A new Me

Chapter 1

The smoke of the cigarette she was holding between her finger was filling her lungs calming the turmoil she had going inside of her head: breath in and let it out, it was one of the few things her mother taught her.
Being honest there were only two things she had learned from the woman who gave birth to her, how to smoke and how to be independent and if the first thing was just something she had started by mirroring her, the second one was the one thing her mother was adamant for.
"Just remember Samatha, never ever depend on someone 'cause then you'll just have nothing when they'll leave and we don't want that", a nice lesson if only now it wasn't her who was providing for the both of them.
Samatha was only 16 but she looked so much older; maybe it was because of her though look, maybe because she acted older or maybe just because she had to grow too fast and yet she had to notice.
"Sam! La tua pausa è finita 5 minuti fa!"  She got distracted from her thoughts by the voice of her boss.
"Arrivo!" She replied while throwing on the ground what was left of her cigarette.
Being a waitress was something Sam hated, but it was the only job she could find being a teen in Italy and it helped paying the bills so she had to suck it up.
The night was just starting and the pub was already packed, summer was coming to an end, tomorrow school was gonna start and she had to begin to function with just three hours of sleep every night, once again.
She began her way towards one of the tables and didn't fail to notice how there was only a guy about her age there which made her think how he wasn't going to tip her.  Despite her thoughts she put on her best smile:
"Ciao e benvenuto! Se pronto per ordinare?"
The guy looked up confused. His brown eyes focused on her icy ones
"Sorry I can't speak Italian yet"
"No worries! What can I get you?"
"Oh I'll just have a Margherita and a coke please"
"Sure! Coming right up!"
Samantha went to take his order at the kitchen but she didn't miss how the guy was still looking at her. She couldn't know but there was something in her that was oddly familiar and he couldn't put together the reason why.
As soon as the pizza was ready she took it to the table of one of her first clients of the night
"Here's your pizza. Hope you enjoy it!"
"Thank you! It looks delicious!"
Just as Sam was leaving he called out to her
"Hey sorry! It might sound weird but have we met before?"
"I don't think so, I'm sorry"
The stranger was embarrassed by the ordeal but still he felt like he knew her
"Oh that's ok! My bad! I'm Zach by the way, I'm in an exchange program and I will start my year here tomorrow"
"Nice to meet you, I'm Samantha, see you tomorrow then."
The rest of the night was uneventful, Zach got back to his host family still thinking about the nice waitress he had met while Samantha was too exhausted to care about her drunk mother when she got back home.

The next morning Sam only had three hours of sleep when she pulled up at school and she was ready to kill everybody who's gonna go and try to talk to her. She was never a morning person and the coffe and cigarettes did nothing to ease her nervousness towards the rest of the world.
Little did she know there was someone who was waiting to meet her since the night before.
The school on Italy was nothing like in the U.S. that was something Zach got immediately. There were no lockers, no lunchroom and the kids were supposed to stay in only a classroom with the exception of only a few classes.
He was standing near the entrance and as soon as he saw her he started to skip in her direction.
"Hey Sam! Wait up!"
Samantha halted in her steps, she really didn't want to talk to anyone this early in the morning but at the same time she didn't want to be rude. Being the new one and not knowing anyone was hard, she knew that, she was there just two years ago.
"Hey Zach, couldn't you be any louder" sarcasm dripping in her reply.
"I'm sorry, I just got excited... you're the only one I know and I hope we will be on the same class"
"Which one did they put you into?"
"3L they said it's the only one with more knowledge in languages"
"Yep! That's mine, we study Spanish too"
"Oh really! That's cool! I always wanted to learn that"
"You're gonna like our teacher don't worry, she's the only tolerable one"
At that Zach chuckled, then he looked around and sighed
"Everything is  just so different here"
"Tell me about that, I moved here two years ago Spain and France were a different story"
"Oh wow you moved a lot, sounds really fun!"
~you have no idea~ was what she wanted to say but she just smiled.
At school everything was the same as every other year, the teachers hated her only cause she wasn't one opened student but still she ached all of her tests. Zach was immediately popular being the exchange student from the U.S. but for God knows which reason he seemed to have decided that sticking with Samantha was the best decision.
At recess he found her outside just smoking a cigarette and he started freaking out thinking how that was wrong and illegal. It took a lot of convincing from her part to make him understand that here it wasn't illegal but that earned him the nickname of Golden Boy and still she could pin up why he wanted to spend time with her who was only bad news.

Soon the first week of school had ended and Zach seemed to enjoy more and more Sam's company. She had this though exterior but he knew that there was something more underneath it all and he still couldn't process why but he felt like he had the need to know her and protect her.