The Other Side -ON HOLD-

The Other Side - Chapter One

Isabelle (Bellie)'s POV

The paled fuchsia fingers of dawn erupted across the stilled morning sky. 

I groaned and swung my hand over my body, smacking the button and turning off the annoying ringing sound coming from my alarm clock.

"ISABELLE!" My mother called from the bottom of the stair case.

Why can't you just call me Bellie, like everyone else? I thought as I rolled my eyes and yelled back

"I am COMING mother!"

I reached for my window, opening it up fully. I have a full view of my best friend, Grace Stevenson's house, right next to mine.

Her bedroom window is open the tinyest bit.

"GRACIE! GRACIE! GET UP, YOU LAZY BUM!" I yell out my window.

"What do you WANT?" A voice screamed back. Gracie appeared at her window, her straight blonde hair sort of tussled from her pillow. She wore the usual - some kind of long sleeved shirt with gray sweat pants.

"Oh, good, you're up," I say sweetly, "last day of school, Gracie. Then we have winter break, fourteen days of PARADISE." 

Gracie rolls her eyes, puts a hand on her hip and says "Can we PLEASE just skip?"

"No."

"Please?"

"NO."

"BEELLLIIIIEEEE." She whines from across the small patch of grass separating our houses.

I smirk, close my window and turn, knowing Gracie is staring at me.

Slowly, I walk over to my closet and pull out a pair of tight fitting, comfortable jeans and a light purple shirt which had New York City written across the the chest which I had gotten when I took a day trip with my family.

After I turn and see Gracie gone from her window, obviously getting dressed, I smiled again and threw my shirt on over a white camisole, and replaced my blue and white striped pajama pants for the jeans. 

I walk over to my little collection of shoes - my black and brown Ugg boots, my sneakers, and then, of course, the various slippers. I slide my feet into my black Ugg boots and run a brush through my long dark brown waves. I tilt my head to the side, looking at my reflection. Something is missing, and it only takes me a split second to decide what it is. I push a black hair band into my hair and smile into the mirror. Perfect.

Rushing to the bathroom, I glance at the clock and see that I only have about ten minutes before I have to meet up with Gracie and walk to school. 

I squirt tooth paste on my green tooth brush and quickly brush my teeth while I fix my hair again.

"Isabelle Lee Hampsion, do you REALIZE what time it is?" My mom screeches up the stairs.

I sigh, flick off the bathroom light, and dart down the stairs. I barely say goodbye to my parents before I run out the front door and directly into Gracie.

She's wearing the usual - her honey blonde hair is down and straight, her pink converse and black skinny jeans offset her bright pink shirt that reads "Love" and a black and pink scarf tied around her neck. She buttons up her dark pea coat, and mumbles a "hey" as she fumbles with the buttons.

Finally, she gives up and lets her coat hang open.

"Great way to wake me up this morning, thanks." She rolls her eyes at me.

I grin and reply "No problem."

She shakes her head, glances over at me and says "How are you not freezing?" 

I look down at my thin blue zip-up hooded jacket. "I...don't actually know."

I'm not cold, actually, even with the snow on the ground. It's pretty weird.

We pass the time of the walk by talking about random things - our dogs, facts that we come up with off of the top of our heads - everything.

Eventually, we reach our school. 

I say goodbye to Gracie as we reach my locker, hers' is a floor up. I turn the dial on my locker, right, left, right, and pull the handle. The door swings open, revealing the mess that is inside. I smile, knowing that Gracie would lecture me if she saw this. After pulling out my purple binder for first period, and my bag for P.E, which is second period, I shrug out of my jacket and stuff it in my locker. 

Slowly, I make my way up the stairs to homeroom, and see Gracie standing at her locker with our friend Danielle.

"Gracie!" I screech, causing her to turn around.

"Bellie!" 

Danielle laughs, shaking her head.

"We have math first period." I say as I reach her.

"Yep, and gym second."

Gracie rushes off to her homeroom at the sound of the bell, her shoes making squeaky noises on the tile floor of the hallway. I, however, don't really care about being late, and walk to homeroom. I enter the room about two minutes late, but my teacher doesn't yell "YOU'RE LATE!" like she does normally. Instead, she motions for me to sit in my assigned seat and listen to the announcements over the loud speaker.

I roll my eyes. Who really cares about the new cafeteria deserts? I mean, honestly, I don't think I could care less.

After a few minutes, the announcements stop and homeroom is dismissed. I walk down the hall and into math class. Gracie is already sitting there, a seat behind mine. Miss A made the mistake of seating her directly behind me. We mess with the teacher all the time.

"My house, after school?" I ask, turning around to look at Gracie. She's working on the warm up problem that Miss A. wrote on the board.

Gracie nods, "Do you still have those cookies...the ones with the little chocolate chips and the walnuts?"

I laugh and say, "Yeah, my mom bought more yesterday just for you."

Gracie giggles and goes back to working on the problem.

Gracie and I have been friends since we were little. I mean infants. Our parents were college best friends, and Gracie's parents moved into the house next to mine just a few months after I was born and when Gracie's mom was still pregnant. She's three months younger than me. We've been through everything together - from when Gracie's parents split (Temporarily, of course, they got back together a few weeks after that), when my dog died - everything. Her parents are like my parents and vice versa. I fight with her older sister Nicole like she's my own sister and Gracie fights with my older brother Tyler the same way.

We're pretty much one big family.

Somehow, I make it through the first half of math. I'm in such a rush for the day to be over, I'm not paying attention to anything but the ticking of the clock.

We finish the warm up and go over the previous nights homework - which was really stupid. I mean, who really cares about math anyway? Not me. And one look at Gracie tells me that she isn't very interested either.

"I do NOT want to go to gym." Gracie mutters. I nod, knowing she can see. We talk all the time in class, but we never get caught. 

"Gracie? Do you have an answer?" Miss A. asks Gracie.

"42?" Gracie blurts out, and I can tell she's guessing just by the way she says it.

"...correct." Miss A. sounds taken aback.