Girlfriend (Chapter 1)

*I'm sorry, this is my first real attempt at a novel in a long time so please give me feedback so I can learn from this.*

Stella's POV

Waking up to the sound of my brothers screaming was not how I wanted to start my Saturday. It was the last weekend before my senior year in high school, I was not looking forward to this year.

I got up and stretched, after grabbing what I needed I walked to the bathroom that was connected to my room. Two years ago I made a bet with my parents that if I could get straight A's in all my classes and excel in soccer that they would have to trade rooms with me. My old room wasn't bad, but it was smaller and only had one small window that looked at the house to the left of us. The room I have now was big and had a huge window across from the door that looked out over the woods at the edge of our back yard, plus the bathroom attachment.

After my shower I put on my black barns and noble shirt and black pants, tied up my wet brown hair into a high pony tail, and slipped on my old black converse. I grabbed my keys and a change of clothes for after work.
I walked down stairs to see my two younger brothers sitting at the table looked down.
"What's with you two?" I asked grabbing a mug from the dish drainer and filled it with coffee.

"Axel couldn't pick which of us was Michael and when he chose wrong he hit us on the head." Logan pouted, my younger brothers are twins and my slightly older brother was Axel. Axel and me where twins as well, the doctor told mom that it was extremely rare for someone to have twins more than once.

"Oh, Axel is just upset that he didn't have a twin brother. He always whined that he wanted to mess with people but never could because he had a sister. Don't be so down." I kissed them on the head and walked out the door yelling to my mom that I was off to work.

I drove to work in my black 1994 Chevy pick up, once there I clocked in and went to get the box of new books. It was only 10 so not many people were here. After I finished putting the horror novels away I went to put the romance novels, when I walked to the romance section I saw a girl was there.

"Finding everything alright?" I asked walking over to the shelve that needed restocking. The girl jumped and did a small squeak, she must not have been paying attention.

She turned around and looked at me, my breath caught in my throat. She had long black hair that reached her lower back and bangs that hung down to the bottom of her eyebrows, bright blue eyes, black glasses, a small button nose, pail pink lips, and pail skin. She was short, about 5’1, and had on a big baby pink sweater that went down to the middle of her of her thigh, and some black leggings with black boots.

“Oh, um, sorry. Yes, I’m just looking.” Her voice was so soft and shy, she was so adorable. I swallowed and nodded, I needed to gather my thoughts back to respond.

“Ok, just ask if you need anything.” I was surprised I could talk so clearly. I don’t know what it was but something about her made me want to make her mine, which was weird because for as long as I could remember I was straight. I liked guys, I always have. No girls have made me feel the way she is making me feel right now, actually no guy has every made me feel this way before.

She nodded and turned back to the book she had in her hand, I saw she was looking in the LGBT section. Maybe she supported it, there were plenty of people that came into this section to pick up books because they liked the stories. After a few minutes of me stacking the shelves I heard her make a small struggling noise. When I turned around she was turned to me but her face was slightly scrunched and her eyes were shut.

“U-Um. Could you help me?” She asked in a small voice. I nodded and she opened her eyes but quickly looked down. “Well, could you help me reach that book? I can’t reach and I don’t see a stool.” I nodded as she pointed to a book. It was at the top of the shelve, I was 5’7 and could reach it easily. I grabbed the book and handed it to her, she was shy about taking it.

“Here you go, anything else I can help you with?” I asked as she finally took the book. She looked hesitant.

“Well, do you know if you have sketch books here? I just moved here and don’t know this store very well.” No wonder I had never seen her, most of the time it was the same people that came in. Excluding the few new younger faces that came in once a month.

“Yeah, follow me.” I was trying to keep a calm and cool composure, like I always do. But her being near me was making me loose it, I needed to get away from her but at the same time I don’t want to. Her being around me was calming and gave me a nice feeling but she also made me nervous and on edge.

We walked over to the drawing and art side of the store and I showed her to the sketch books. She thanked me and I gave her a warm smile, as I was about to walk away she called out again.

“U-Um, Miss. I-I’m sorry, one more thing before you go.” I turned and nodded for her to continue. She took a deep breath and looked up for a quick glance. “I was wondering what your name was, if you don’t mind me asking you that is.” I gave her a smile.

