Trust Anyone

Chapter One - A Trip in Woodshop

Victoria Allister was in a mood. Maybe it was because of the astounding lack of sleep she had gotten the night before, or maybe it was because of the fact that her school, Salem Middle, was just a moody place, but either way Victoria was ready to bite anything or anyone that tried to approach her.

It also could have been because, at about two a.m. the previous night, her boyfriend had unceremoniously dumped her. Over text. She recalled, for a moment, her now-ex-boyfriend's exact words: "We just don't fit right. Like a puzzle with a piece in the wrong spot, y'know?" The words stung even now, six hours later, because Victoria had been so happy and he - Jerome, Victoria reminded herself, like she could have just forgotten him that easily - thought that they didn't fit right.

But Victoria was sure that had absolutely nothing to do with it. She was sure that it was just the same old "first day at school" stuff. Totally.

Victoria glanced at the piece of paper in her hands. Her school schedule. According to that, she had first period Woodshop with someone named Mr. Pritt in room 208. As she checked her watch, Victoria cursed - she only had four minutes to find her class.

Eventually, Victoria ended up in room 208, three minutes before the bell rang. She, like all the other students, was standing next to her seat (which happened to be in the back row - how lucky) next to a blond, curly-haired boy named Leo and an energetic girl who loudly introduced herself as "Daisy, but you can call me Alice because all my friends say I'm like Alice Angel from Bendy and the Ink Machine". Victoria smiled thinly, introduced herself, and busied her hands with combing through her short, perfectly styled black hair. She was so focused on shutting out the world around her that she didn't notice the short, chocolate-skinned girl running through the gap between tables until the girl had already knocked her down.

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Aspen Rivers really didn't mean to be late to her first day at Salem Middle. She really didn't mean to wake up twenty-seven minutes after her alarm had gone off, and she really really didn't mean to miss the bus and have to run all the way to school.

She also really didn't mean to run right into the school's most popular - and by extension, Aspen thought, meanest - girl and trip over her own untied shoelaces, not only downing herself but taking pretty-black-haired-but possibly-really-mean-girl with her. Now Aspen's glasses are skewed across her face, her uniform is covered in dust from the wood shaving-covered floor of room 208, and she's staring right at the one and only Victoria Allister. 

After a while, which was really only five or six seconds but felt like forever, Aspen spoke.

"You have...very pretty eyes."

The sentence left Aspen's mouth unbidden, and entered Victoria's ears the same way. The room had gone silent; not even bouncy Daisy-Alice dared say a word. Aspen felt a warm feeling rising from her chest all the way to her cheeks. She glanced at Victoria's face and saw the same light blush she presumed was decorating her own face. Nothing to do but try to save the situation, I guess. Aspen furrowed her eyebrows together and studied Victoria's eyes. They really were pretty - a deep blue that reminded Aspen of the ocean, shot through with streaks of a lighter, icier blue that was almost white. A ring of dark gray surrounded Victoria's pupils, making them look almost like black holes. Very pretty, Aspen thought.

"Wh-what?" A stutter and a blink, and Aspen was snapped cruelly back to reality. She blushed an even darker red, so dark it was visible against her coffee-colored skin. Quickly getting up off the floor, Aspen brushed the wood dust off her uniform and walked, embarrassed, to the back of the room. Her seat was there, waiting for her. It had been her seat in Woodshop for the past two years; Aspen had taken the class in sixth grade and loved it so much she had taken the class every year since then. This year was no exception. But as she went to take her seat, Aspen noticed something. 

There was already a backpack at her seat.

Aspen shrugged. "Someone must have put their stuff in the wrong place." She muttered. "Whatever." She shrugged again, before realizing how redundant that must look, picked up the foreign backpack, and dropped it in the seat next to hers. A kid, probably a scared-as-hell sixth grader who had never been in a woodshop class before, sat down in the seat and introduced himself as Frank. Aspen shook his hand. She was nothing if not polite.

Just then, a middle-aged man who the students of the class collectively determined to be Mr. Pritt swung open the door and strutted - freaking strutted, the students thought - to the front of the room. He was wearing the standard teacher uniform, but Mr. Pritt's hair was dyed a bright green color and he had two or three piercings in each ear. His voice as he read out roll call was the voice of a former rock star; throaty, strong, and only just tinted with remnants of cigarettes or pot. Victoria could smell it from here, on his breath, and she wondered how the hell he hadn't been fired yet. Maybe he's a drug dealer, she thought. Maybe he deals to the whole school or something.

Mr Pritt began calling roll. When he read Victoria's name, he smiled. It wasn't one of those weird creepy stranger-on-a-subway smiles, but it was warm. Inviting. And considering he had messed up the last three kids names, Jake instead of Jared, Alex instead of Andrew, and David instead of Dean, she wasn't even that mad when he called her Veronica. For the first time since Victoria had met him, (which, granted, was about two minutes ago, but still) he looked like a teacher. 

It felt like a good morning. As good as a morning could be, anyway.

Victoria had a feeling she was going to like Woodshop, and not just because the class was fun and the teacher was nice.