Chasing Cars

Chapter One

Good God no. I stared blankly at the algebra test in front of me. The equations I had done so well on yesterday now seemed entirely new in my brain. I had no idea what the page was saying when it told me "find the slope of this line, use the y=mx+b equation." If only I had studied... I mentally punched myself. Stealing a quick look around the room, it annoyed me to see my peers quickly scribbling notes on their own tests, their expressions normal, obviously they knew what they were doing.

I looked at the clock. Five minutes until the bell rings. Five minutes left and all I had done the entire hour was stare dumbfounded at my paper. I am so going to fail this class. Rereading the test for the hundredth time, I searched fervently for at least one question I could try to answer. Question number thirty six seemed simple enough. Find the slope using the points (9,3) and (5,0). Good enough for me. I scribbled the answer into the blank space just as Mr. Torres looked up. "Pencils down everyone."

Many of my classmates looked pleased, while a couple of them attempted to write at least one more answer. "Oh my gosh I am like totally gonna pass like this test," Lexi, the annoying popular girl next to me, gushed to her friend in the other row. I had to roll me eyes at her squeaky chipmunk voice and irritating vocabulary. Who could say "like" as often as she did? "So Kari how do you think YOU did?" Lexi looked at me and batted her eyes, glancing at my blank test and grinning.

I sighed. If I didn't reply to Lexi, I'd seem soft...but I didn't want the whole popular nation hating me, so I decided to say something that would shut her up. "Even with a blank test I probably did better than you," I replied simply. It was a thoughtless comeback really, but with an airhead like Lexi receiving it, I knew she'd shut her trap because she was too dumb to think of anything else to say in reply. I was about ready to burst into a fit of laughter as I saw Lexi's face start to sport an expression that'd I'd pay money to see, and nearly fell on the floor as her cronies started to grow their own lost looks.

"And my name's not Kari," I snapped just as the bell rang. I was satisfied to see that even as the class was clearing out, Lexi still sat in her chair, that same ugly look plastered on her face.

The hallways were crowded with football players, whom I hate to be caught in passing time traffic with, but today I was feeling a bit more powerful than usual and I brushed past them easily, not letting them annoy me for a single second. On a normal day I'd shove my way past them quietly, trying to make myself as small as possible so I could just get through them and too my locker, but not today. I pushed past them all, and when Jake tried to stop me like he usually did to bug me, I looked him square in the eye and told him to get the heck out of my way.

My moment of power was suddenly washed away as soon as I got past the football players and saw a new challenge, the gang. They had no special gang name, no, they were just regular seniors, only they all needed a serious shower and clean clothes. They smelled like motor oil and fish. I tried to steer clear of them, but it was getting harder ever since they found out about my parents' secret stash-no, hoard, of drugs. "Where do ya think you're going Evie?" Chuck, the gang leader, sauntered up to me and blocked my way of passage.

"Science," I muttered, not looking at his wretched face, but smelling his nasty breath was enough to make me want to gag already.

"But Evie...there's still three minutes of passing. Plenty of time to-" Chuck was cut off as the principle walked briskly over to us and started reprimanding Chuck about somethings that I couldn't understand from the hushed voice of Dr. Charleston. I took this as an escape opportunity, and darted off to my science class, where my best friend Sue was waiting for me at my desk. "Karev!" She called when I walked into the room. She looked exasperated, as if she'd been dying for me to get there faster. I laughed when I went over to her and set my stuff down on the wooden desk. "She's been standing here forever," said Evan, the guy who sat next to me.

I looked sideways at Sue and grinned. Annoying Evan was something we loved to do, we didn't know why, it just was.

We talked for about two minutes before the class bell rang and Sue sat in her desk a few seats behind mine. Our class quieted down as the announcements started to crackle though the speaker.

I was sitting in my seat quietly until the voice on the intercom changed to the stern voice of Dr. Charleston. "Karev Grey to the principles office....NOW."

She did NOT sound happy.

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I hope you all like this first chapter :) Thoughts?