The Music Box

Chapter 1: Rachel

"Ryan, I already told you, I don't want to be together anymore."

"Come on!" He shouted, almost beggingly. "Just give me another chance. I promise, if you do, you--"

"That's enough, man." She sighed, a headache forming in the front of her brain. Rachel had been together with Ryan for only a month in the summer, but she could already tell it just wouldn't work out. He paid too much attention to everyone else, hardly even looked at her, and just couldn't care less about their relationship, basically. This was actually the only time he seemed to care about them being a thing; when she wanted to let it go. "Listen, Ryan. You're a nice guy. Really, you seem nice. But I just don't think I love you."

His shoulders dropped. "But, Rachel..."

"Goodbye, Ryan." She nodded, leaving and walking out the door to catch her bus. She briskly walked past other people who were rushing to leave the crowded school, possibly looking forward to the nice nap they were going to take later or the warm coffee they were going to sip on this nice autumn day. She felt like a weight had been lifted off her back as she stepped into the rickety bus, a big '96' labeled proudly on the bus's sides. She took her usual seat, watching the bus fill as more and more kids piled in. She recognized their faces, although didn't know a single one of their names. Rachel felt herself sigh a breath of relief she didn't know she had built up.

"Well," Cicero, her best friend, said as she sauntered up to her seat. "Today was eventful. How about you? Did you have a good day?"

"I'd say so." Rachel smiled and moved her things onto her lap.

"Did you cut him loose?" She took a seat next to her, her pleasantly plump body slightly pushing Rachel next to the window.

"Yeah, I did."

"Oh, thank God! Took you long enough!"

Rachel smiled a bit and rolled her eyes. "I just wanted to see if he'd change over the month I gave him."

"And what did I, your mama, tell you? He wouldn't change if you gave him a year! So what did he do?"

"Asked me to stay."

"Seriously? Why?"

"I dunno. Guess he just didn't want to be alone."

"Ah," she nodded and looked at her backpack, playing with one of her key chains that hung onto one of the zippers. "Figures. So, you got your sights set on someone new?"

"No." Rachel shook her head, looking out the window. "Not yet. I'll let you know when, though."

"You better! I gotta approve of 'em before you go off with 'em."

"I know, I know."

The bus began to move, the windows jostling against their metal frames filling the quiet bus with their annoying creaks.

"So why was your day so eventful?" Rachel asked, watching the street lights as they past them.

"Hm?" She looked up from her phone. "Oh, yeah. Someone called me fat again, so I shook up my bottle of soda and sprayed it at them."

"Who was it?"

"The same stupid kid again. Freshmen, I think."

"Did you get in trouble?"

"I don't think so." She laughed. Rachel laughed a bit, too.

It took awhile for her to get home. She lived in the country, and she was the last one off her bus, along with her brother, Anden. He had shaggy blonde hair and brown eyes, and today he was wearing a marsh green and black jacket, along with a pair of light blue jeans. His shoes were black and white, and his socks were white. He was fourteen, and was going to turn fifteen on the nineteenth of February. Rachel herself had just recently turned sixteen, on the twelfth of August.