Forever & Always?

Chapter One

          I was sitting in class. It was my first hour of my first day of my last year at high school. I had been impatiently waiting for my medical careers program and for my admission letter from Stanford to come in. I had always been so eager to start my future and this year was the beginning of it all. The medical field always fascinated me. Becoming an endocrinologist was a dream of mine that, with the help of the medical program at my school and the acceptance of Stanford, I could pursue. Everyone always found it barbaric to be forced into planning a future that was never even guaranteed, but to be honest, my future was the aspect dragging me out of bed every morning. I have wanted this for as long as I could remember. 

"Hello, class. My name is Mrs. Lesting and I'll be your chemistry teacher. Let's take attendance, shall we?" She picked up her attendance sheet and a pencil and walked to the front of the room. Mrs. Lesting was beautiful. She looked about 35 years old and had light brown hair that was naturally wavy and fell to the bottom of her spine. She wore no eye makeup or lip gloss. Her skin was a tan white and her brown eyes sparkled. Her voice was enthusiastic, but not to the point of annoyance.

She read the names off and scanned the room after each name. I knew almost everyone and looked at each person as their name was called.

"Samantha." She looked up.

"Carter." She smiled a little and looked up.

"Daniel." She looked up, leaving the smile on her face.

"Cameron." She looked up.

"Call me Cam."

"All right, Cam," she said, through a wide grin.

"Marie." I looked up.

"Here," I said calmly, but not nervously. I was quiet in school, not shy. I talked in class, but only during times when everyone else did.

"Hello, Marie," she said, looking back down at her sheet with a grin. Once she finished role call she recorded the attendance on her computer.

"Aye, ma man!" Cam said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hand out behind his head. Daniel slapped it and said, "What's up, Cam?"

"Eh nothing much," he smiled. Cameron had a smile that anyone could fall for. His teeth were perfectly straight and white and his smile was large.

"Alright," the teacher said loud enough to get everyone's attention.

"Let's talk school." A couple of groans filled the room.

"Yeah I know. It's crazy of me to talk about school while we're in school, isn't it?" She smiled at a girl with the name of Abby. Some snickers went around.

"So, you all have a syllabus on your desk. I would go over it, but your next five hours are going to tell you the exact same stuff I would be telling you, so there's really no point." She set the paper on her desk.

"Okay, we are going to go around and say our names and something about ourselves. I don't care what else, just anything. Anyone want to start?" The silence lingered for a long while. Of course, Cam eventually raised his hand. He spoke as he raised his arm.

"I'm Cam and I like my first hour teacher because she seems wonderful," he said with a fake smile and a mocked tone.

"Kiss ass," someone said while fake coughing. We laughed. Cam rolled his eyes and smiled.

"I popcorn to Danny ova here," he said, pointing to a boy named Daniel.

"Since when was this "popcorn"? What? Are you in third grade?" the teacher laughed.

"I like popcorn. Both the food and the way of picking on people," he said in a whiny tone, flattening out as he finished speaking.

"Well all right," she chuckled.

"Hi, I'm Daniel and I like country music," he smiled, glancing at me and then turning away. Daniel's eyes were very blue. So blue, parts of them almost matched the color of his pupil. He had big glasses and a ton of semi-dark hair. It was all messed up with so little gel, if you were not looking at it for longer than five seconds, you would not have noticed it. He wore a crew neck and dark jeans that were not skinny, but were not baggy. He wore black converse. Daniel could talk all day in class, but would never make a sound while the teacher was talking, unlike Cam.

Daniel and Cam were best friends, always had been. However, they could not be more different. Physically and internally. Cam had light brown, curly hair. He had dark green eyes and wore no glasses. He had on Nike sweats and a long sleeve baggy shirt that read "Just Do It." Cam talked all the time, especially when the teacher was speaking. He knew how to make everyone laugh. He was funny for one of two reasons. He could make good jokes on demand, or he was just so ignorant it was amusing.

The bell eventually rang, which caught me off guard. I scrambled to throw my syllabus in my binder and scurry out the door. I turned the corner and rammed into Daniel who was waiting for Cam to stop flirting with Mrs. Lesting. A grunt snuck out of me as our bodies hit. I dropped my binder.

"Whoops, sorry about that," Daniel said, reaching down and grabbing my binder. He looked up and cocked an eyebrow, handing it to me.

"You're Marie," he stated.

"You're Daniel."

"Yeah," he smiled.

"Well okay then," I laughed and walked away.