Leaving (Preface and Chapter One)

Preface

I had never had that many truly great friends. In fact, up until now, I had probably had maybe five. I thought that I would always have Xander. I mean Xander has been my best friend since that first day of kindergarten, to now when we were in our sophomore year.
I never would have thought that our friendship would have end like this, I never would have thought it possible, that it would end at all. I definitely had never guessed that my BFF would have a new life… a new school… new friends… a boyfriend… and most importantly… a new best friend forever.
Ugh… I guess that I have to go back to my best friend being Max, or worse, Claire. Ew.

Chapter 1
The Beginning of a Long Day

I sat in the putrid truck that was my brother’s. It wasn’t his fault that the truck smelled like old gym socks and fast food, well the fast food part was his fault. Of course, Max just considers himself lucky. Lucky that he got the truck so cheap (it had been use by like a million different people).
Max keeps trying to tell me that I’m lucky too, because it means that I have a ride to school. Not that if he didn’t have the truck, we wouldn’t have a ride to school, it was just that we would have to ride in our dad’s car (not so bad right? Wrong!) I left out the part about how we would have to be driven by our dad.
So, I guess that Max was right, I mean his truck may be smelly, old and used, whereas dad’s car is brand new and still has that new car smell. But it’s much cooler to be driven by your cool (not my word) older brother, than by your dad.
Max was one of those randomly popular guys. I say random because Max isn’t on the football team, or any other team for that matter, nope Max is just a regular guy. A regular guy that everyone just happens to like, which doesn’t make him a regular guy, at all
My phone rang and Max sighed. Max always told me that my friends needed to get their own lives. Turns out, he just doesn’t like me walking on the phone when he’s driving, very slowly, I might add. “Hello?” I answered.
“Evie?” I heard the person on the other line say.
I sighed, “Cam…” I started.
“Where are you? School starts in like 6 minutes.” She told me.
“I know when school starts Camron.”
“Oh, really? Cuz Alex would beg to differ.”
“I’m sure she would. Look just tell Xander that I’ll be there in…” I looked at Max and he held up three fingers, “in three minutes and also tell her to relax.”
She sighed, “Fine, I’ll try my best, see you soon.” She said sorrowfully.
“Bye.” I said in a cheerful voice.
“Bye.” She replied still exasperated. I closed my phone and looked at Max, waiting for him to say something. He didn’t disappoint me.
“Why does Alexandra need you at school 7 minutes before the first day of school every year?”
“Because she gets worried and it takes us 7 minutes at most to clam her down, and that’s with both of us. It’s always easier if we decide to tag team her. So it’s more that Cam needs me there 7 minutes before school.”
“Ah.” Was all he said.

Max was a pretty good estimator, I must admit, we got to school in just over 3 minutes. Or maybe he just finally decided to go the speed limit.
I saw Camron and Alexandra standing just outside of the door of Perry M. Smith High School, or as we liked to call it, PMS High School. Max parked in one of his usual spots and turned the truck off. I got out of the old blue Chevy and walked to Cam and Xander. Xander was sitting on the ground, hyperventilating, I imagined, while Camron kneeled in front of her, talking in a soothing voice trying to clam Alex down. Cam looked up at me with a grateful expression as I walked up to them. I kneeled down myself and commanded Alex’s attention.
“Alex…Alex!”
“Yeah, oh hey Evie.”
“Yeah, hey. Look, I know that you’re nervous about the new school year but think about the positives, like first of all we aren’t freshman anymore, and secondly the beginning of a new school year means knew students like…”
I stood back up and looked for someone that I’d never seen before.
My eyes searched through the swarms of people that were walking past, this was the first time that I saw him. “Like him.” I said happily.
I pointed in the direction of the boy, and then realized that he was looking at us. I looked down; my father had always told me that it was rude to point at people, why had I never listened? The random boy was probably staring at me; think that I was so rude for pointing at him.
But when I looked back up at him, I saw that the random boy wasn’t looking at me, instead he was looking at Alex. I looked to Alex and saw that she was staring back at him, with some unreadable expression on her face.

“Who’s he?” she asked dreamily after he had left.
“I don’t know, that’s why I pointed him out, because I was saying that a new school year includes new kids.”
“Oh, I thought that you knew him.”
“Nope, but by the way that he was staring at you, I don’t think that he’d mind getting to know you.” I said helping her up, off the ground.
“I wonder what grade he’s in.”
“Who knows, maybe if we see him around we can ask him.”
“Yeah, if we see him again.”

