You're Not The Only One

CHAPTER 1

Hi. My name is Sarah Collins. I am sixteen years old, an only child, and go to Midnight County High School. You may think 'Oh, a normal teenage girl, living a normal life.' Well I guess you'd somewhat be right but, like everyone, I have a story to tell.

You see, I was kind of involved with the wrong kind of family about six months ago. My best friend's family to be exact. Well she's not my best friend anymore, obviously.

Caylee Grey and I used do everything together. Any stereotypical 'girl' thing you can think of. We would go shopping together, fangirl over Disney princes, even braid each other's hair while spilling the latest tea.

Yes. I did that.

But everything changed when I came out to her as pansexual. For some reason, she thought I liked her in that way. Which I 100% did not. She was my best friend, I loved her. But I could never like her in that way. She would tease me and joke about how I 'couldn't get enough of her'. And I was getting done with her assumptions.

A few weeks later, we decided to go to a party that was being thrown by one of our classmates whose parents were out of town. We agreed that things were getting tense and neither of us wanted that. So this party was supposed to break the ice. Key word 'supposed'.

We decided that we would not drink any alcoholic substance at this shindig. Simply because, we were better than that. Yeah, I don't think Caylee was as into that idea as much as she said she was. About an hour later, Caylee was drunk. We made the discovery that night that, Caylee is a hardcore lightweight. I wasn't in the room as the main event happened as I was probably wandering around the house wondering why these people were here. But I heard the story later on as that was the latest 'gossip'.

Apparently, Caylee told one of the guys to, and I quote "Distract Sarah so that she isn't all over me". What? And that is why about five minutes later, some random guy that I don't know kissed me. It was uncomfortable. Seriously the dude should take a shower once in a while.

After that, I never really forgave her. I needed her to be supportive. Instead she shoved a guy on me. For a month or so after that, Caylee and I formed a bit of a rival, annoying the crap out of each other. She graffitied my locker, I toilet papered her house. And it went on and I'll admit I was a bit immature. But then my dad got this amazing job. It pays well, it has good hours, he's doing what he loves. But there's a catch, it means we would have to move to Midnight County.

So that's how I ended up here. In Midnight County. In a new school. Where I know absolutely no one. Yay.

The first half of my school day went okay. My classes were boring, I got lots of homework. I was getting my lunch in the cafeteria as I was thinking about all the ways I could make a fool of myself here when I tripped on my own two feet. And spilled my coke all over a girl I was passing.

"Fudge!! That's cold!!"

Well, that wasn't on the list of possibilities. Who knew I could be so creative without even meaning to?

"I am so sorry! Here let me help you." I said as I grabbed the napkins I had on my lunch tray and handed them to her.

I guess I was expecting her to yell at me or something because I couldn't help the look of surprise on my face when the girl burst out laughing. After a few seconds of just sitting there, I couldn't help but see the humor in the situation myself. I joined in her laughter and we stood there for a minute, not noticing that people were starting to stare. When we managed to stop laughing, she said,

"Well, that was fun. Thank you, I needed that." I couldn't wipe the grin off my face when I saw that her smile was genuine.

"Oh, no problem. I'm always here to be a clutz if it helps." She laughed,

"Oh boy, do I know how that feels. I'm awful at...basic human functions." I chuckled. I'm happy to meet someone who feels my pain of being...less than graceful. That reminds me, I don't know her name.

"Haha, I'm Sarah by the way. What's your name?"

"I'm Annabeth, but you can call me Beth. Wanna sit together at lunch?" she asked. I nodded and picked up my tray that I had put down on the nearest table so that I could help Beth. After she got her lunch, we found an empty table and sat down.

As we ate, she started telling me about herself. I found out that she really is a clutz. She broke her left arm twice, both times by falling down the stairs. She broke her nose by walking into a wall, but luckily it healed straight. After she finished telling me how she sprained her ankle by falling off of her bike when she was eleven, she started to notice that I wasn't saying much.

"Are you usually this quiet? Or is something bothering you? Normally when I talk this much, people just walk away. Or tell me to get a life." she giggled at herself.

"No, I'm fine," I laughed "I'm just a better listener than a talker, I guess." I really wasn't trying to be rude, I just have trouble... trusting people. So talking about myself with people I don't know very well is hard for me. I don't know Beth, although I'm learning a lot about her, and I like her so far.

"That's fine, I totally understand. As I'm sure you can tell, I'm quite the opposite." we laughed at that. It was true. From what I can tell, once you get her talking, she's very good at keeping a point.

After lunch, we were walking to our next class, which we had together. Beth was pointing out people and telling me simple facts about them, like Ashlyn got her braces out last week and doesn't like it when people talk about her teeth, strangely enough. And Josh is a player and no matter how hard he tries to charm me I should not fall for it. Apparently.

Elisa is the 'Queen Bee' and just is not a nice person. James and William are best friends and are kind of the opposite, James doesn't talk to.... almost anyone apparently. And William is a total social butterfly.

We went to the rest of our classes, only some of which we had together, and said goodbye. I went home honestly, happier than I thought I would. I thought today would be insufferable because I didn't know anybody, but it was pretty good. And, I am actually looking forward to tomorrow. But, don't tell anybody I said that.