[2]

Do you know this horrible feeling of being watched? This nagging feeling in the back of your head that tells you that if you turn around now, you will see someone whose eyes are fixed on you, with a weird grin plastered on their face?

Yeah, well. The only difference right now is, that I know I'm being watched. I'm standing in front of the poeple that I'd share the rest of my high school life with. The people that know each other since childhood days, that would never come to know of why I transferred schools or why I had moved across the state.

"I'm Chester Covington. 16 years. I just moved here from Seattle." Those three simple sentences are what I call my introduction. It says enough about the basic questions that people are asking themselves right now, but it doesn't reveal too much of my life, so that poeple would know who I am. Or what I've been through.

"Please sit down in the back row, next to the window, Chester," the teacher instructs before she turns to the chalkboard and writes down some things.

Tightening the hold on the stripes of my backpack, I weave my way through the desks and eventually sit down on a chair next to the window. Whereas some students keep an eye on me, some of them have already lost interest in the new guy.

I just shrug, pull out my notebook and a pen, and scribble down whatever the teacher is trying to teach us about biology.

Throughout the lesson I felt a pair of eyes burning holes in the side of my head, but I couldn't muster the courage to look up. So, I just ignored it the best I could and took notes, hissing slightly here and then when the pain in my shoulder erupted once again.

My shoulder had always been a problem for me, especially because he somehow always aimed for it whenever he was drunk. It was like a game to him. A game of cat and mouse. I was the mouse and he was the cat, craving to hurt me in every way possible. Wanting to break every bone in my body. Which was what he did.

He had nearly broken every single bone in my body, even those that I wasn't even aware of. At least that what I felt like after every time he had pushed me into the basement, unbuckled his belt and whipped me until the blood had covered half of the concrete floor. My blood.

"Mr.Covington." a voice breaks me out of my daze. My head snaps to the source of the voice and I am met with an impatiently waiting woman, tapping her heel on the floor, continuously. I quickly shove my stuff into my backpack and shuffle out of the empty room.

When I stand in the hallway, I see her close the door behind her and walk down the hallway, probably to the teacher's room. I sigh slightly before I make my way to my locker, which I had already visited this morning, shortly after I was handed the folder by the secretary. My locker number is 177.

As I swerve through the crowds of students, that are dying to get into the cafeteria and to see their friends again, I suddenly feel the familiar feeling of eyes boring holes into my head again. It's like it follows me; no matter how many students were surrounding me or how many times I was shoved into a locker, making me bite my lip to prevent myself from groaning in pain, the pair of eyes dosen't disappear.

When I finally find my locker, I quickly tap in my code, which is just a basic 1-4 since I didn't have the time to change it yet, and open the door. It looks empty, no pictures or any kind of personal touch decorating it; it's just the same plain locker that everybody had.

However, I have brought a selfie from home with me exactly for this reason. My mother had forced me to look into the camera when I was barely 4 years old for the first time, and since then I had loved everything about photography. The world just looks so different through a lens. So much easier and warmer than it really is.

I push down the lump in my throat and quickly place the selfie on the inside of the locker door with a magnet. A faint smile crawls onto my lips when I remember how this picture was taken.

It was one of the better days and after my mother had made breakfast for him, the two of us sneaked out of the house. She had planned this small trip for over a week, trying to find the best times to sneak out and to sneak in later on. We went to a small park two streets away from our house. It was filled with lonely trees and benches here and there, but mostly it was just grass.

Although on that certain day a thin layer of white snow had coated the grass and gave the whole park a frosty look, which I admired. My mother had instantly taken a few pictures with her cellphone, loving the cozy vibes just as much as me. Then, she had told me that she wanted a memory of this day, for the both of us. So she had taken a selfie of us, two to be exact. One did she keep and the other one she gave to me.

"Chester?!" A screech brings me out of my thoughts and I slam my locker door shut in a startle.

