Under The Surface [Editing]

Chapter One Announcement

“Guess who’s coming back to school?” Lily announced as she sat down at our lunch table.

The school cafeteria was bustling with students eating their lunches, waiting in line to purchase food, and the buzz of chatter. The first week of the school year and anticipation filled the air. My mouth being full of my sandwich, I could not ask who. Debra did so for me.

“Oh who?” She breathed airily. The crack of a smile spread on my face as I chewed.

Debra was our resident speed dater. She is tall, confident, and slender with big coffee eyes and dimpled cheeks. The thing that stood out about her is the fact that her hair was always a different color. I don’t know how she kept it looking smooth and silky with how often she switched the pigment. Right now, it was a light shade of plum, the kind you see at the very beginning of a summer sunset. I don’t think she even remembered what her natural color was.

“Nathan Braddox,” Lily liked to be flagrant when announcing gossip. Debra and I had raised eyebrows in interest. I wasn’t all that familiar with him but I have heard of him.

“Dang, I thought it was someone good.” Debra waved the news off with a disinterested polished hand as unimportant.

Lily frowned at her, pulling her hair back into a straight bobbing blonde ponytail and adjusted her librarian styled glasses, her deep violet eyes hidden behind them on her nose. At least they looked violet when the light touched them they were so pale. She was a short petite little thing and all the guys liked her. Lily was not overly interested in anyone in particular she marched to the beat of her own drum.

“What? You’re not excited about the resident bad boy returning?” Lily said sarcastically to Debra as she settled in at the table. Debra rolled her eyes.

“He is not a bad boy, not that I heard just got into trouble, otherwise I would be interested. No one even knows for sure what happened,” Debra the nonchalant skeptic always cool and collected. I finished my bite and washed it down with my soda.

“I thought he was gone for good,” I joined in the conversation finally.

Debra and Lily are my two best friends and we always ate lunch together at school. Debra was a newer addition to our group, only since we started our high-school career. Lily and I have known each other since childhood. We were all seventeen years old and had just started our senior year at Bailey High. Our town of Bailey, Oregon was no metropolitan city but it was no sideshow attraction either. Moderately populated, not everyone knew everyone else like in all the smaller towns nearby.

“Apparently, he made some deal so they released him on a good behavior promise or probation to live with some volunteer family.” Lily supplied as she pulled out her lunch. The sexy librarian stereotype fit her perfectly; she was always full of new information and gossip.

“Is he here now?” I asked incredulously.

“No, sometime next week, that’s all I heard though.” She began to eat her lunch.

“Do we even know what he got in trouble for in the first place?” I asked out of curiosity.

“I heard a fight.”

“I thought it was drugs.”

Both Lily and Debra said at the same time. I sighed. I guess we would not really know anytime soon. Having only heard of him through the grapevine, I did not know him and I had never seen him before, not that I could recall. Bailey High was only the third high school in our little town so everyone knows about the boys from the wrong side of town, this Nathan happened to be one of them.

"Where did you get your information?" Debra asked pretending to be interested as she munched on her pepperoni pizza slice. Debra, with her sunglasses on, surveyed a table full of misfit type guys from across the cafeteria with a smirk on her face. With this boy’s return I just knew the ‘bad boy’ was going to become a trend.