Samra looked down at her palm, tracing the small dream catcher adorning the skin. It kept away nightmares, she always thought. It helped her sleep peacefully at night. Sighing, she collapsed on her bed. Living in a new foster home wasn’t her favorite thing to do, she didn’t even know why she was still in the system, she was eighteen tomorrow. It was only a month into her stay in the house, but she had nearly been sent to another house at least twice. She didn’t see the point in placing her in a new home just to finish out her senior year. School wasn’t important. She wasn’t going anywhere in life with or without a high school degree.
“Samra! Wake up! It’s time to go to school!” her new foster mother called out, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Sam groaned, pulling herself up, grabbing her bag, and heading downstairs. She waved a quick goodbye, and pushed her way out the door into the warm Florida air. Florida was miserably hot, the June sun blazing down on the sidewalk. She reached her high school in a few short minutes, still not understanding why she had to be there. Finals were over, and nobody cared anymore. Besides, she was a senior. She had basically graduated.
She made her way slowly into the open air high school, still feeling the intense heat although the roof above the halls covered the sun. Reaching her locker, she reached inside to pull out her notebook full of drawings she scribbled out while bored in class.
“Hey there new girl!” one of the boys smirked, leaning beside her. A few of the popular girls stood on the other side of the hall way, staring on jealously.
“Fuck off, I don’t know you, therefore, don’t hit on me,” Samra growled, turning around.
As she looked down the hallway, she noticed that people were all attempting to push each other out of the way and running in the direction of the auditorium. Out of curiosity, Samra made her way through the crowds of people, holding her bag tight on her shoulder. As she finally got into the sound board, run by the only two people she was friends with in the school.
“Hey boys, what’s happening?” she asked, plopping down in one of the chairs in the small room with the board.
“Well apparently our school has one a free concert from some band from like England or some shit,” the taller of the two replied.
“Thanks Alex! I’m so glad you actually noticed I asked something, unlike that one in the corner over there!” she smirked, looking at Danny, who sat in the corner, glued to his cell phone, “So do you know what band is playing?”
“I believe they’re called One Direction,” Danny finally replied, shoving his phone in the pocket of his shorts.
“I think I’ve heard of them, some chick in my history class talks about them a lot,” Samra laughed.
As she looked out towards the slowly filling auditorium, laughing as girls screamed, shaking with excitement to see the band they loved. That was how Samra felt when Danny and Alex blind folded her last week and she ended up spending the day in Disney World with the two boys. They didn’t feel up to the mayhem of prom, so they went to Disney World instead.
“Hey Samra, can you go backstage with Danny and hand out the mics and whatnot to the boys?” Alex asked, making sure everything on the board was labeled correctly.
“Yeah sure,” she mumbled, slowly following Danny as he pushed through the crowds and slipped backstage.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Danny yelled, attempting to get the five boys attention, all of which were talking rather loudly to each other.
“Oh hey sorry!” one of the boys turned around.
Samra watched on as Danny handed out the mics, although one of the boys looked back at her. His dark hair was kept nearly perfectly on top of his head, slicked slightly back. She could see a tattoo on his forearm, although not exactly what it was. As she looked closer, he noticed, and looked directly back at her; she chose to stare down at her feet.
He took a few steps towards her, examining the tattoo across her chest, ‘to infinity and beyond’. The cursive text looped across her tanned skin, obscured by the straps of her tank top. She was picking at another tattoo on the palm of her hand. From what he could see, it was a dream catcher. As he approached the girl, she stared down at her painted toenails, pretending to be interested in the bright colors.
“Hey,” he said quietly, standing a mere two feet in front of her.
“Hi,” she spoke softly, still staring at her feet.
“I’m Zayn,” he introduced himself.
She finally looked up at the boy in front of her, “Samra,” she replied, a small smile adorning her lips, he was cute.
A few awkward seconds later, Danny approached the two, informing Samra that she would be running backstage during the show, seeing as after the last performance of the spring musical, their stage manager had thrown a temper tantrum and gotten kicked out of drama club. She was handed a headset and a radio, and told to ‘have a great time!’, before she was left alone with the five teenage boys.
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