In My Eyes

Chapter One

When we are seventeen years old, we are expected to have most of our life already figured out. We are expected to talk to strangers in complete sentences without complications. We are expected to get good grades and know what we want to do for a living. We are told we do not know how to love and we are too young to fall in love. We are told to make our own decisions, yet told that we are too young to know what we truly want yet. We are faced with problems that adults claim they have been through and understand, yet they do not live in the world teenagers today face. They talk down on technology that our generation feeds on and will starve if deprived. It is a bit overwhelming. They swear they understand. They swear they can help us. They promise life will get better. God knows my life could only get better from here. My name is June Barrett. I was also born in June so that tells you how creative my parents are. I have long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. I am an only child and live with my mother and my stepfather. My father died when I was a baby, I never knew him. My best friend, Mia, has always been there for me. She has short brown hair and dark brown eyes and is about half a foot shorter than me. We are literally inseparable. We have known each other our whole lives and know every fact about each other, from pimples on our asses to boys we fantasize about. She does not ever not have a boyfriend, whereas I get bored too quickly to have one. At least that is what I like telling people. I have been hurt mentally and physically by boys too many times to be able to trust any. I told Mia I broke up with them because they cheated on me or got too clingy. I only wish. There is a point in a friendship where you two know so much about each other, it almost becomes distrusting. Not in the other person, but in yourself. I need my own secrets. I cannot live knowing I share every one of my thoughts with another person. I am pretty sure I am the only one who thinks this. Mia tells me things from who waved at her in the hallway to what she ate for lunch to whatever other irrelevant fact or situation that happened to her that day. I don't think she believes in secrets. Every secret that is told to her gets to me, but that is how best friends work. We have to tell eachother every bit of drama that comes ur way, it is basically an unwritten definite rule in the Best Friend Rulebook. Ask any teenage girl who has a best friend.

Back to the part about boys hurting me, it is not something I enjoy talking about, but I have to admit it at some point. A boy will tell you he loves you while slipping his hand down your pants and you think he is telling the truth because you are thirteen years old and your parents haven’t thought to tell you this yet. Apparently you are supposed to figure out the bad things on your own. Like when you let yourself believe you are in the wrong when he is slapping you in the face because you talked to another boy at school. You then go to school and ignore the other boy entirely because you are fourteen and believe that you cheated just because you had a question on the homework. Then you let another boy steal your heart. As in your heart is in his palm and is gripping it so tightly, you have no control left and you fall. You fall so hard that you do not think you will ever be able to get up again. Instead you let him hold his foot to your chest and play with that heart in his palm as blood seeps out and trails down his forearm. You look at his forearm with your blood covering it and think of how muscular that arm is. You trace the arm to his expanded chest and his neck that is attached to a chiseled jaw with perfect, green eyes that hover towers over you. His eyes are narrowed and cold. They told you an order and you followed, for he would squeeze tighter onto that pounding vessel in his hand if you did not. I think you get the picture. Now enough about stupid boys. Let’s talk about school. Oh, the wonderful place of joy with the kindest people you will ever meet. There are cliques. Everyone is in one unless you are a loner, of course. There are the popular girls, jocks, band geeks, chorus people, those girls who literally no one likes yet sill end up getting invited to every party, and those other people who aren’t exactly in a group who have their own group, no one knows what to even call them. Mia and I are in the popular group. With my witty and sarcastic charm and her willingness to blow any guy that asks it of her, we are basically on the very top. I used to be shy. I used to lower my head in my arms and hunch over my desk. I rarely talked and was so used to being quiet, I could barely get two words out when someone spoke to me. I thought they made a mistake and meant to ask someone else. Instead, I sat there with a red face and crazy look in my eye as I groaned, looking for the answer they wanted to hear. I got over that come freshman year. I forced myself to try out for cheerleading and talk to more people and just be more social. Apparently people actually like it when the quiet girl turns out to be quite the badass. Come sophomore year, I had tons of friends and life was great. Then junior year, everyone knew me and wanted to be my friend and life was great. Now it’s senior year and life is great. I actually like school. I don’t necessarily enjoy it, but it isn’t terrible. I am basically best friends with all of my teachers, I get good grades because my they love me and give me tons of extra credit, I have some really smart friends who sit next to me in class and let me copy their answers on tests, and it is always fun to shoot down the guys that hit on me. Today is the first day back from Christmas break. I am not nervous or anything, I am actually pretty excited to be back. I want to see all of my friends who I didn’t get to see over the break and ignore a special someone as much as possible. You know, the one who kept my heart captive for nearly two years. That special someone. He was the one who hurt me the most, not even the one who left bruises on my cheeks and arms.

I skip down the stairs and run into the kitchen. My mother jumps at the sight of me coming out of nowhere, clearly scaring her. She puts a hand to her chest and catches her breath as I give her a huge, forced smile.

I jump onto the chair of the island in the center of the kitchen. “Where’s Steve?” AKA my stepfather. She looks at me with annoyance in her eyes and stops making breakfast. I roll my eyes, “Fine. Mr. Stepfather. What else am I supposed to call him?”

She turns back to the stove and continues making eggs. “Well you don’t call him Steve. That is disrespectful.”

