Tears of July | √

Prologue (Everything Has Changed)

Prologue

The memory was as fresh as yesterday.

It was the first day of August. It was a different place, a different school, and a whole lot of different people.

I remember stepping inside Marlon Academy, the small yet prestigious school not appealing that much to me. All those years living in New York made me think lightly of other places now. I was from New York, but then I urged my parents to let me spend the whole year in my grandparents' hometown, a thousand miles away from our huge apartment in the city that never sleeps. Eventually, I liked it there and decided to spend the rest of my secondary school in Marlon Academy too.

I was in eighth grade when I met him. I had trouble adjusting, of course. But he made me stay and made a huge impact in my life.

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I arched my glasses upward and looked around. It was recess time, and I sat there on the swing, eating the cookies my sixty-year old grandma made for me.

I didn't see a group of boys approach me because my eyesight was awful. I had cataract, though it was only mild that time, and I was too young to have surgery. My parents had been trying to find a doctor who was going to make the procedure, yet they couldn't find anyone.

"Nice phone." The boy in front of me said. He had black hair and blue eyes, though the ugly scowl on his face definitely did not make him that attractive. He held my phone on his hand, my purple shoulder bag on the other.

I had come across a number of bullies at my former school in New York, but then they eventually got tired of making fun of me, considering the fact that I didn't mind them, and that my only best friend, Molly, smacked them on the head with the enchiladas her mom made her every day. And so I ignored the dimwit, despite the fact he threw my backpack away and started threatening my phone.

The boy and his friends stared at me then dropped my phone on the ground. I almost laughed, seeing as they got tired of the phone. I thought they were going to leave me, but instead, the boy grabbed me by my legs and threw me on his back. I screamed, punching his back. His other friend pulled my glasses and started stomping on it with his feet. Then he picked it up, dangling it in front of me as I started to struggle away from the boy's grasp. A scream erupted from my throat, but there was no one there that could help me.

All I could see were hazy images and a few movements. I felt myself being dumped on the fountain, which was a few feet from where I sat, and I cried.

I rarely cried. My whole body was soaked in water then I heard the splash of my glasses as the boy threw it on the water beside me.

"Assholes! Why the hell did you have to do that?!" an angry voice echoed in my ears. I turned to see who it was, but I couldn't make it out since he was standing a few feet from the fountain. I felt horrible, and I was shivering from the freezing temperature of the water.

"Woah, sorry dude. We didn't mean to-" The boy who threw me in the water started, but he was cut off.

"Fucking mess with her again, and I swear I am going to drag you around the campus." The other boy said in a venomous voice.

A few seconds later, the boy rushed to me and handed me my glasses. I put it on as he helped me out from the fountain. He was gorgeous, in an eighth grade observation way. He had black hair, and his eyes were so green I thought it was made from trees.

He draped his denim jacket over me and helped me to the nurse's office. At that moment, I ignored the fact that I could have hypothermia since the boy who was dangerously close to me emitted heat from his flawless body.

"M- My name's Cassandra, bu- but you can call me Cass." Or you can call me on my phone, too, I almost said to him. He looked at me and gave me a warm smile. I didn't know he even existed before I even entered school, but something about him was so different, like the guy could be my friend in an instant.

"I'm Lyle."

And that was the one out of the many reasons why he made me stay.