Alrighty, thoughts? Suggestions? Editing? Like it? Hate it?
Preface
Isn’t it funny how fast things can happen? How fast something that you once thought was your life, can change? Sure, I had a pretty normal life, I fit in with the status quo. Until life decided to take a bite out of me. One quick change was all it took. I will never be normal again.
Chapter 1
Footsteps coming down the hall, a soft knock on the door. “Chloe? Time to get up sweety.”
It was just so routine I could do it in my sleep. Mom comes to wake me up; I go downstairs for waffles and orange juice and make small talk. Then I go back to my room, complain about how I never have anything to wear and head off to school. Although the bus ride to school only takes about fifteen minutes, it gave me ample time to think about what had happened the other night. My fingers found that sharp bite mark behind my ear and I winced at the pain my touch to it had brought. Maybe if I ignore it long enough…“ARE YOU SERIOUS?” A loud yell had jolted me away from my thoughts and as I stepped off the bus I looked around to find the source.
“Just when my morning couldn’t get any worse, you just so happen to show up to school in the SAME shirt as me!” I tried to hide a smile as my erratic best friend Jazz walked up to me.
“Oh this is just great everyone is going to be all ‘what you guys call each other last night just so you could match? Aw how cute.’” I rolled my eyes and continued to walk knowing she would fall in beside me.
“I’m pretty sure people aren’t going to say that Jazz, besides I think I have a sweater in my locker I can wear if that makes you happy.” She turned her hazel eyes on me and gave me a brilliant smile.
“That’s a wonderful idea girl.”
As we headed up the steps into the big grey building I couldn’t help but picture Jazz’s reaction if she found out about the bite mark. This reminded me to pull my hair tighter to side of my neck in an over-the-shoulder braid. I definitely can’t tell anyone about this, at least, not until it goes away. But would it ever go away? Shaking those thoughts off I resolved to find a way no matter what, I would not give up my perfectly suitable, normal life to become one of them.
Jazz was tugging frantically on my shirt and saying something under her breath repeatedly. Something which sounded like, “New guy, ohmigod, so hot.” I followed her gaze to a boy, no he was much more than that, he was a man. He looked as if he was frozen, standing by a classroom door a few feet away. All I could see of him was his back, but that was enough to know that this man was going to be stunningly gorgeous, a senior maybe? Knowing he was going to be way out of my league I started to look away but just at that moment, he turned around… and I was helpless.
His face was framed with tousled brown curls but what stood out most for me were his eyes. They were the color of green agate, hard and beautiful all at the same time. And he was staring at me, wait, staring at me? I looked away turning my back on him and whispered to Jazz, “Why is that new guy staring at us so much?” Jazz looked at me with awed jealousy in her eyes.
“Honey I know it ain’t me he’s staring at, it’s definitely you. Do you know him?”
“I can honestly say I have never seen him before in my life.” I glanced back over at him but he was gone. Weird. I shrugged, if he was going to be finishing the year at this school then I really didn’t have anything to worry about. All of the popular little miss gossip girls would swallow him up and not allow him to even talk to another girl. I was safe. Still it made me feel kind of special that he would notice me out of the mass of girls that go to this school. Or maybe he was noticing me because he thinks I’m so weird. That’s ridiculous, I scolded myself, he doesn’t even know who you are! Deciding that this guy was making me think too much I linked my arm with Jazz’s and pulled her away to our first class.
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“Ugh I can’t believe its only lunchtime!” Jazz complained as she picked up a sandwich and put it on her tray. “I mean, can you believe we have been here for only like three hours? I swear school is the worst!”
Also picking up a sandwich I glanced over to her and said, “Well you know, it’s kind of necessary to succeed in life. Don’t want to end up working at a substation for the rest of your life so you?”
“Clearly not, I have way too many expensive tastes for that dear. Now let me ask you, have you seen that yummy new guy at all today? It’s like poof! He just vanished. He ain’t in any of my classes which is a shame. I bet I could teach him a thing or two.” A sidelong wink from her was all I needed to understand that if she had the chance she would be ripping that guy’s clothes off in a heartbeat. Determined to head off that line of thinking I told her, “Yeah well you know the gossip girls won’t let you close to him once they have their claws in him. Those girls are so possessive; I wonder how guys can stand them!”
“Oh honey, it’s all gotta do with the primal urges teenagers feel. Those girls’ legs spread as easily as butter I’m telling ya. That’s what makes them ‘popular’ in their minds.” She grabbed a milk carton and a donut and with her fully loaded tray headed to our usual table. Here was one of the more important decisions to make in my life: chocolate milk or white? Not to say my life is boring, it’s so just so normal. Well, maybe not as normal as I thought. Reaching a hand up, under my braid, I felt the indent of those teeth on my neck. Grabbing a carton of chocolate milk and deciding not think about the mark until later tonight, I joined Jazz at our table.