“It’s his name. I’m not calling him Dad.”

She sighs, for we do this just about every morning. “I never said you had to call him Dad.”

I get up and walk up to her. “Then he is Steve.” I hug her and run to the door.

“What about breakfast?” She calls from behind.

I open the door and turn around. “No thanks. Love you!” I close the door and go to my car. I throw my bag into the passenger’s seat and sit in mine, turning the car on. As I drive down out of my neighborhood, I listen to upbeat songs to get me in a good mood for school. As I arrive, I park near the entrance to the school. I turn off my car, grab my bag, and get out. I was confident. Excited. Happy. I was wearing light skinny jeans with a black cami under a black leather jacket and black booties. My hair was braided around my head and down my shoulder. Kind of a bold look with the leather jacket, but I was known to be quite bold. I walked to the door and walked inside, still holding the door open for a few juniors who were walking behind me. They thanked me then walked to their class, as did I. The second I stepped inside I was bombarded with hugs from Mia and her speaking at least seventy five miles per hour. I stand and cross my arms, giving her the YouAreTalkingTooFastSlowTheHellDown look. She finally notices after multiple eyebrow raises as to ask what on earth she was talking about. She stops talking and takes a deep breath.

“It’s Stephen.” This is the first thing I understood her say.

“That whole time you were talking about Stephen?”

“Yes now stop interrupting.” She continues talking and I zone out as she begins. I look around the room. There he is. The pompous, arrogant boy with the charming smile and ability to rip your heart out of your chest.

“Uh, hello?” Mia is crossing her arms now. “What are you looking at?” She turns around before I can say anything. She slowly turns with a smirk on her face. “You are totally still in love with Liam.”

“Shut up. I hate more than anything in the world.” I give him one more glance and start listening to Mia.

“Okay sure. Anyway, as I was saying. Me and Stephen broke up.”

“What? You guys were together for like seven months.” I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t feel bad, either. She would easily find a replacement within the next week or two.

“Yeah, but then he told me he loved me so I clearly had to break things off.”

I laughed. “Clearly.”

We walked to our desks right next to each other and across the room from Liam.

Mrs. Peterson walked into the room. “Welcome back class!” She said with an enthusiastic tone and a bright smile. She started writing on the bored and talking about triangles and I zone out.

I have to be in here for an hour. A whole hour. I might just say I feel sick and hang out with the nurse for most of the class. I do that sometimes when not even Mia can't entertain me. I felt a nudge on my left shoulder and look at a piece of paper that Mia passes me.

Someone is looking at you.

I look at her and she is smiling down at her desk. I look around the room and end up stopping at a boy who is not even looking at me, but I have never seen him before. He has blonde hair that is short and slightly pointed up towards the ceiling with hair even shorter on the sides of his head. His lips are parted slightly, but open enough to see perfectly straight and white teeth. Even from across the room I can see his dark brown eyes looking back and forth from the board to his desk, taking notes. He has olive skin with rosy cheeks. He looks my way and lightly smirks at me, crossing his arms on the desk and leaning forward. He tilts his head while still giving me a smirk that sends an uneasy emptiness in my stomach. I smile on accident and quickly look away to prevent him from noticing, but I think he saw. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling.

Mia leans over to me. “Did you see him?”

“Uh, no.” I look down at my empty desk.

“Huh. Well he still has feelings for you.”

Wait. “What?” I look up at her.

She points to the other side of the room. I look and see Liam looking at me. He is sitting three seats in front of the boy with the dark brown eyes. He smiles his normal smile that I used to bow down to. I stare at him with a vexed expression on my face. He laughs quietly and looks away from me to the board. I look to the board and fume. How dare he smile at me. Although I got my heart back, he knows he still has my blood marked on his skin. I sit, angry, in my seat until the bell rings. Mia and I stand and walk to the next class together. We pass her class first so I walk alone until I get to mine. Before I step inside my class, Liam steps in front of me, blocking me from getting inside.

I look up at him. “What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to talk to you.” There is that smile again.

“Move.” I demand.

He backs up a few inches. “Woah. Don’t have to be so mean.”

“Are you going to move?”

He runs his hands through his curly, blonde hair, then puts his hand to his chin, thinking. After a few moments of thinking, he lies his hand back down by his side and steps closer to me. “Nope.”

I get closer to his face and speak in a stern tone. “You need to get out of my way before I-”

“Is this guy giving you trouble?” It’s the brown eyed boy. He is looking at me.

I step away from Liam and look at the boy. He is tall. Taller than Liam. “I’m fine.” I say with a calm voice.

“Good.” He smiles at me, then turns to Liam with a look of anger. The awkwardness gets out of hand and I speak up, “I’m going to go to class.” I look to the boy as he smiles, watching me walk in. I go to my seat and look out the door to see them talking, but cannot hear them. They both look mad. After they leave, my day goes on and I don’t see either for the rest of it, even in my other class I have with Liam. I am slightly relieved he wasn’t there, though. I walk out of the school and to my car, wondering who he boy is. Just because I’m not interested in seeing anyone right now doesn’t mean I can’t think about anyone. I drive home, thinking of those dark brown eyes.