Cassie's Tale on Life, Love and Loss

Chapter 7

As I sit there picking at my food with the Queen Bee and her minions staring at me, I look at them and then back down at myself, I am nothing like them- their skin is flawless and they are just so confident, so proud to be them.

"So you're new here right? I haven't seen you around before" the one in the middle says flashing her white teeth and I nod a bit shyly.

"My name is Kimberley, but you can call me Kim. This is Nia", she says pointing at the brunette with braces and gray eyes, "and this is Mandy" she says pointing to the other brunette with hipster glasses and gold heart locket, kind of like mine.

I smile weakly at them and they both say 'hey' in sync.

"I'm Cassie, but my friends call my Cass" I say staring awkwardly down at my plate.

"You're really pretty, prettier than most of the girls here, but you don't seem to realize it" Kim says smiling at me.

"Thanks" I say unsure if they're being serious or just nice.

"You have serious potential. How would you feel about being one of us? You would get all the perks that come with bei-" she gets cut off by a voice.

"Hey Cass, can we talk" I look up to see one of the twins.

"Ummm", I look around the table to the three girls sitting in front of me, they looked uncomfortable and annoyed, "sure". I get up from my seat with the girls and walk away with either Mark or Matt, I still couldn't tell them apart easily, their eyes were my only clues as to who was who.

"What's up?" I ask. This is my first time communicating with any of the boys since we got to school today.

"They're bad news Cass, just stay away from them." Ihe said sternly as looked in to his eyes and saw that they were a greenish blue, without a doubt knew this was Mark. Matt had brown eyes.

"What do you mean? They seem kind of nice" I make an attempt to argue.

"Just trust me, I know them and I don't really want you to get caught up in their drama. Promise me you will stop hanging out with them" He said, his eyes showing a little hurt, but his voice getting soft with care.

"Okay, okay, no need to get all father like with me."I say breaking eye contact because it was geting a little still wondering why he doesn't want me to hang out with them. My first thought was that he used to date one of them and they broke his heart or something. But that's not a reason for me to not hang out with them, I can tell that this goes deeper.

"Why don't you come chill with us, where real cool people spend lunch" he said grabbing my hand and dragging my with him.

We stopped at a steel door, "are you ready?" He asked resting his hand in the door knob. I nodded and he replied, "Welcome to our home outside of home" as he pushed the door open.

Beyond the doors was a field that seemed to go on forever of grass and trews and shrubs and bushes. It reminded me of the forbidden forest from Harry Potter.

"This is so nice, never took you guys for nature lovers" I said still in awe by the beauty in front of me.

"We aren't. Come there's more." he said and started walking forward. "And pick your jaw up off of the floor" he called with a chuckle.

I followed him for a while through the trees until there was a small house in view. My first thought was that the witch from Hansel and Gretel lived there, but it wasn't made out of candy so either the stories were wrong or she doesn't live here. Either way I would be disappointed.

"Now this is our actual home away from home, this is where our lives happen. Not many people know about so feel privileged Cassie Montgomery" Mark said opening the door for me to go in.

"Yo Mark, come see this!" Mike's voice called.

"Its not Mark" I said standing in the living room. The house seems so much bigger on the inside. It was really pretty and elegant and spacious and nothing at all like a place for guys to spend all of their free time. I stood ogling at a painting done on one of the walls, kind of like a mural, running my fingers over it feeling the brush strokes.

"Max did it. He's pretty talented." I turned to see Mike looking over my shoulder at the painting as well.

"Who would have thought Max had it in him to paint something so beautiful?" I said thinking of all the things I've heard about all the boys today, mainly Max: heartbreaker, some even called him heartless. Some students even thought that they were gang members or something like that.

"He's a good guy, trust me" he said shaking his head a little and chuckling. He grabbed my hand and dragged me around to the kitchen where all of the boys were positioned on the countertops.

"I haven't seen you guys all day. What's up?" I say walking in and they all turn around and stare at me like I'm an alien or something.

"Who let a girl in?"Max snickered. And Mike says hes a good guy. Ha!

Mark threw an apple at him and it bounced off of his solid chest. Max picked the apple up to throw it back at him, but Mark shot him a glare and he put the apple down.

"How's your first day going Cass?" Matt said, the first thing he's said to me all day.

"Its whatever" I said considering the fact that I didn't really make any friends except- damn it what's her name, that girl that's my student guide- shit, I feel like such a bad person now. Oh well, its whatever. I joined the guys in conversations for the rest of lunch, which was actually fun. As for the rest of my day, it was pretty easy going. I didn't really see Kim, Nia and Mandy except for a few times in the halls, where I tried my best to avoid them, until I could figure out why I was forbidden to hang out with them.
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I pulled my new shiny Fiat into the backyard where everyone else car was already parked. I got a bit lost on the way home and ended up just exploring the neighborhood until I found the house.

Once I was out of the car I checked my phone, remembering I had gotten a text a little while ago and saw that Axel texted me: Can we talk?

Sure I replied. I'm not in the mood for bullshit or for him telling me lies like he loves me. I know he moved on and that's why he wanted to break up. I hate that I let him in and now he's broken my heart, I was so stupid to think that he would actually want to be with me, especially now that I'm all the way in Detroit.