My dead Orpheus. The awakening

Chapter one

Opening my locker has become the best part of the day. 

As I enter the combination—0, 6, 0, 2, 5, 6—I squint my eyes, repeating in my head, "pleasepleaseplease let there be a note for me, let there be a note for me!" and when I hear the click of the metal lock opening, my wish comes true.
A small square piece of paper, the size of a post-it, slips from the open locker door and flutters slowly to the grimy floor of Campbell High School.

With trembling hands, I bend down to pick it up. No one seems to notice me, and for once, I'm grateful for my social invisibility.

I've been getting notes from Cedric Ellenson for a month now, but my heart still refuses to get used to it. It continues to pound with the same annoyingly frantic rhythm as the first time.

I clutch the note so tightly that I crumple it. Cedric has written only a few words in the same blue ink as all his other messages.

"This afternoon, after the game, under the bleachers. I'll be waiting.

-C"

Oh my God. I'm having a heart attack, I know it. This time I'm a goner. He wants to see me after the game? I can't believe it.

It's too good to be true. I never dared hope for something like this, not even in my wildest daydreams. Cedric Ellenson, the guy I've had a crush on since the first day of high school, has invited me to his football game. Well, technically, he said after the game, but still.

I, Eurydice Arden, have a date with the star of Campbell High School.

Eurydice Ellenson.

It sounds nice.

By the time the bell rings for the next class, Cedric's note has become an indecipherable wad of paper. I tuck it safely inside my locker and turn to head to class, but in doing so, I almost bump into the McCollum twins. The boy stares at me intensely, and his eyes are so dark they seem black.
Of course, they're not. I read somewhere that black eyes don't exist, that they're just very dark brown. Nes McCollum must belong to that category.

His sister, on the other hand, has eyes as blue as the Caribbean Sea. I've never been to the Caribbean, but I've seen some nice documentaries. The color is the same.
Anyway, this happens almost every day. We take a few classes together, like history and English literature, and the twins just keep staring at me.

They're a bit creepy, to be honest.

At first, I thought it was because of my eyes. I mean, who wouldn't stare at them? Google says that only people with certain rare diseases have violet irises. In my family, though, it just happens that some people are born with this... characteristic.

My great-aunt Jolene, for example, had eyes just like mine. Violet, with an amber ring inside, around the pupil.
Half the students at my school think I wear weird contact lenses to seem mysterious. The other half thinks I'm some kind of witch.

As for me, I don't know which option is worse: that they think I'm a weirdo or that I'm trying to look like one? In either case, they avoid me like the plague.

To be honest, I once did wear contact lenses, but for the opposite reason. I wanted to be a normal girl and see what it felt like. It didn't work: I spent the day rubbing my eyes until one of the lenses fell into the school cafeteria tray.

It wasn't pretty.

Anyway, after a while, people get used to it and stop staring at me. The McCollum twins, on the other hand, seem to grow more and more intrigued. By what, I really have no idea.
I clutch my trigonometry book to my chest as the girl—whose name I can't remember—realizes I'm embarrassed and elbows her brother. When he finally looks away, I slip away as quickly as possible.

It's not the time to think about the twins now. I have a date... I have a date with Cedric Ellenson!