Imaginary Amity

Chapter one

It's funny how you hold on to the things that hurt the most, the memories that keep you from moving on. Which forever leaves you on the verge of tears, forcing you to never forget. My heart still stops every now and then, remembering the moment we found out she died. My wrist still holds the scars that will never, ever heal. The scars that slice open your body and expose every bit of you. Your kindness, your personality and the evil, the dark, dark side. The side of you that ruins the image, ruins the personality, ruins you.

The dark side you would never be able to get rid of.

I sketch a circle with my pencil and start colouring it in. Pressing down on the pencil, I dig it into the paper—harder, harder—until it snaps and I sit there, distracted.

"Carrie, stop chewing on your pencil," Miss Saunders snaps.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes and drop the pencil, but not before flushing a little. She glares at me for a second, then whips around and starts walking towards the front again.

As you can see, Miss Saunders hates me. She doesn't even try to hide it. Ever since I first stepped foot into this classroom, she has taken an oath to make my life miserable.

I stare straight ahead, bored and notice Georgie slip her hand backwards on my desk and drop a square of paper on top of my empty notebook.

Grasping the note, I quietly flick it open, making sure that Miss Saunders can't see me.

'guess what tina told me??' she's written in her bold, and quite frankly, ugly handwriting. It's so scribbled and cramped, I definitely prefer my neat, cursive style.

Blinking a few times, I focus on the piece of paper again, turning it over to find more writing. 'theres a new guy! from East High!'

I raise my eyebrows at that. East High? It's a football school. Strictly for athletic people only. Glancing at Georgie's back, I quickly fix the grammar and punctuation. Yep. I'm 'that kind of person.' In my defence, it's impossible to read with grammar like that!

As I re-read the note, I can't help shaking my head. Before getting into all that drama, girls should ask themselves, what's the point? What's hooking up with a random guy ever going to get them in life? Distracting them and lowering their grades, getting their heart broken...

Plus, there's no love in high school. It's just a bunch of guys messing around, making bets on who can seduce the most girls, who can turn two best friends into enemies, fighting over one guy and who can make some poor girl's life the worst by breaking her heart. I've learnt that the hard way.

As I slowly lift my eyes off the paper, I find everyone looking at me. What?

Frozen in my seat, I sit stiffly as Ms Saunders turns around.

"Carrie, you wouldn't happen to be passing notes, would you?" She has a predatory grin, tilting her head to one side before continuing. "Or did someone pass it to you?" She eyes my friends accusingly then rests her eyes back on me.

My face goes red and I try to think of happy thoughts, anything that won't make my face burn. Though I really don't want to get into trouble since it technically wasn't my fault, I can see Georgie hiding her face.

"It was me, miss," I say, defeated.

Immediately, Georgie sits up, sending me repeated 'thank you's' and smiles with immense relief.

"I see." She smirks. "Should I read the note out loud... or would you rather have detention?"

I go for the obvious solution. But it's clear the class wants to know what's on the note. No way. I'm not that horrible a friend.