“Stella, what might yours be?” I asked, at least I could leave with her name.

“Alice, my name is Alice. It was nice to meet you Stella.” She smiled at me for the first time, and it was the most heart stopping thing I had ever seen. She was so gorgeous when she smiled, and it wasn’t even a huge grin. It was a small smile that showed off the slightest amount of her white teeth.

“Well, Alice. It was wonderful to meet you, have a good day.” I turned and walked back to my spot in the romance. My heart was pounding in my chest and about ready to jump out, her name fit her. Sweet, sweet Alice.

The rest of the day I couldn’t think straight, all my thoughts were about her. When I thought of one thing somehow they would drift to her. Stock up the manga, the shoujo manga was next, the main character is always so shy and cute, like Alice, small and shy but still bold at the same time. Everything I think about always went to her, and it almost hurt to know I would never see her again.

I clocked out at 7 and drove over to Spencer’s house after changing into regular clothes. I knocked on his door and he let me in. Sebastian, Max, Beth, and Ryan where already in the living room. Beth was beating Max at Mario cart and he was not taking it very well. Max was on his feet twisting his body to try and make the virtual car move the way he wanted it to, Beth was seated on the floor not moving too focused on the game.

“Are you kidding me?! How did you get so far ahead?!” He screamed. I walked by Beth and gave her a high five. The boys were so easy to mess with, Sebastian was sitting on his phone probably texting his girlfriend.

“Hey, how was work?” Spencer asked as I sat on the old brown couch by the sliding glass doors. He leaned against the wall by the TV, I looked over at him.

“It was fine, though those stupid kids came back today and messed with our shelves. I had to do some overtime thats why I was so late today.” I huffed, I couldn’t tell them that I meet Alice. Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends but they wouldn’t understand what I felt.

Spencer gave me a pointed look. “If those punks want to keep messing with you guys, I can come and talk to them.” He crossed his arms over his chest. I laughed at him and shook my head.

“They are only kids, and besides the owner doesn't care as long as they don't mess with the flow of business. And the older customers don't seem to mind it too much.” He nodded and I looked back at the screen, Beth had finished in first and Max had finished in last.

The rest of the night consisted in us all hanging out and talking about what our senior year of high school will be like, Sebastian was excited for his girlfriend because she would be in all honors classes again this year. She was a goody goody kid, always listens to her parents, gets all A’s even in honors, and never does anything her parents wouldn't approve of her doing. But Sebastian was happy with her, he would write you a 100 page paper in MLA format about his love for her. They had been dating sense sophomore year, I don’t know how they haven't gotten sick of each other with how much time they spend together.

Spencer was hoping to get a scholar ship to a good college for football. Beth was hopping to get into a good art college, and Max was just hopping to go to college. I wasn’t worried about the future, what ever happened, happened.

We watched a movie that Max had brought over. "Guys, this movie is the most stupidest thing ever. You are going to love it, but you have to read subtitles." Everyone laughed, but I wasn't in to mood to laugh about things. He put the movie in without telling us what it was, I didn't really care what it was. I was just waiting for it to be 10 so I could leave. The movie started and when they started talking I noticed it was French, I could speak french so I didn't use the subtitles. I zoned out but at the same time I was watching the movie, something about the movie made me want to keep watching.

Everyone laughed and I didn't understand why, until I focused on the screen again. That's when I got why he thought we would think it would be a stupid movie. It was a lesbian movie, it was called /Blue is the Warmest Color/. They were laughing at her, I didn't laugh. I didn't do anything, I couldn't do anything I knew what she was feeling. No wait, I don't know what she is feeling. Me and Alice had nothing, it was just me being nervous about starting school back up.

When it was about 10 I got up, I told my dad I would be home by 10:30 so I needed to get going if I wanted to by home on time.

“Hey Stella, you leaving already?” Beth asked looking up from her pizza. I nodded and started to the door. “Text me when you get home. Bye Babe!” She yelled at me as I walked out the door, I just laughed and walked to my car. Once I was home I went to my room and flopped on my bed pulling out my phone and sending a text to Beth, she replied a few seconds later.

