All The Faith In The World

Chapter 1: Awww come on

"Twirl, twirl! Get your leg up Paige! Hips square Arita! Faith! FAITH!" Mrs. Kathy was yelling at the top of her lungs. She was trying to be louder then the boring old classical music tinkling over the old black radio she had owned for years. "FAITH PORTER!!!!" She yelled. I looked up, startled. "Stop the music!" She commanded. What was wrong now?

"You are a whole 8 count behind!" She screamed in my face.

" I'll try harder Mrs. Kathy." I said, feeling defeated. I never wanted to get off the beat, I just did.

" You got one more chance, Porter." A girl named Angela said as Mrs. Kathy went back to her spot at the front of the room. Angela was always trying to get under my skin. I will never let her though. "5...6...7...8" Mrs. Kathy counted off for us to start again. And just like that we started. "1...2...3...4...5..6...7....7....7....7..7...who made the number 7?" I think in my head. And as quick as it started I'm off the beat. Suddenly, we all form into a circle and in the middle, Angela does pirouette after pirouette. I watch her spin for what seems like forever. With her perfect legs and brown hair spinning like a tornado with no intention of stopping.

"Faith...." I hear someone whisper in my ear, " move over." I quickly move over into my next spot, but as I try to look as graceful as possible, my pointe shoe comes untied. I am suddenly falling, grace and balance gone, onto the wooden floor and a bruise sure to form on my shoulder by tomorrow.

"Stop, stop, stop." Mrs. Kathy barks. "Extra practice tomorrow night everyone." We all groan. The one night a week we would normally have off.

"And you can all thank 'little miss can't count to 8' over here." Angela tells everyone on the way out the door. I slump down in my seat and take off my shoes. It's not my fault I'm a total clutz.

Everyone slowly makes their way out of the building into their parents cars. I wait around for a few minutes, just to see if my parents will come tonight. I starting doubting them the longer I wait there. I decide walking to the diner is my best bet. It's a good 25 minutes away, so I have a long way to walk. I don't have a phone, anymore. My mom took it away weeks ago, and I don't know where she hid it. So, I will have to entertain myself with whatever's around. I start by kicking a rock. Then, it goes into the street and punctures a semi-trucks tire. Next, I see a person walking up ahead. I try to figure out what to say by the time he passes me, but, he doesn't say a word. or even looks up from the ground, for that matter. Finally, I see a dog, digging in the bushes for some sort of food. I call him over to me and get a plain turkey sandwich from my bag. I peel off the turkey and give it to him. He eats it in one bite. Feeling good about myself, I continue my long walk to the diner. It was only 5:30 when I left dance, so I figured Connor and Noah, my brothers, would still be there to take me home, just in case.

"Well, would you look at that! It's Faith! And she's walking home by herself. Awwwwwwwww!" I hear Angela yell from her car window. She's in a van with about 5 other girls from the team as well. The mom gives me a pleading look, but I can see they have no room. She drives faster and zooms away, while I am still a mile from my destination. I come up to a stop walk and find that there is a boy waiting to go in the same direction.

"You pushed it?" I asked, referring to the button allowing us to cross.

"Oh, yeah. I did," he said. I looked at his face. It was tan-ish and his eyes were bright blue. His hair was dark brown. He was cute. Very cute.

"Where you going?" he asked. I pointed to the little diner in the distance.

"That diner. You?" I ask. He points in the same direction, except past the diner.

"My house. Do I know you? From school? You look familiar," he looked at my eyes more closely. Thinking about it, yeah he did look familiar.

"Yeah, yeah. I think so. Do you take chemistry honors?" I ask. He looks about a year older, so that's the only class we could have together.

"No. I'm not that good. Wait. You're Noah's girl, Faith, right?" He put out his hand for me to shake it. "I'm Grayson, Grayson Johnston." I shake his hand.

"Well, nice to meet you, Grayson Johnston. Also, I'm Noah's sister, not his girl," I say. The small red hand suddenly disappears, only to be fulfilled by a white stick figure.

"Oh, really? You guys look nothing alike." he says as we start walking across the black tar.

"I get that a lot. I guess I got the recessive gene," I say. He laughs like he understands. Even though, I highly doubt he knows what a recessive gene is.

"Do you have any siblings?" I ask him. He shakes his head 'no'.

"No, it's only me and my parents. They wanted to stop after me because I wasn't exactly planned. My mom had me when she was 17."

"Oh, sorry," I say. Gosh, he probably didn't feel comfortable talking about this. God, I'm such a-

"No, it's okay. They call me their happy accident. And I like having the feeling I'm different from everyone else." Oh. "What about you? Besides Noah, obviously."

"Connor is the oldest, then Noah, then me. There is about a 2 year age difference between me and Noah and 3 with him and Connor," I say. "My parents tell me I was an accident too. They weren't planning on another kid, it just kind of happened."

"I don't think your an accident. I like to call it happy coincidences. You have made me happy, even knowing you from the last 10 minutes, and you were a coincidence for your parents."

He smiled down at me. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks and my heart melting in my chest. Unfortunately at that moment, we reached the diner door.

"This is my stop," I say, "Do you want to come in?"

"Nah, I better get back home. I hope to see you around, Faith."

"Me too. I hope we can talk again. Bye!"

"Bye!" I watch him walk towards his house in the distance. I lean on the diner door. He's so perfect. I wish I was perfect, too. But, my life isn't exactly perfect.