Chapter One

I could vaguely hear the alarm I set last night ringing, but I refused to get up. I had gone to bed around 4am and it was already 7 in the morning. This is what I get for staying up all night to read. Begrudgingly, I finally lifted my head from my pillow and turned off my alarm.

Being the prepared person that I am, I had already taken out my outfit the night before. Today was the first day of my senior year, and I decided to make an effort.

I headed to my bathroom, which was attached to my room. I stepped into the tub preparing to take a nice hot shower, and to my surprise, the water was ice cold. There were only three other people at home, there was no way they finished all the hot water before 8 am. I quick scrubbed my skin with my milk and honey body wash, washed my hair in record time, and quickly rinsed off.

I stared in the mirror for a few minutes before grabbing my towel, and analyzed myself in the mirror.

I started with my light brown skin, which I inherited from both of my parents. I was glad to see the the acne on my forehead had cleared up over the summer, but still, there were so many flaws.

My eyes were too big, my lips were too plump, my breast were too small, and I was way too tall. Standing at 5'10", I had to have been the tallest girl in my class. Still staring, I looked up at the one thing I actually loved about myself; my hair. Long wet curls cascading down my back, it instantly reminded me of my mom.

Thinking of her, I found myself smiling in the mirror, which snapped me out of my self criticizing haze.

Quickly stepping back into my bedroom, I looked  up at the clock and realized that I only had 30 minutes to get to school. I hurriedly got dressed, and put some curl activator in my hair to give it more definition as it air dried. Once I was dressed, I went over to my vanity, and applied a light layer of mascara and lipgloss.

"I look good, I think." I whispered to myself.

I grabbed my phone, car keys, and book bag, and went down the long spiral stairs that took me straight to the front door.

"Enjoy your shower?" I heard, just before making my leave.

I turned into the dining room, where I found my five months pregnant step-mother Eliza sitting and drinking a smoothie. Her platinum blonde hair was already curled to perfection, whilst having a full face of makeup on as if she had somewhere to be.

"It was perfectly fine." I said, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of almost ruining my morning with her childish antics.

"Hmm, well good for you. Anyway, twins already left. I told them not to wait for you, I figured you'd be late trying to tame that nappy hair." She said with a laugh.

I huffed and rolled my eyes as I headed to the door. This woman would say anything to bring me down. I loved my curls and there was nothing she could say to make me think otherwise.

I quickly raced to my car, that was conveniently parked directly in front of my house; seeing as the twins and their mother parked their cars in our garage leaving no room for mine.

Looking down at my phone, I saw that I had 15 minutes before I was late. Luckily for me, my school was only a 7 minute drive from home.

Once I found a parking spot, I hopped out of my car and straight into the sea of students that were greeting each other in the senior parking lot. Walking through the crowd, it was very clear to see that I was the odd one out. Not only was I the tallest girl, I was also the only black girl in the senior class.

Glendale High School was the farthest from diverse as you can get. It consisted of four black people in the entire school, myself included. But maybe more of us, now that it was the start to a new school year.

The three other students had nothing in common with me except the color of our skin. Two of the guys were on the football team with my step-brother Justin, and the one other girl was now a Junior, and had made fun of me along with her friends last year after I tripped in the cafeteria. So lets just say, we don't interact.

Everyone else at school treated me like a social pariah. My guess was that it was because the quarterback of the football team didn't like me. I wonder what they'd think if they knew we lived under that same roof.

After pushing my way through the students, I quickly walked up the stairs of the school, and straight to my locker.

The halls were incredibly noisy, and then suddenly you could almost hear a pin drop.

I turned to see what all the silence was for, when I saw the most gorgeous guy to ever grace these halls walking straight towards me. Most of the girls in the hallway began to whisper to each other with excitement.

Everyone's eyes followed him to see where he was going, which drew more attention to me than I cared for. He stopped at the locker beside me, and turned to look at me.

"Is there something on my face? Everyone seems to be staring." He asked, with a smile. I heard a slight British accent, and found myself immediately more attracted to him.

Unable to form a sentence I analyzed every aspect of him. He had to be around 6'3,  with dirty blonde hair, and bright green eyes. His smile was perfect and white as he grinned while waiting for me to answer.

"Sorry, um, I-I'm not sure. Wait no! I am sure, you don't have anything on your face." I stuttered.

Immediately, I felt my cheeks get warm and I was sure that they were bright red.

"That's good, that would have been a horrible first impression." He said, with a laugh.

"You mean like the one I just made?" I said quietly, as I looked to the ground.

He laughed again.

"Not at all, I'm Callum by the way, I guess I'm your locker neighbor." He said, his smiling reaching his eyes.

Before I could respond, a head full of blonde extensions stood in front of me, belonging to none other than my step-sister Mel.

"Hello handsome. I'm Mel, captain of the cheer team. I just wanted to give you a personal Glendale welcome." She said, seductively.

I rolled my eyes and began stuffing my books and notebooks into my locker.

"Hey, nice to meet you, I was actually just in the middle of a conversation." He replied, uninterested, and locked eyes with me once again.

Not wanting the devil spawn herself to make a scene, I quickly turned my back to Callum.

"It's okay, I was just going, it was nice meeting you." I said quickly.

Before he could respond, I was off to my first class of the day.

The day had been pretty uneventful after this morning's events. I couldn't get Callum's smile out of my head, no guy had ever looked at me that way. At least I didn't think so. I tried to shake the thoughts of him out of my head, by now Mel has probably already sank her claws into him.

The bell had just rang for lunch so I headed to my locker to grab the book I've been reading so that I could go to the library.

When I got there, I immediately saw Callum shuffling through his locker. When he heard me approaching he looked up and smiled.

"Hey neighbor." He said.

"Hey." I replied, whist tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.

"We were rudely interrupted this morning and I didn't catch your name." He said, smiling brightly at me.

"I'm Dylan, Dylan Gold." I said, sending him a small smile back.

"Nice to meet you Dylan Gold, I'm Callum Gage." His smile got even wider if that was possible.

The various people roaming the halls stared at us in shock. It was like they'd never seen two people have a conversation before.

"So, you headed to lunch? I was just on my way there, maybe you can show me where the cafe is?" He asked, hopefully.

"I'm actually headed to the library, but I can walk you to the cafeteria before I go." I replied.

"Aren't you hungry? I'd hate to eat alone on my first day." He said, with a slight and adorable pout.

I don't know what came over me, maybe it was the gorgeous man asking me to have lunch with him or maybe it was because it's senior year and I might as well live it up, but I replied.

"Okay, lunch it is."