A Mechanical Love

Chapter 1 A Brand New Start

You walked up to the only high school that seemed to be in this very small town. This was the day you were dreading. It was the first day of school for your senior year and you had to start it in a new school. You already missed the grass and rain of your midwestern home. You missed your small group of misfit friends that you could easily joke around with about anything and everything. Your father decided that it was time to move after your brother had passed in a car crash and your mother passed away in her sleep about six months ago. That's when your life started to go to hell.

But that didn't matter now as you watched the students of your new school flood into it as they already start wishing for the day to be over. You drag yourself up the stairs hoping that you don't already find yourself at the mercy of the bullies that were sure to plague this school. 

You entered your first class after you talked to the counselor to get your schedule for your classes. The teacher looked over to you and glanced you up and down not even trying to hide the fact that he was judging how you looked, probably trying to determine what kind of kid you were. He looked over the sea of children and pointed to a seat in the back next to a window while handing you a bunch of papers. You thanked him and shuffled through the lanes left for people to walk through until you got to your desk. As you sat down you looked at the person to your left, he seemed fairly tall with dark short hair and blue eyes. You tapped on his desk to get his attention.

"Um, hi I'm (f/n) (l/n) and I'm new here. If you could give me some help it would be greatly appreciated" I nervously said.  "Sure I can give you some help. If you want I can even show you around town after school. My name is Jack Darby by the way" he held out his hand for a friendly shake which I kindly accepted. So he explained the sheets of paper to me and after we traded friendly banter back and forth. Class soon came to a close and you had to go to your next class.  The rest of the day dragged on but thankfully without much trouble.

You rushed out the school's main doors trying to not get run over by the hoard of students behind you. You looked around for Jack to follow up on that promise of a town tour. As students started to clear you could clearly see Jack by a blue motorcycle. As you got closer you could tell that he was talking, but you weren't sure who as he wasn't on his phone and no one was around him. You were closer now and decided to call out to him to try and get his attention. When he fully turned towards you, you closed the gap between the two of you by running up to him.

"Where you talking to your motorcycle or is there a dwarf hiding somewhere" you questioned. "Oh... um... yeah... is that too weird for you" he rubbed the back of his neck nervously as he looked to you for his answer. "I don't think it is. What did you name her" you asked? "Oh um... her name's Arcee" he pointed to the sleek ride, suddenly surprise covered his. "Wait! How did you know that she, it has a name" Jake seemed to panic and corrected himself mid-sentence. You raised an eyebrow at this but blamed it on him being a teen boy who wasn't used to talking to girls his age. "Well, first of all, it's bad luck if you don't name your ride. And second I just assumed that she was a girl because she's a motorcycle" you answered his questions a hand on your hip and a friendly smile on your face hoping to calm him down. "Oh," he looked at you for a second as a silence fell between the two of you. "Well, are you still willing to give that tour of the town" you broke the silence with your question as he looked at you with surprise. "Oh, right, the tour I said I would give you. Look something has come up and I can't..." you stopped him right there. "Hey man it's cool don't worry about it. Just let me know when you're ready or if you change your mind, it's all good. I guess I'll see you tomorrow then" you looked over your shoulder as you walked away and waved goodbye.

You arrived at the silent building you were now supposed to call home. You stood outside the front door debating on if you wanted to go inside or not. You knew that if your father was home he would be drunk and you didn't want to deal with it. You decided to sneak in to drop off your school stuff and grab your art supplies then go for a walk. With that task down you went in the direction of the school with music playing in your ears, hoping that you could explore the world outside the small town and find something interesting to draw.