How to Survive to 18

7 Days Prior

"Nina!!" I hear my mother yell from downstairs, I groan as I raise my arms to stretch. "Nina you'll be late, the bus will be here in 10 minutes!" I sigh, grab my blanket and pull it slowly off myself, "Im getting dressed" I manage to say with my sleepy voice as I sit up, not being completely sure if she had heard me. I look around my room, a small yet homey room, not particularly a teens room like you'd expect from an 18 year old, well almost, in seven days to be exact. I get up feeling suddenly more energized as anticipation for my birthday fills my body. I get quickly dressed in my to-go outfit incase of mornings like today. A rather simple white shirt with dark denim boyfriend-jeans, and a pair of my favorite black converse. I put on minimal make-up, just some bb cream and mascara, and as for my hair, seeing as that by some it would be considered a boys haircut, I just brush it through.
As I grab my backpack and open my door, I stop just for a moment, and look back at my nightstand, with a small silver chain and pendant on top. I sight and look down, walking out my room. My mom always tells me to wear it but I can never bring myself to do it, it hurts too much. I don't have time to eat breakfast, sadly, but I guess that's what I get for sleeping in. I walk to the front door past my mother, and she waves me goodbye, I look at her and smile. As I lock the front door and walk to the school bus I get increasingly more excited for my upcoming birthday. I sit in the bus and we start moving, all I can hear now are the kids in the front. They are the popular kids, most of whom are bullies, especially to me and my friends. I try not to pay attention to them, we all do, but its just hard sometimes when they get up all in your face and call you names. All I can do now is be invisible and hope they don't pick on me as I wait for Kai.  The next, and last person the bus usually stops for.  
As we near the his stop I move my back pack and my favorite black hoodie with some stars to my lap, so that Kai can sit with me. As I see him walking toward me, we exchange a warm smile, I notice his black boots and cuffed ripped jeans, he is also wearing a tucked in striped polo with a few chains. Just as he is turning to me to sit we hear a girl from the front of the bus call out "tranny!" And as Kai hears that, his smile immediately disappears. He sits down by me looking down, biting his lip, he always does that when he's nervous. He bends down getting his backpack and putting it on his lap just as I did. I put my hand on his shoulder, "It'll be okay" I whisper, and his adorable smile comes back with a little chuckle.
The bus ride after his stop isn't all too long, just 8 minutes. When we get out of the bus we hurry to the maple tree in the front of our high school, RoseStone High School, I know the name is weird but its kinda cute. Kai and I always try and get to the tree before Ally comes, my friend and Kai's baby cousin. 'Just by a year' Ally always says to him when he brings up their age difference 'more like a year and two months' Kai and her always bicker about it, its not like it really matters. Kai is 18, just like I'll be on Tuesday, and Ally is soon to be 17. 
"Kai! Nina! Happy to see you guys" She runs to us carrying her huge back pack, I never know what she carries in that thing. Ally is very short, 5'1 so it's always so funny to see her trying to carry her bag all day long. I swear her bag is like 40 pounds. 
"Ally you saw us yesterday" I agree with Kai in my head, nodding slightly, just enough for her to notice and roll her eyes at us. 
"Yeah but I miss my cousin, and my bestie" Ally says smiling at us both.
"Well it's about time we head to class guys" I say because I hate being late. The last time I was late I was sent to the principle, only because I was 2 minutes late! My teacher was so strict junior year. I don't know what happened to him, Mr. Amandi, I heard that he was fired after too many parents complained. Which honestly would make sense. 
We all have different classes, which sucks, but we hang out at lunch and between our classes. I walk into first period before the bell and sit in my desk, AP English has begun. Right now we are reading a book by Arthur Mully, he died last year after falling off a skyscraper, people think it was murder but it was ruled as a suicide. I also think someone pushed him, it just wouldn't make sense for him to jump. Even my teacher agrees with me and most of the class. The book he wrote The Beginning of Fire is 548 pages long, with 36 chapters and we aren't even halfway through it. Although I enjoy reading, I just don't have the patience to read anything longer than 400 pages, which is a problem since I want to go to collage and major in English. All my other classes are boring; Physics, Algebra 2 (I failed last year) and HOPE class. 
Finally, sitting in HOPE I hear my lunch bell ring and quickly grab my things and walk straight to lunch. As I walk toward the entrance doors, where we all usually meet up I see Ally and wave at her, she stares at me walks toward me and grabs my forearm, gripping it so hard I think for a second it may leave a bruise. I look at her, extremely confused. All I see in her eyes is pain and shock, I see sweat dripping down her forehead to her eyebrow. Her mouth is halfway open and breathing heavy. I notice her 40 pound back pack isn't on her. 
"What's wrong Ally?!" I say beginning to worry and make up a whole bunch of impossible scenarios in my head as one often does. 
"Kai" She says, almost as if she can't breath. My mind gets filled with panic as I realized he is usually here by now. Kai isn't as worried about being late as I am, but one thing he is never late to is lunch. Oh how that boy loved his sushi. What happened to him that he isn't here? All I can hope is it's not the doing of the girl from the bus and her friends, we call them 'the three musketeers' they always bully us, Ally for her weight, me for my hair, and Kai for his awkwardness, but ever since he came out as trans last year they bullied him the most out of the three of us.
As I feel adrenaline fill my veins Ally and I begin racing down the hall, I have no idea where we are going but I just seem to have a feeling to run to the bathroom. We run past the vice principal. He yells at us something about no running in the halls, and for a slight second I hear him going after us, but we are in too much of a hurry to even look back at him. I walk toward the boys bathroom doors and put my hand on the door handle, it's cold, like no one has touched it in a while. I look back at Ally as she shakes her head and pointing to the girls bathroom. It always upset me how Kai isn't allowed to use the boys bathroom, and because of the he usually never even goes. Ally opens the bathroom door, I notice her backpack in the middle of the floor, with a few things fallen out that I would never think she'd have with her; a vape and a book of some sort. Yes books aren't the weirdest thing for a school girl to carry but this one is weird, it has a picture of star constellations and meteors on it, which again isn't all too strange but knowing how much she is afraid of space, it's weird. It reminds me of my favorite hoodie which I put on in second period, gosh that classroom is always so cold. We walk through the door and I turn my head, there he is, there's Kai.
My hands start sweating vigorously, and the hair on my arms stand up. It's Kai, on the floor covered in blood and in a fetal position, like someone had kicked him in the stomach.  "Oh shit" I say under my breath, Ally rushes over to him, falling by his side and putting her palms on his face, comforting. She looks back at me, with the most broken eyes I've ever seen. Almost like she is about to die, or someone else died. The whole atmosphere darkness as the reality sets in, someone beat him up. And that scares me as I look at Kai's body, there's a lot of blood, mostly around his mouth. Is he dead? I don't know, I want to walk toward him and try to see if he is conscious but I can't, my legs won't let me. My vision is getting blurred and I feel dizzy, almost like I took shots of vodka, which I've done on several occasions. My legs get jiggly and I stop feeling my arms, I feel the gravity of earth pulling me further and further toward itself. Then all of a sudden I feel something hit my head. Something hard and cold, and now my vision is gone. All I see is black. All I feel is cold. And all I hear is, "NINA!"

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Author's Note:

Hey guys! Thank you all for reading the first chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed it, and if you did, don't forget to vote! I'd really appreciate any support for my stories :)

- Sincerely, June