project. What do wanna do after high school?"
Then we talked about some future plans. The jobs we want and things we see in our future. We also discussed how we would organize everything. Turns out he wants to do a lot of art related things.
After class ended we walked to math together and took our separate seats. He didn't sleep this time, but he was clearly daydreaming.
At lunch I saw him walking out again with a whole group of people this time. So, I grabbed Miller and stood. He looked at me questionably.
"I wanna see where they're going, besides I need to ask Murphy something." He nods skeptically.
We walk out, look around and see them all sitting under the bleachers on the field. We stroll toward them, they were laughing and talking about something. That Roan guy said something that caused a girl with long golden brown hair to punch him in the arm, and Murphy to throw a paper ball at him. They were still laughing because he was probably making an offensive joke.
We stop at the bleachers and that Ontari chick looked at us with warning. Murphy saw this and made a confused face then turned to see what she was looking at and grinned.
"Chill Ontari, their cool." He chuckles. I just realized that he appears to be drawing something. "Oh, guys this is Raven." He points to me. "And I'm pretty sure this guys name is Miller." Miller nods. "Raven, Miller this is Ontari." He points to the girl with black hair. "That guy is Roan, this is Anya." He points to the girl with light brown hair who punched Roan. "And this is Emori. We're missing one, her name's Fox."
I nod. I decided to ignore the mention of Luna's best friend, at least for now."Nice to meet you all. I'm just here to ask Murphy a question." I smile. Murphy looks up from his drawing for a second then back down. From this angle I can't quite see what it is, but Emori seems to be posing because every time she moves too much he looks at her warningly. "I was wondering if we could work on the project today after school because I'd love to finish early, if you don't mind." I smile.
"Yeah, I don't mind. It'd be great to be done early for once. At our old school my projects were always late because my partners would ditch me." He chuckles. Then he signs his name on the sketchbook paper and grins. "Done." He passes it to Emori, who lights up.
"You're crazy good Murph. I'll never get over it." She smiles. Anya leans over, looks at the drawing and her eyes go wide.
"You have somehow managed to capture most of her beauty on paper Cockroach, I'm impressed." Apparently cockroach is a nickname? That's kind of a weird one, but I'm not judging.
"Mind if I see?" I couldn't help, but be curious. He wants to be a tattoo artist and an artist after all, so he has to be good. When he gives a nod of approval Emori hands me the notepad. I gasp. This is crazy good.
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(A/N I have no clue who drew this, but credit to them because it's really beautiful. If you know who did this please comment and I'll give them credit in a later chapter.)
"This is beautiful Murphy!" This is really good. He'll 100% be successful in the art world, I'd bet money on it.
He smiles. "Thanks. Anyways, you were saying about the project?" I nod. Right, the project.
"Yeah, my house or yours? We could meet somewhere." He nods along.
"Either your house or meet somewhere" he says. I nod and hand back his drawing.
"How bout my house?" He nods. "Can I have your number so I can text the address to you? Plus that way, we can text anytime if you want." He nods once more so I hand him my phone with my contacts open. He types his name and number in and passes it back to me. "Hey, would you mind drawing me sometime? You don't have to obviously, but it'd be awesome." I smile hopefully.
"Sure, I'd love to." He grins. The bell rings so they all stand and we walk in together.
The day went as planned and afterward we all went home. I texted my address to Murphy and he'll be here soon.
