The Girl With No Mind

Chapter 1: Kat

I never knew that someday, my lifelong best friend would be my biggest rival.

"No, that can't be an animal cell. See? That right there is a cell wall," this girl in my biology states as each of the members in our assigned group take turns staring into the microscope trying to find the right answers for our worksheet.

Currently, we are all in disagreement between what type of cells these are. Due to it only being the second week of class, none of us actually know what we are talking about. This lab was an excuse for the teacher to not have to teach today, since we haven't even gone over this in class yet. I guess it's my fault; I did try to challenge myself by signing up for AP biology, after all.

"Sarah is right guys," I speak up, as I look from my annoyingly heavy textbook to the microscope repeatedly.

"Thank you! Finally someone agrees with me," she exclaims as she waves her arms in the air in exasperation and writes what she thinks the correct answer is.

As we all get to an agreement on what the answer is, a static noise breaks through the light conversation going on in the classroom, and the intercom speaks: "Can Miss Katherine Sanders please meet me at the attendance office, room 106 please?" I recognize our principal's voice immediately and panic on the inside, not to mention the wince I had when he used my full name instead of my nickname.

As my teacher responds to the intercom, I take off my lab goggles and release my long, blonde hair from the death grip my hair tie had on it.

Collecting my bag and putting it on, I apologize to my group that I'm leaving before the worksheet is done.

"I'll just grade what you have tomorrow, Katherine!" I wince again as the teacher also calls me by my full name and focus on being grateful she's not going to take off points for a, now, incomplete assignment. If there is one thing I learned about this school, the teachers here are not usually fair when it comes to circumstances that are out of our control, or maybe that's high school in general?

I walk down the hall, passing the dark red and yellow lockers, my Adidas echo with each step because I'm the only one in the hallways. With each step I grow slightly nervous. While I'm most likely not in trouble and this conversation might be about some random decision I have to make as the head of the student council, I have an uneasy feeling in my gut.

Considering the fact that I'm on the second floor, in a classroom basically as far away from the attendance room as possible, it takes me a solid six minutes to walk there.

By the time I reach the attendance room my hands are a clammy, sweaty mess, increasing the average difficulty it should take to open the out-dated, round door knobs which are present on every door in this school.

Stepping into the attendance room, I'm not met with my principal. Instead, the only thing in front of me is the back of some girl with long black hair going down an inch or so past her the bottom of her shoulder blades. Confusion fills me thoughts of where the principal is cloud my mind. However, it's quickly cleared as Mrs. Clarice, the woman in charge of attendance, happily greets me: "Oh Katherine! Come here and meet our new student, Eris Nelson. The principal specifically requested you to accompany her to all her classes today and help show her the roads of this place."

As she finishes her sentence the girl, Eris, turns.

My eyes go wide and my mouth opens slightly as I take in what this girl looks like. It feels as though she turned in slow motion, as I analyze her perfect jawline and facial features. She's beautifully tan. Her long black hair flows gently over her shoulder at the turning motion and her grey eyes make contact with mine. I almost felt hypnotized looking at her; she was definitely the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. We had some good looking people at this high school, but no one could even compare to this girl.

She opens her mouth to smile at me and reaches out her hand, which I barely shake in enough time to avoid any awkward energy or silences.

Everything about this girl has stunned me. Her smile looks like the most inviting and visually appealing smile to have walked the earth. She smiled with ease and it filled my stomach with a sensation I had never felt before.

As we shake hands, her height and how she's slightly taller than me becomes more apparent. She's probably around 5'9 or so, about the height of a model - figures someone that beautiful would be the perfect height, too.

I release a breath I didn't even know I was holding in. "I'm Kat," I state as I exhale.

Her face lights up more, but her eyes don't hold the same excitement as her smile. I brush off the look in her eyes, and tell myself it's probably the nerves of the first day.

After a quick mental conversation with myself about how I'm probably staring far too intensely at her, I snap myself out of the trance she had over me.

"So what's your first class? First period is almost over, but we have enough time thatI can show you where it is at least," I offer. She only nods her head and hands me her schedule in response to this, but that perfect smile is still on her face, making welcoming me and making me hopeful her and I will become friends.

Glancing at her schedule and I am shocked "We have AP Biology, AP English, and lunch together," I explain. For such a large school, consisting of over a thousand people, for her and I to have so many classes in common is rare unless it's planned.

"Here, follow me."I say as I hand her back her schedule and we walk down the hall back to the class I previously came from.

~~~

I never imagined a person could be so well rounded. This model standing in front of me was like an enigma.

Viewing her schedule, anyone could see this girl was academically brilliant. All her classes were Advanced Placement besides her music class, which was the highest level of violin the school had to offer. Would there even be any classes for her to take next year that would be harder or of the same difficulty?

I watched her introduce herself to each of her teachers and classes, and the way she would speak to everyone, with that smile of hers, made everyone fall in love with her immediately.

Luckily, my biggest sigh of relief was nearly every person that met her had the same astonished reaction to her as I did. It was as if our brain's couldn't comprehend how someone could be so flawless. I mean, we are teenagers after all: no one is supposed to look that good. She didn't have a pimple, an acne scar, or even any discoloration on her face at all.

Accompanying her to her classes throughout the day, I got to know her slightly better. She was quiet at first, but with each class she would open up a little more.

"So why did you move to Oxnard?" I ask as we walk through the hallway, trying to distract her from the hundred people staring at us.

"Well, I've moved around a lot in my life. My parent's jobs require a lot of moving back and forth. But they said they used to live here when they were my age, and I guess they've been trying to settle down," Eris explains to me.

"Geez, that sounds tiring," I couldn't stand if my parents did something like that. Never being able to settle in one place must get old. I was surprised how she sounded like she was okay with it.

"Haha, yeah it is for them, but I like meeting new people."

"Well that's good. I probably couldn't handle something like that," I state honestly.

She giggles a little and gives me a nudge "I'm sure you'd like it."

I immediately blush at the half compliment and laugh she gave me. Even her laugh sounded attractive.

Eris and I fall back into a comfortable silence as we reach her third period class: violin. She goes on to introduce herself to the class, and while I have given this tour to three other students before, I have never seen someone handle everything so well. She didn't stutter or get flustered by all the intimidating faces once.

Still, in between classes she would walk in the hallway with her head held high, as everyone watched us and whispered about the new girl.

Because we have only been in and out of classes so far, we've only gotten the chance to talk a few times, but since the next period is lunch I guess it's my chance to see what Eris is like.

Little did I know, this girl was going to change my life.