Hey babe, you all good? All night you were spacing out and acting weird.

Yeah, I’m fine. Just a stressful day.

Want to talk about it?

I thought about it, I could tell Beth. She could understand right?

I started to type out what had happened today but stopped, no I couldn't tell her. She laughed at the movie too. I didn’t even know what was going on, she would think I'm crazy. Or worse she could tell everyone and they would all think differently of me, this is my last year in high school and I intend to leave on a good note. I erased the message and sent a no telling her I was tired and wanted to go to bed, she told me goodnight and I plugged my phone in and changed into something more comfortable. Once I was laying on my bed again I felt like new things were coming for me both good and bad.


I woke up to my dad yelling from the other side of the door to get ready. When I looked at the clock on my nightstand I it was 6, I remembered we had church. I got up and looked in the mirror, I looked like death. All night I kept waking up from dreams about Alice, all about kissing her or my friends yelling at me and here for being disgusting. But I went on with the day, I got a shower and put on black leggings and a flower sundress with black flats. I curled my long brown hair and pinned back my bangs, adding some mascara and lip gloss and I was done.

We drove as a family to church and sat in the front, when we sat down an older lady with quite a bit of perfume came and squealed at my mother.

"Oh Katherine! It's so good to see you! Oh and Stella, look at you! You look so beautiful." The obnoxious lady hugged my mom an walked over to me.

"Hello, Mrs. Admins. How are you?" She gave a smile and a pat on the cheek.

"I'm doing just fine, dear. But I want I know about school, I bet all the boys are after you!" She laughed, I forced one and the services started. Everyone found their seat, when we got to the main topic I felt my stomach drop.

/Homosexuals/

Was the topic, and as they told us it was a sin, and that we would be damned to hell I was pail and about to loose my breakfast. My mother and father nodded along to what they said about them, Axel glanced at me every so often. He grabbed my hand, he flinched almost letting go.

Leaning over to me he whispered, "You okay? You look like you are about ready to pass out."

I glanced at his green eyes, they were just like mine only they held light and had creases from laughing and smiling. Now they held worry.

'No, just the whole world is against me.' I wanted to say but instead I tried to suck in a breath of air.

"I need some air." Was all I could manage to gasp out. My voice cracked and I felt ready to leave this place. As I heard people cheer at what they said about gays I felt the prickles of tears coming. Axel helped me up and to the door, everyone was too into what they said that we got out with out being stopped.

Once out to the parking lot I sat on the bench by the playground and tried to catch my breath from the panic attack I was having. Axel rubbed my back and waited for me to calm down.

When I could finally breath normally again I looked up at Axel. "I'm sorry." Was all I could say, what else could I say? I don't really know why I got like this, I had heard this talk before when I was younger. Maybe I was getting sick and couldn't help it, I was feeling tired.

"Don't be, but I want to know what happened." He looked at me like he could see through me.

"I don't know what happened, I was fine but then I wasn't fine. I think I just need some sleep, can you drive me home?" He nodded and walked me to the car, he drove me home and then went back to church. I took a shower and laid down for a nap, I really needed to clear my head of her.

I woke up around 5 in the afternoon, my father just asked if I was okay to go to school tomorrow. The others were out with another family bowling. I ate and went back to my room to sleep the rest of the night, when that alarm sounded for me to get up for school I felt even more tired than the night before.

Getting ready I thought about how first impressions matter, so I put on a nice black v-neck shirt with some dark blue jeans and my black and white vans. My hair was braided to one side and I tried my best to cover the dark circles under my eyes with makeup and a smile. Once down stairs I realized my brothers were the only ones here, mom and dad must be at work.

Axel looked worried, he knew me and we could almost always see something was wrong with the other. ¨You want to ride with me today? You look tired.¨ I nodded to his offer, maybe I could sleep a little on the way to school. 

¨Eat and then we will leave.¨ He looked back down at his plate and I sat obeying his command. Once we ate and my other brothers were off to school we left in his jeep, it was quite. Not a nice, comforting quite, but a heavy, hard to breath quite. This was a total wreck.