A Love Like War (Jack Barakat Fanfiction)

Chapter 1: Meeting Jack

"'Cause every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man," shrilled Carter's alarm clock as Billy Gibbons' guitar rang out through the speakers. Carter groaned and rolled over, slapping her hand down onto the cold, hard plastic of the snooze button. Five more minutes, she told herself, rolling back over and pulling the covers back over her head. She was beginning to hate ZZ Top for waking her up. Those five minutes might as well have been five seconds as Carter's eyelids creaked open. A groan escaped her lips as she dragged herself out of bed, the fuzzy blue carpeting tickling the bottoms of her feet and slumped into the bathroom to get ready for another day of hell, er, school. She lugged herself into the closet, her toothbrush hanging from her lips like a dog bone. The last thing she wanted to do was go to the hell hole they called high school. After a good thirty minutes of bitching and groaning, Carter crept down the stairs at a snail's pace, grabbing a granola bar before running out the door.

She slipped into the front seat of her '67 'Stang, perhaps the only thing she had ever loved, and sped out of the driveway, blasting Rian's band's EP through the rickety stereo. Rian was Carter's best and only friend. It had been that way since kindergarten when the pair had met. Up to this day, Rian is the only person Carter has ever let herself get close to, and the pair remained best friends to this day. His band was up and coming here in Baltimore, and they were pretty kick ass. Carter had yet to meet anyone else in the band, but whoever they were, they were amazing, way better than she could ever hope to be. The realization that Christmas break was only a week away was the only thing keeping her sane at the moment as she pulled into the parking lot. Here we go, she thought to herself. This is gonna suck.

Carter trudged along to her first period class, leather clad and prepared to stare down anyone who gave her a second look. She didn't play nice when it came to the assholes who surrounded her every day. Often times, she was referred to as a bitch or worse, but it was unlikely for Carter to care about their opinions. She lived life on her own terms, and didn't give much thought to what other people thought of her. As she made her way to her usual seat in the back of the room, a guy who Carter assumed was new here gave her a look up and down. She shot him a steely glare as she passed. Hopefully, he got the message. First period was Calculus, and she hated Calculus more than anything else on the planet, so the odds of her eve giving this guy the time of day were slim to none. She slid into her desk in the back corner, slumping in her seat. The worn wood in front of her was covered in intricate designs and doodles of all colors. They were there courtesy of Carter herself, a result of the deathly boredom Calculus inflicted on unknowing students. Because she didn't talk to anyone in this class, she couldn't think of a better way to pass the time.

The shrill cry of the bell rang through the room, and Mr. S began his boring spiel about the importance of sine curves, so Carter got to work on her latest doodle. Carter felt someone's eyes on her and glanced up from her drawing to see a rather attractive guy smiling at her. She had never actually noticed him sitting next to her, but upon closer inspection, couldn't believe she hadn't noticed him earlier. He really was pretty attractive. What's his name again? Carter thought to herself. Jace? Jake? She didn't trust her memory enough to call him by name, but she granted the guy a sideways glance as acknowledgment for the smile before returning to her latest doodle on her ink-covered desk. The teacher droned on and on at the board, but all Carter could hear was blah blah blah like the teachers in Charlie Brown. If she was being honest, Calculus was boring as shit. She preferred to just teach herself the material when she had the time. As she reached into her pocket for a red pen to add bright flames to the dragon on her desk, she gave the boy a second glance. He really was quite attractive, which was saying a lot when you took a look around her high school. He had these piercing eyes and a strange blonde stripe through the front of his dark hair, kind of like a skunk. She didn't quite know why, but she found it super charming. She couldn't believe she had never met this guy before.