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Chapter 1

"Yo dawg," Gerard greeted me, reaching up for a high-five.

Gerard was going through a 'gangsta' phase. Everyone was now known as dawg, homie or - my personal favourite - G-Unit. There was a running bet in our circle of friends on how long the phase was going to last, winner take all. I had my tenner on one more week, but some people thought it could last for a month or more. I would probably kill Gerard if it went on for that long.

"Hey man. What's up?" I replied, and met his palm with mine in mid air. "What's your timetable like?"

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. It's the first day of our senior year at high school. I was kind of hoping that his timetable was pretty different to mine because this year I was planning to branch out a bit, meet new people outside of our usual circle of friends.

We compared timetables and hummed and hawed over them, but I was secretly glad. We only had English and Music together so hopefully my plan wasn't going to be too difficult to carry out. Gerard's my best friend and all, don't get me wrong, but everyone needs a break sometimes.

Eventually we went our separate ways off to Homeroom, which I discovered I had with Jason and Patrick. Gerard texted me to say that Asher was in his homeroom class, which I was relieved about. At least we weren't all split up for the first day.

During Homeroom I sat and chatted to Patrick about what we'd been doing since we last saw each other and how our holidays were; all the usual stuff. Jason sat away from us because his girlfriend Laura happened to be in our class. We gave him shit about being the only one in our group to have a steady girlfriend, but secretly I was jealous of him. Laura and Jason were perfect together and one day I hoped to find the love that they had found in one another. I was sure that their relationship would be one of the few to last beyond high school.

The bell rang, both startling me and snapping me out of my daydream. I quickly checked my timetable. Ugh. Double biology, not only on my first day, but also on every Monday morning. Great.

*

"Harrington, Jenny? Your seat is here," my science teacher droned. He had some obsession with alphabetical seating plans, which actually proved to be handy sometimes. There was always one idiot that couldn't be bothered with Science, so they'd sit in the wrong seat, then the teacher would spend half the lesson making sure everyone was in their correct seat.

I quickly scanned the class trying to recall everyone's last names, so I could work out who would have the misfortune of sitting next to Jenny, the most 'popular' girl in school. I quickly realized with horror that it was me, with 'Iero' being the next name in the alphabet. You've gotta be shitting me.

"Iero, Frank? Take your seat beside Jenny," the science teacher said, proving that in fact no, he wasn't shitting me.

I sauntered over to her. As I got closer to the desk she moved her books and herself as far away from me as the desk would allow.

"Hey Jenny. I'm Frank," I muttered, deciding to surprise her with some kindness. "How are you?"

"Shut up Iero. Just because we're sitting together doesn't mean we're on speaking terms," she replied stonily.

Okay, note to self. Jenny Harrington is still exactly the same as she was last year; cold hearted, snobby, bitchy and unwilling to go outside of her circle of 'friends'. It wasn't even that I was a freak or anything, I was pretty well liked and respected by most kids and I worked hard to keep it that way. Jenny, on the other hand, was feared by most kids, along with the rest of the people she hung out with. They were popular, but not in a good way.

I realized that Mr White had started writing notes on the board so I turned away from Jenny and started copying them down. It was going to be a long lesson.

Any feedback is appreciated, thanks. :)