The Stargirl - Jess Mariano

Prologue

The principal's office was not the place I expected to be on a Saturday, especially since I had blood all over me.

Sitting there waiting, while they hauled in Missy Collins, had to be one of the most boring, anxious, and nerve racking experiences ever. It gave me time to 'self-reflect', which is what I was told to do as I waited. Personally in my opinion, Missy deserved the punch, and the kick in the stomach. Where I went to school it was quite competitive, so sometimes the dishonourable people would decide to sabotage people. Which is what Missy did to me and my best friend, Charlie.

Missy was a kiss up. She stayed behind in class to clean up, not to be helpful, but to try and befriend the teacher, so that she got better assignments, or parts in shows. She was the kind of annoying where she wasn't mean outwardly, but more frustrating, which made you hate her.

Part of this is the main reason I'm here in this office. I'd left my guitar in the music room, since I was performing for an assignment that Missy had been trying to get, but ultimately it was given to me and Charlie. Charlie had also left her bass guitar in there too, as we went to get lunch to fuel up before our show. When we came back we looked everywhere, but couldn't find our instruments. Having searched the room so much we could probably hide a boy in there and no one would notice.

We had ten minutes till we went on, and had missed soundcheck. Running through the school we finally found them. They were in a closet with some older instruments. We made it just in time, as Missy was trying to get herself set up to go on for us, but we made it there before her.

Unluckily for me, this set back my schedule by at least 15 minutes, which doesn't seem like much, but was a shit ton to me. After our performance I had to dash it, like a bat out of hell, to the art gallery across campus, change, find my art piece, and present it to a bunch of critics. The thing was though, the critics moved in one way, and if they missed your art piece because you were late, then too bad it's not getting judged.

I hated running with a passion. I had made it to the building, practically flinging myself into the bathroom to change. I tried to be smart about my outfit and outfit changes, so I wore tights, a slightly small skirt that I could slide my dress over, a shirt that could be used as an underlayer, and all I had to do was fling off my Docs, throwing on my more sophisticated shoes.

Shockingly, I still had breath in me when I reached my piece. Dabbing the sweat off of my forehead, I looked and saw the critics only two artworks away. I prepared myself for their questions and judging glances. When they finally showed I explained my art piece elaborately to them.

My piece was a peaceful graveyard scene with a crossroads, which represented life and death. The critics seemed to enjoy my art piece and my explanation of it, so I was rather pleased with myself. That was until everything went to shit.

After the critics left, the next thing I knew, Missy was accidentally 'bumping' into my artwork. Everything fell at once. My artwork fell flat onto the floor, then my water I kept on the side spilled everywhere, and the final straw was my easel breaking and cutting part of the canvas of my painting.

Everything in that moment stopped, literally. Everyone was silent and shocked, standing all quiet. Or, at least they were till I had a handful of Missy's hair in my hand. I don't really remember how I got there. All I remember was punching her a couple of times, before I was lifted from the gallery by two strangers.

And now here I was, sitting, waiting, as the door finally opened.

Missy looked like she just had intense surgery, her face covered in gauze. She sat in the chair next to me, attempting to scowl, but looking constipated instead.

"Now that you're both here, why don't we go over the day's events, shall we?" the principal said, which made me know this was gonna be a long ass time. He went on about our history, and behaviour, blah blah blah. Missy kept defending herself, claiming she put the instruments in the closet, since she thought they were old and just taking up space. Of course it was her, I should've known. If a side eye could kill, Missy would be dead ten ways from tomorrow.

Eventually, our principal came to a conclusion on our punishments. Missy was just given two weeks of detention, since "she didn't technically start or do anything" which personally I thought was bullshit. My punishment was worse though. It was so bad he made Missy leave the room.

He took in a breath placing his laced hands on the table, "Look Iris, you're one of our best students, but behaviour like this cannot be tolerated. Therefore me and the board have decided your punishment. Now remember you can always reapply at the end of the semester," he said, making every nerve in my body feel like it was being attacked.

"Am I being kicked out?" I asked, frantically ready to defend myself.

He let out a sigh before continuing, "Not exactly. The true punishment would be for that, but you're one of our best students, so we came to a compromise. You will not be allowed here this semester, but your spot will be kept open, and you can reapply next semester, and if you do we have a summer program that you can do to catch up," he explained, but I could barely listen. Because of stupid Missy and my own anger issues, I was being kicked out of my dream school.

I nodded, agreeing to the decision, not wanting to cause another scene, but I couldn't trust my voice to speak. He dismissed me to go pack my stuff, and that my bus would arrive at 8am tomorrow to take me back to Stars Hollow.

Charlie sat on the edge of my bed, sprawled out, "I can't believe you're leaving. How am I meant to survive without you?" she complained, being more dramatic than usual.

"It's only a semester, I'll be back before you know it, and you can visit Stars Hollow whenever, it's only a bus ride away," I reassured her, packing up all my clothes before I moved on to my books.

She just slumped farther into the bed, "Ugh, but I won't see you everyday, but I'll still have to see Missy," she said, making a stink face at Missy's name.

I threw one of the shirts I stole from her, at her, "Well stop complaining, and help me back. Can you start stacking the books into that suitcase?" I asked, finishing the last of my clothes.

She got up rather grumpily, "Fine, but it wouldn't take so long to pack them all up if you didn't own a literal library."

I scoffed at her, "Hey, I do not have enough to be considered a library, for your information, and it's not my fault I can read," I retorted playfully. She mumbled something, but helped me pack anyway. It took almost 3 hours, but I was all packed, and about to pass out, which I did.

Waking up and knowing I had to go home was like a birthday party where you just found out everyone cancelled on you. I said goodbye to Charlie before heading to the bus station. It felt like a walk of shame having to walk there. Soon I was on my bus headed back to Stars Hollow, waiting for whatever fate I had there.

I had talked with my mom after I got kicked out, and told her everything that happened. Somehow word got to my grandparents, and they pulled some strings to get me enrolled into Chilton. That was basically my final form of hell, since while I was smart, I hated having to do real work. The only upside was that they had a pretty good art program.

Soon my bus pulled into Stars Hollow, where I saw the residents I've known since I was a child, wandering around. My favourite though was seeing Luke's where I got the best coffee from. As I got off the bus my only thought was, well time to make the best of this situation.

Which I knew was utter bullshit.

A/N this is my first time writing a fic, so I hope you like it, and next chapter we'll get to meet Jess, this is just the set up of the story, and I'm thinking of switching POV's sometimes, but idk