Flame Touch

Chapter One-Knox

 QUICK AUTHORS NOTE!!!!

Alright. Just to clarify this is not any of the listed: A fanfiction

A 1 direction thingie (they're like a plague on wattpad)

A vent

A turtle

And with that, I release you!

I frowned at myself in the mirror.

I had gone shopping the other day at DEBS, a store nobody had ever heard about, except for me. I liked to keep it like that, so nobody could waltz into first period wearing the same shirt as me.

On the basis of shirts.

I had on an extremely cute shirt I bought, which looked astonishing on the dummy it was modeled on (everything does), but I hadn’t taken in the fact that the dummy had pale fabric skin with a low-cut hazel bob. The cream and pink striped pattern of the shirt looked out of place with my tan skin and my long black mermaid hair.

Stupid dummy.

I tossed the shirt into the growing pile of ‘no’ outfits for Monday and I finally settled on my plain green shirt from Abercrombie with my skinny jeans that practically screamed “normal” across the front of it. The shirt was an ugly puke green, but for some reason, sewing the words Abercrombie suddenly turned that shirt cute. I had even gotten a few comments on it. They were short comments like “nice shirt” or “cute outfit”. Nobody had taken my hands and said “Knox, you look *pause to blush and breathe* astonishing today”. Nothing too dramatic, but they were comments nonetheless.

            Next, I moved on to shoes, looking from my sport shoes (a.k.a. anything with the word Nike on it or anything without a heel that wasn’t a flat or flip-flop.), to my cute boots (a bit of a heel, nothing too big), then to my all out platform boots. I shuddered at the thought of wearing platforms with this outfit. It would be cute, but way too overboard for school. The only person I know who would do that is Janet Wager. Sure I don’t think you should dress like a skank when you go to school, but she acted like she went to Beverly Hills High instead of San Francisco High School. I didn’t believe in the word over-the-top until I saw her wearing a miniskirt (way off dress code mind you), a crop-top that barely covered her stomach, huge Gucci sunglasses, and (high-heeled, high-toed, high-everything) white sandals to top it all off on the first day of school! She wasn’t some loser trying to show off. She looked perfect… for the beach, and not ONE teacher gave her a thought or threatened to call the office on her, but my pink cami was slightly showing once and I got detention and grounding for a week.

            I sighed and snapped back to reality. Jeans? Check. Cami that wasn’t showing? Check. Cute Shirt? Ehhh… Half Check. Shoes? I glanced at my pom-pom boots standing neglected at the corner of my closet. Check. I twisted myself in the mirror and smiled triumphantly. It wasn’t the sexiest outfit in the world, but it’d do.

I walked calmly downstairs. Being the only one awake in the morning, except for my big golden retriever dog, was nice. No screaming mom, no commando dad, and certainly no murderous older brother. I slung my violet-ash backpack over my shoulder and walked out the door, clearly avoiding breakfast (which, by the way, I never eat), and stepped onto the pavement with my hands in my faux-fur lined pockets. Mmmmm… fuzzy. As I walked to school, the smell of the local pizza place Peppori’s Pizza wafted into my nose. I hate pizza, but that doesn’t mean the smell of it doesn’t affect me the same way it does other people, which is to say, turning them into pizza zombies. Pizza had become so popular in the United States; I wonder why Italy hasn’t sued us for over-using their food product. The bus pulled up to the stop a couple of feet from where I was standing. No need to rush, which would just make me look lame. My bald-as-a-bowl bus driver frowned at me as I sauntered my way to the steps of the bus. I swear I could hear him huff as he closed the fold-away doors. I bet he was thinking something like “crazy teens” in that bare head of his. I didn’t exactly like our bus driver, but I didn’t hate him either. He was kind of creepy and never told anyone his name. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t frown, or…well... anything, he never even takes off his orange cap that he hides his face under. He was nothing like my old bus driver, who said hi to me every morning and whose eyes crinkled when he smiled. I scanned the bus for my best-friend who I knew would be there, in all my days with Sunny Risila (and that is a long, LONG time) she has only missed school once, and that was only because she was sick with Lyme disease.

            I took my seat next to her and she smiled at me with her infamous “you-naughty-girl” smile. Her short, straight black hair was pulled up into a pony-tail and she was wearing the hot pink Abercrombie sweatshirt that I had gotten for her birthday. Unlike the shirt I was wearing, the sweatshirt looked cute without the words Abercrombie on it. I smiled. No, it wasn’t that the sweatshirt was cute, it was Sunny. Unlike me, she had a tasteful eye (weird expression huh?) for fashion. Her lightning strike wrinkle jeans accented her thin tanned legs and exaggerated the sweatshirt look. The pink scrunchy she used to tie up her hair contrasted enough with her sweatshirt to look different, but similar enough to go with it perfectly. She looked like she was dressed for the gym and a Hollywood runway at the same time.

            “Do you enjoy making Foose Croony over there wish you were dead every waking moment of his life?” Sunny asks teasingly. I nod my head with a mischievous grin. Foose Croony was the name Sunny and I had picked out for our bus driver since he seemed bent on never telling us. Apparently foosecroony means bell penguin in some other third-world country. Sunny was enchanted by the word, and one day, when leaving the bus she had accidently said, “Bye Foosecroony!” to our bus driver. What can I say? The name stuck. Sunny kept looking at me intently, but I didn’t feel like talking about Foose Croony, what I wanted to talk about was the incoming ten thousand English essays Ms. Gelc had dropped on us. It was “Hey! Let’s chill for, like, 10 weeks and do absolutely nothing! Oh wait! Crap! I need some grades in to do my class’ report cards! I think I’ll just dump a good seven-million projects on them and get my grades like that!!” Her sudden projects towards the end of the semester had caused everyone to go on total panic mode, and no one could get anything done right.

“Did you do your poem yet?” I inquired innocently.

Sunny rolled her eyes, “Nerd.”

“I’m not a nerd, just curious,” I shot back.

“What would Melody say to your sorry sight?” she replied with a huff.

I smirked. Melody was the last of our little three musketeer group. She had bouncy, curly jet black hair that had a knack for getting into knots. She always walked with a little hop, unless Science class was next, then she goes as slow as a turtle.

I laughed, “Melody would answer me, now talk!”

Silence…

“Sunny.”

Silence.

“SUNNY!”

More silence.

“You didn’t do it, did you?”

Sunny smiled like a shark “You know it.”

I rolled my eyes,” And I suppose you would like to copy off mine?”

She made her signature pouty face and crossed her hands over her chest,” I won’t copy; just…improve on your own writing.”

I made a face of mock offense and pride. “My poems are nothing to be improved on.” Sunny smiled again and it wasn’t long until she started begging. I just rolled my eyes and plugged my earphones in; Kesha’s voice was really good for blocking out even Sunny’s imploring voice.