All she talked about on the way to homeroom was the random boy, oh right sorry, Sam. That wasn’t his real name, just the name that Alex had giving him. She was getting mad at me for calling him ‘the random boy’.
I should have been happy to get to homeroom, it would mean a break from all the talk about Sam. But as we walked into the room I groaned, there ‘Sam’ was sitting in the back of the room, still, in his hard, blue plastic chair. He sat there with his head hunched over to read the book that was on the table in front of him.
Just then, the teacher walked up to us and asked, “Your names?” She was young, 5’ 7” tall, blonde.
No wonder she’s a homeroom teacher, I thought trying to keep the expression of what I had thought off of my face.
“I’m Evelyn, this is Alexandra and this is Camron.” I answered.
“What are your last names?” She asked politely.
“Why do you need to know that?” I asked her, confused.
“Well, that way I know that I’ve marked the right children- Here.” She answered me, simply.
“How many Evelyn’s, Alexandra’s and Camron’s are there?” I asked her, not trying to be sassy.
“Young lady, you don’t have to take that attitude with me!”
I sighed and Camron said, “Evelyn Peters, Camron Reed and Alexandra Samson.”
“Ah, why thank you.” She said to Cam. “You’re all going to be seated over there at the table,” She pointed at the table that Sam was sitting at, “you may pick were you’d like to sit at that table.” I groaned and she glared at me. “Is there a problem Miss Peters?” She asked, I noticed that she seemed smug.
“No. No problem at all.” I answered not wanting to give her any more satisfaction. I officially hated this teacher, I would have to ask Max what her story was. But first, I would have to remember her name.
I sat myself across from Sam, and pulled out my schedule, to find out what her name was. ‘Mrs. Adams’ I read. Adams? I recognized that name, but couldn’t figure out why. I put the schedule back in my black messenger bag and looked up at Sam.
As it turned out Alex had already introduced herself, and told random boy that he could call her Xander, Alex or Alexandra. She had also introduced Camron and told him that he could call her Camron or Cam. I had looked up just as she had started to introduce me.
“And this is Evelyn, you can call her that or Evie, either one’s fine.” She turned to face me, “Evie this is Jess.”
“Nice to meet you.” I said, distracted still thinking about the name Adams. I couldn’t think of why it sounded familiar.
“Yeah…nice to meet you too.” Jess answered awkwardly back. I knew that I wasn’t helping my case.
“Cam, did Max ever have a teacher with the last name- Adams?” If anyone would know it would be Cam, she had only started to get over her huge crush on Max.
“Adams? Umm, yeah, I think so, sophomore year, why?” Camron told me.
”That would explain it.”
“Explain what?” Cam asked annoyed.
“That explains why Mrs. Adams already hates me.”
“Who’s Mrs. Adams?” Alex asked me.
“Mrs. Adams is the homeroom teacher.” Jess answered for me. Eavesdropper, I thought to myself.
“Oh, really?” Alex asked him, playing dumb.
“Yeah, really.” I replied.
“Wait so why does Mrs. Adams hate you?” Cam asked putting us back on topic.
“Because she had Max, when he was a sophomore.” I answered vaguely.
“So?” Cam said.
“So… when she had Max, they practically loathed each other.”
“Really? Why?” Jess asked me sarcastically. I glared at him momentarily, before answering.
“Because he made smart-ass remarks like that, that’s why.” I wanted to say but didn’t, “Because Max always had a…bad attitude… as she would put it.”
“Oh, so you mean he was a smart-ass?” Jess asked and I snap,
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business if my brother is a smart-ass!” I yelled at him, heard the whole classroom fall dead silent, and then felt the whole classroom turn to look at me. Lucky for me though, Mrs. Adams had left the room just moments before I had spoken. But still the constant stares of the others made me across my arms and then laid my head on my arms.
I could now feel the redness of my face. No, I definitely didn’t need a mirror to tell me that my face was redder than a ripe tomato.
I groaned and said through my arms, “It’s going to be a long day.”
I didn’t speak a single word for the rest of homeroom. I could tell that Mrs. Adams would be happy that I was upset. But only because she would think that I was upset with her. I let her think that, I couldn’t see the harm, I figure that it would get her off my back for a while.
When the bell rang I happily and quickly left the classroom to go to geometry, yes I left happily to go to geometry, weird huh? I thought so too, but anything to get out of that room. And plus in geometry I knew that I could finally be alone.
The rest of the day was uneventful, well up until lunch.