"K-Kai?" I stutter, blinking twice, as if to prove that I ain't dreaming. That he's actually standing in front of me, sending me a shocked look, indicating that he's just as surprised as me.

The last time I had seen him was when I was 12 years old. We knew each other since primary school, since I had destroyed the puzzle that he was trying to finish. He was incredibly mad back then, and even pushed me to the ground. That was, believe it or not, the beginning of a close friendship.

We had spent a lot of time together and he was almost like a brother to me. Like a family member, only that he knew me better, than anyone in my family other than my mother, ever would. Which was one of the reasons why I had cried two days in a row when he had told me that he was moving. He never told me where to though, so I didn't even consider the possibility of meeting him here. In my 'new' life.

"Yo, it's really you. I didn't recognize you at first, dude," he admits and pulls me into a hug, whereupon I hiss at the sudden contact with my shoulder. He quickly lets go of me and gives me a disapproving look.

"It didn't stop when I left?" he mumbles.

"It didn't," I shake my head.

"This bastard, I swear to god I should've called the police back then, I should've freaking told them!" he swears, his grip on my arms tightening.

"You're hurting me," I whisper, making him stop abruptly and instantly let go of my arms. He gives me an apologetic look, which I just shrug off and send him a smile.

"Hey, Kaki!" a girl sings as she throws her arms around Kai's shoulders, who in return groans.

"I told you to stop calling me that! Damn, Gwen," he whines, making me chuckle slightly.

"Who's he?" the girl suddenly asks, tucking a strand of her amber hair behind her ear, her chocolate brown eyes eyeing me up and down.

"Remember Chester? The one I told you about? That's him," he explains and gestures toward me.

He has spoken about me?

"Oh, yeah right! Hey, I'm Gwen." She extends her hand for me to shake, which I do, after a brief moment of hesitation.

"But didn't you say he lived in Seattle? Like that's on the other side of the world!"

"Yeah, definitely the other side of the world," Kai snorts sarcastically. "Anyway, I'm wondering about that too." He gives me a questioning look, just like she does, making me awkwardly scratch my neck.

"My parents died." I lie, barely above a whisper. Well, it was right that they were dead, but I left out the rest of the story. How they died. Or how my mother was killed, to be more precise. He died as well, but he rather committed suicide than having been murdered.

"Oh, that's terrible. . . Wanna sit with us at lunch?" I know Kai would have a lot of questions and would ask me about them when we are in private, but I didn't expect Gwen to react the way she does. She just sends me a sad smile and then she swiftly changes the subject. Not pushing it or giving me sympathy.

"Sure." I reply nonchalantly, although it means a lot to me. More than she could ever imagine.

It's 2 hours after lunch break. My history teacher has just dismissed us and I'm currently standing in the hallway, waiting for Kai and Gwen, who mostly share the same classes, unlike me. Throughout lunch I got to know Gwen better; she's very sweet and kind, yet there's this bit of feistiness deep inside of her which would surface if she was too ridden up.

Also, she's obsessed with Mitchell Summer. He's the typical star quarterback, with tanned skin, gorgeous blue eyes and abs to die for. I only got a brief look at him in the cafeteria though, since he was sitting on the good old 'popular' table.

The school is mostly like my old one, the cliché cliques, the 'hierarchy' from nerd to popular; everything's the same only that it's other people here, not the ones I had previously known.

"Chase!" Gwen calls out to me, as she walks down the hallway, with Kai hot on her tail. I push myself off the wall, that I was leaning onto, and wave at them.

"What's up? You got free period too?" I ask, whereupon I'm met with two sheepish grins.

"Well, we do have some free time now," Kai says, before he adds, "but we're skipping. I wanted to catch up on what I missed with my bestfriend!"

I give him a disapproving look, but the smile that breaks out on my lips betrays me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hey there, this was the second chappie!

I have so much fun writing right now, especially because I'm trying to find my own style, you know what I mean?

Anyway, what do you think about Kai and Gwen?

And the cousin, Chloe?

❤

- L I S A