To Love a Spider

Chapter 1

 "Ding, ding, ding"
The bell signaling that school officially began sounded throughout the room. Elizabeth Brun was sitting in her first-period class ready to begin the day. She reached under her desk to retrieve her American History textbook. Even though she was a sophomore she took all AP classes.
"Okay, everybody. Now take out a clean piece of paper and list three causes of the American Revolution." Her teacher, Mr. Lehrer's voice boomed throughout the classroom.
Elizabeth just wanted to go home and take a nap.

* * *

"We could be superheroes."
Elizabeth was walking home from school with her two best friends, Cassidy and Maggie. They were trying to figure out what they were going to be for Halloween. Elizabeth shook her head. "No, definitely not. What are we, little kids?
Cassidy put her hands up in surrender then folded them across her chest. "Ok, well what do you think we should be?"
Elizabeth thought for a second. She really liked their idea of dressing up as the three Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus. She also wanted to not do Halloween at all this year. they were getting too old to dress up, if not to old already. After all, they were fifteen.
"How about we don't go at all?" I ask.
Now it was Maggie who spoke. "We can't miss Halloween. It's our favorite holiday."
"But, do we have to go to the party at school?" We had reached my house. "You can tell me tomorrow." And with that, she ran inside. Elizabeth wasn't in the mood to be criticized for not having enough self esteem.
She walked up to her bedroom, grabbing a cup of black olives to eat on the way up.
She opened the door to her room and stepped inside. The room was picture perfect. The clean walls were painted a dark spearmint and every one of her evergreen striped pillows were lined up neatly on her bed. Her furniture was all white and behind her silk curtains there were three windows lining up in a row.
Elizabeth was a neat freak.
All of her books were lined up in alphabetical order and there was not a single piece of clothing on the white carpet.
She dropped her book bag onto her bed and made her way over to her organized desk. Her history teacher, Mr. Lehrer had given them an essay that was due Friday.
Today was Wednesday. Which meant that she only had two days to do it. Elizabeth didn't have any homework to do today, which was a rarity, so she decided to get the work done ahead of time.
She set out everything she needed; a notebook, pens, highlighters, pencils, her textbook. All she needed now was a calm place to work. Her parents wouldn't be home from work for a couple more hours, which was plenty of time to do her work. Elizabeth packed up her supplies and started off towards the place she loved the most.
The library. It was there that she would meet him for the first time.
She didn't even know her world was about to turn upside down.

* * *

The funny thing about love is that you never know when you will meet your special somebody or how you will meet them. You don't even know if they love you back or if your love for them is one-sided.
Elizabeth lived only a fifteen minutes walk from the library. She went there almost everyday after school. It was like her safe haven so to speak, not that she needed a safe haven, but when you have three younger siblings a girl needs all the peace she can get.
The walk to the library was brief. She started up the concrete stairs, occasionally looking at all of the autumn life around her. It was beautiful. The trees were just beginning to turn all different shades of red, yellow, and orange and the squirrels played tag high up in their homes.
She opened up the massive doors and stepped inside. The architecture of the building knocked her speechless every time. The wide, marble pillars stretched up to the fifteen foot ceilings and the blue trim blended in perfectly with the lavender armchairs and sofas.
Elizabeth strode over to her usual spot, a nice mahogany desk with an identical chair. She sat down and spread her materials out in front of her. She located her notebook and turned to a clean sheet of paper. She wrote at the top of the page in big bold letters The Boston Tea Party.
And with that she started on the long process of starting and completing her writing assignment.

* * *

Elizabeth had left the library a couple minutes ago and was almost home. She had completed her project after working for a little more than three hours on it. Elizabeth glanced at her watch and found that it was 6:14. Her parents would be wondering why she was late for dinner, and if she didn't get home soon they would start to worry about her.
It would be getting dark soon and Elizabeth hated being out after dark. The shadows made everything look dark and gloomy and phantom shapes would appear out of nowhere. The dark made Elizabeth feel vulnerable. Elizabeth hated feeling vulnerable.
She pulled her jacket tighter around her to protect her from the sharp bite of the wind. She quickened her pace determined to make it home in time to read and check her paper for grammatical errors.
Elizabeth dropped her paper on the ground. When she leant over to retrieve it she heard a sound behind her. Tucking the paper into her backpack she turned around.
"Who's there," she called, forcing herself to remain unafraid.
When no one answered she started back home again. She didn't get far.
Soon she heard another sound. This time, when she turned towards the sound, a hand closed over her mouth.