Fragile// Danny Edge

Prologue

The sunlight hit my eyelids, making me groan in annoyance. My body was tangled in several blankets. I lazily grabbed my alarm clock, looking at the time.

I burst out of bed after realizing I was late. I was late on the first day of school! Well, it was half way through the school year but my family just moved to California. We used to live in Maine, but we had to move because the medical plans in Maine sucked. My mom has stage 4 leukemia and the doctors are more trained for things like this in California. So, we had to move.

Our family doesn't seem like a real family. We live in a state of poverty right now. My mom spends most of her time in the hospital, or in bed. So we don't talk much, unless it's about her cancer. Me and my dad don't talk much either. He stays with my mom every time she gets her bone marrow filled or anything else. My older brother, Alex, always tries his hardest to ignore the illness. But the problem is, that's all that goes on in our house. So he has no choice but to accept it. The cancer turned him into a total dick. He's cranky, he ignores everyone and the only emotion he gives is boredom or anger.

And that leaves me, I'm Scarlet. The cancer hit me hard. I was eleven when I learned my mom had leukemia. It's been six years. It was very minor when the doctors found it. They thought it was an easy fix. Well, they still think that and aren't doing anything about it. Hence why we moved.

I snapped out of thought, realizing I still had to get ready. I threw some clothes on and did light makeup. I touched my hair up and ran out the door. I opened the garage, soon realizing I had forgotten the keys in the house. Before I could run back, the garage door opened fully, completely empty. Of course, My brother had taken my car and my parents had taken theirs, probably to the hospital or to look for a job. My dad had to quit his job after the move, because of obvious reasons. He starts a part time job in a few days, but that pays close to nothing. He needs a real job. I hop on the old bike on the side of our new house. The school wasn't that far.

I lied. It took me a hour to get to school. I rushed into the front office, hoping to get an excused lateness. I ran up to the desk with a lady behind it, not paying attention to anything. "Look I'm sorry, I'm new and I know I'm 2 hours late but I woke up late and my family took all the cars, so I had to ride a bike and well this bike is just-" I say out of breath before the lady cuts me off. "Scarlet Brookens?" She says in a monotone voice. I nod my head in reply. She hands me two slips of paper. One was a late pass and one was my schedule.

I walked out of the building, looking for my third hour class. Wow, this school was huge. there was four buildings, A, B, C and D. There was classrooms in each one. I looked at my schedule again, third hour was C12. I looked at the building again, confused. "Lost?" I heard a voice say beside me. I nodded helplessly. The girl who helped me was very pretty. She had long blonde hair, that was dyed pink at the end. The pink was faded, almost back to the original color. She had big brown eyes and long eyelashes. "Are you a freshman? This usually happens, the school is quite big," She said looking at my schedule. "No, no I'm a junior, I'm just new," I laughed, "And obviously late." She laughed with me and said, "Hey, I guess we're both late! Well, I'm going to B6, you can just go to the C building, it's on the right in the very back." We said our goodbyes after I thanked her.

I went to the area she told me to and walked in. Everyone stared at me. "Hi, um, I'm new. Scarlet Brookens?" The teacher smiled at me and motioned me to come over. She stood up in front of the class, oh no. "Okay class, we have a new student!" She said looking over to me, "This is Scarlet, tell us about yourself Scarlet."

I stood out so much. I was the palest one there, everyone else was so tan and beautiful. Someone in the class cleared their throat, signaling me to talk. "Well, I moved here from Maine... Um, sorry, I'm not that interesting." I said shyly. The class chuckled and the teacher kept bugging me, "Well, why'd you move?" I sighed, wanting to avoid the question. I fiddled with my fingers before answering, "Medical issues." I just left it with that. The teacher nodded and told me to find a seat. There was two empty chairs. One by a couple making out and one by two guys. Two guys it is. I sit next to them and they say hi to me. "So, Maine?" The one to my left says. I only nod, not wanting to get to far into my personal life. "I'm Danny, by the way," the one of my left says again, "And on your right is Paul." Paul smiles and waves to me.

Well, I've met three people that see me more than a stranger, so my day is going pretty great.