“Hey don’t we have a math test or something after lunch?” Jazz was absentmindedly picking at her sandwich.
“Um yes Jazz, we’ve only known about it for about three weeks now.” I took a bite of my sandwich and was surprised to find that it wasn’t as bad as usual. “Have you even studied at all?”
“Me? Study? Do you even know me?” Tapping her head she said, “It’s all in here baby.”
“So you’re going to fail,” I laughed. Glaring at me she tried to act like she was offended but a second later she started laughing too.
“Yeah I’m totally screwed,” she said.
Just as I took another bite of sandwich, I felt a collective intake in the room as everyone seemed to breathe in together. I heard a shocked murmur that seemed to come from Jazz. “Oh, wow.” I turned around and noticed that it was him. He was standing in the doorway to the cafeteria like he owned the entire place. His eyes were burning and clearly focused on me. Remembering that I had sandwich in my mouth I turned away, swallowing. What was he doing? Why was he staring at me that way? He couldn’t possibly know about my mark. It was too well hidden. But something told me that he could see it anyways. I glared at Jazz and told her to go back to eating but she was too out of it to hear me. Glancing around it seemed that everyone was too busy staring at the guy to even consider eating. He was crossing the room, grabbing a tray and loading up with food. It seemed he wasn’t really concerned about what he put on his plate because he barely looked at the options. Once his meal was paid for he sized up the room with those blindingly green eyes of his until they fell on me once again. He started in my direction and I could hear Jazz’s murmuring becoming more frantic. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”
“Oh shut up,” I muttered. Shaking my head at her I focused my eyes on my plate and lifted my sandwich to my mouth again. I almost spit it out however when I felt the new weight sit down at our table. I was in shock but more so I was confused.
“Hello, my name is Cooper, as you may have noticed, I’m new here.” Oh god, his voice was like music. How could something sound so good? Clearly Jazz thought so as well by the muffled sound of her choking.
“I think we noticed that you’re new here but thanks for the intro.” The venom in my voice startled me, where did that come from?
“Chloe! Don’t be so rude!” Jazz looked at me with a shocked look on her face before turning to the creature beside her. “I am so sorry; she is just in bad mood today. I’m Jazz by the way, very please to meet you Cooper.” I turned back to my food in disgust, I would ignore this man until he went away, for some reason his penetrating gaze bothered me.
“I’m actually from New York but my mom decided to pursue a business career out here so next thing I knew I was moving to some small town in the middle of nowhere.” Middle of nowhere was right, I thought, Waitsburg, Washington was just about as small as it got. There was nowhere to escape to when you needed space, especially because everyone in town knows everyone else.
“Hopefully this place works out for me though, there are some things I really want to do, really…need to do.” He was trying to make me look at him, I could feel it. I pretended to be checking my cell phone, fascinated by a fake text message.
Clearly unconcerned he continued speaking; “I hope that you two can kind of take me under your wing and show me around.”
“We would be delighted!” Jazz gushed as she placed a hand on his arm, “seriously anything you need, just tell us, right Chloe?” She looked over at me and pleaded with her eyes for me to play nice.
“Yeah sure,” I said remaining indifferent. For some reason this man just made me want to hit something. At the same time I couldn’t deny his beauty, I studied his features openly, and he returned the favor. His gaze was heavy as he took in my features, he seemed to be drinking them in, and it was intoxicating. I felt like I could drown in his eyes if I stared at him too long and that was part of the reason I wanted nothing to do with him. He made me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable and I wanted out. Grabbing my tray I got up and looked at Jazz saying, “I’ll catch you later ok? Gotta swing by my locker before class, see you after school?”
“Yeah o’course,” she said distractedly. She was so gone, lost in her obsession with Cooper. He was like a drug, one that was airborne, infecting everyone in the room.
For example in the next part she mentions her 'cell phone' and of course, we don't call them that here, she refers to her mother as 'Mom' etc etc. I'd suggest going back over and re-wording and possibly doing a little bit of research. As our high schools work in very different ways to American ones (We only stay on til we're 16.) I sincerely apologize if I've misunderstood, but just thought I should note this.
But I can't decide what background I want Jazz to be. And yes you picked up on a lot of subtle hints which makes me so happy! Im going to take your advice on some of the things you mentioned below because you havereally good insight. And don't worry about sounding rude! Your totally helping my cause here 
You HAVE HAVE HAVE to continue this!!!