Unfavorable

May 14th Salt Lake City 2011

                 Chapter 1

"Bye Lillie, I love you!" I screamed as I walk down the narrow hallway -that usually smelt of midday sweat but, today it had a slight vanilla fragrance to it- and out of the school building. I checked my phone as I walked through the doors that led to the parking lot and the time read 4:15 pm.

"Bye Miller!" I barely heard her say as she turned the other way to walk toward the drama club classroom. With her it was never my first name, only my last. In all the years I have known her, I don't think she has ever called me by my first name.

  See the thing about me and Lillie is we are complete and utter opposites. She is one of those people that you wouldn't, couldn't and shouldn't expect to act the way she does. She's a drama loving, make-up always perfect, hair never out of place prep, while I, her best friend, am a biology loving, glasses wearing, make-up never done, hair always in a bun if not a mess geek, somehow though we fit. Hell, we've known each other since we were born, probably even before that! It's a funny combination her and I, two opposites yet we're still best friends.

   As soon as I was outside I began to walk the 2 miles to my house. I was lost in the beat of the music, blasting through the speakers of my headphones, engulfing me in a world all my own. That I didn't realize the car that was coming towards me at sixty miles an hour and completely out of control.

               Chapter 2

  I froze,unable to move, standing like a deer in headlights,all I could do was watch a the car as it ran into me. Somehow I was pulled- more like yanked out of the way of the car barreling towards me- and onto the farthest stretch or sidewalk, where it boarders the woods.

"Thanks" I breathed trembling from the thought that I could have been road kill lying on the street... dead.

"Are you hurt?" a soft and smooth voice said. I turned around and saw a man standing there grasping me on my shoulders. He is a slim man maybe 6 feet, if I were to be generous, he has dirty blonde almost brown hair and the brightest green eyes I have ever seen. They were almost scary in how much they sparkled in the setting sun, watching me, searching my face for a sign that I am okay.

"No, I'm not thanks, sorry." I don't know why I apologized I guess it seemed like the right thing to do. It was better than what I was thinking  anyway, hey, sorry I almost died and I didn't mean to, my bad, it won't happen again. A lot better. I've never been good at speaking, in public, in private, it doesn't matter where. I trip over my words so bad that the final product is a jumbled mess. So to save me from the embarrassment, I stay quite, never talking, always listening, always observing.

"What's your name?" I asked as I concentrated hard not to trip over words and unsuccessfully tried to stop trembling. 

"Lucas Phillips." he said calm and steady, like his voice was pure air, ready to dissipate into the world around him at any second. His name sounded familiar in a -I can barely place where I've heard it before- kind of way, but if im not mistaken Lillie had an older brother named Lucas. He however, died 5 years ago when her and I were ten and he was eighteen. Then again, his body was never found from the wreckage of the boating accident in the Jordanelle Reservoir. So this couldn't really be him, could it?

"I'm Scarlet, Scarlet Miller." damn! I thought as soon as the words escaped my mouth, I shouldn't have said that. I should've lied and said it was Mollie or Diana or Jane or something, anything was better than my real name. I just broke every rule in the history of not talking to strangers, everything I've been taught just went down the drain.

"Do you need a ride?" he said with suddenly a little sharpness to his voice.

"What!" I asked, stunned, pondering his question over and over again in my mind. I may have been stupid enough to tell him my real name but no way in hell was I stupid enough to accept a ride from him. Besides the point, he was walking when he rescued me, where was his car?

I was to busy pondering the thought of his absent car to realize that the car that was out of control a few minutes ago had circled back around and was parked on the side of the road a few feet back from me. It was parked at such a ridiculous angle that I had to turn around to see the full vehicle.

"Get in!" said Lucas with an obvious sharpness to his voice, a complete change from a few moments ago when it was soft and smooth.

"Wait, wha- and with that I was struck over the head and lifted into the car.