New Beginnings

Chapter 1

       Vanessa VanBuren is her school's golden girl. Smart, funny, pretty, and athletic. She knows no strangers. She has the perfect boyfriend. Her parents are great. 

     Or so things seem.  

     *Vanessa*

I closed my locker with a soft click. When I turned around, there he was: Peyton. He was all a girl could ask for. Captain of the football team, kind, and attractive. Together, we were unstoppable. He played the part of a doting boyfriend well. I smiled up at him and he gave me a tight-lipped grimace in return.

     "Is something wrong?" I asked, handing him some cookies I made yesterday out of sheer boredom. 

     "Yeah. Coach was riding me hard at practice this morning. He was being a real jerk. He was yelling at me, correcting me, telling me what to do. He doesn't even know what he is doing." Peyton complained, pulling out a cookie and biting into it. 

     Annoyance prickled in my gut. "He is your coach. He does know what he's doing. Otherwise, he wouldn't be here, Peyton. And did you ever consider that you did need correcting?" I asked, trying to sound nice and not angry. He gave me a scowl and shook his head. Then with a small kiss on the cheek, he walked away. That was the end of that conversation I guess. 

     My  best friend, Allison, walked over to me, a concerned look on her face.

      "Are things getting worse?" She asked. 

     I nodded. For the last couple weeks, Peyton has slowly becoming more angry, more irrational, more violent. He was starting to scare me. He hadn't hit me or anything. But he has yelled at me and we have been fighting a lot more.

     "I'm hoping once football is over and that stress is off his shoulders, he will be better" I told her, trying to plaster a believable smile on my face. Allison gave me a skeptical look but didn't press the subject. The bell rang for the start of fourth period so we went our separate ways.

     As I sat down in Literature. Mr. Kraft, the stooped, little old man who has been teaching Lit for almost 30 years, shuffled some papers around his desk. 

     "I know this is not going to be good news. I'm assigning you a project." The class let out a collective groan. 

     "You will work in groups of two that I will assign. I will also assign you a book to read, study, and write a report on." He smiled at us and began to read off a list of names. 

      "Vanessa you will work with Houston on 1984 by Orwell" I  startled at that. Houston? Of all the people. Well great. He is quiet and smart and kind of scary. He has dark skin and dark hair. And he always wears dark colors. He is not my ideal partner. He looks up at me and his face is emotionless. I try and give him a small smile but all he does is look back down at his notebook. Rude. I think to myself. He hands me a piece of paper. On it is an address, a date, a time, and a phone number.

     "Meet me there at that time. Have the first couple chapters read please." He says, standing to leave. I watch him go. This is going to be interesting.