Salvage - 1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The New Kid

The alarm blared 5:00 A.M. as I woke up. I threw my sheets off me and got up. The first day of my freshman school year. Blah. High school. The first day was the day when summer finally came to it's end. I opened up my bathroom door and went to the shower. The water was warm after I let it run for a couple seconds, but it wasn't to hot so it wouldn't burn my skin. I stepped in and let the water wash over my face and body. As I finished and stepped out my cell phone went off at it's charger stand. I pulled a towel out of the drawer and started to dry off my body as I went to go get the phone. One new text. Sender: Aaron. I tossed the phone over my shoulder onto the bed. I would talk to him when I wanted to. And when I was ready. I dried off and pulled some clothes out of my closet. They were simple, my favorite kind, black t-shirt and dark blue denim jeans. I went over to my nightstand and picked up my pendent that my father gave me on my twelfth birthday. Only a couple months before he died. I shook the memory off, I don't need to think off that on my first day. I wrapped it around my neck and clasped it shut. I wore it everyday no matter what was going on. After I was done I walked over to the bed and looked at the clock 6:00 A.M. I still had a whole hour till I had to leave for the school. I reached over to my pillow. To where the cell phone landed, and called Aaron. He picked up on the first ring.

"Took you long enough. I've been up since 4." His loud and kind of low voice said. I had to laugh, he always accomplished that.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to get dressed." I told him as I pulled myself up into a sitting position.

'Why? You being naked, talking to me on the phone. Hot." He said very seriously.

"Shut up…." I continued to laugh. He chuckled a few times as well. "Hey,…you want to come over while we wait for school?" I only lived about 15 minutes from the school on the countryside. And I could drive him if he need a lift. Which was often.

He responded almost immediately. "Sure. I'll be over…." He drew the sound on for about three minutes. "Now." I could hear the door open downstairs and hear his yell up. "Mark!" I got up slowly. He hung up and I did as he did. I walked down stairs and went to the kitchen to make a bagel while I waited. I noticed a note was tapped to the fridge.

'Sorry I couldn't be there on your first day of high school. But worked called and I needed to go. Love you Mark- Mom.'

I really didn't care she was an amazing mom, but she always embarrassed me on my first day. Which on her part proves that she is very overprotective of her only son. She was on the most part…… different. She was the one who gave me my interest in writing as well as my interest in drawing. She was always there for me when I needed help or even when I needed someone to stand still for two hours while I got my form down. She was always the first one I went. Other than Aaron. Who was now standing next to me even though I hadn't even heard him enter the room. His head was on top of mine. I didn't shake him off like I usually did I just let him continue. I thought about my mom again. I loved her no matter how many crazy things she did. And after Dad died we kept each other up while we got things back together. I wondered how she would handle things if I wasn't here. I didn't even want to think of that. Aaron started to rock back and forth pulling my head around in the rhythm. Now I pushed him off me.

"Aaron don't you have anything better to do than to be all over me?" I asked as I pulled my bagel out and put another in for him. Rather than answering he decided to give me a huge bear hug in his humongous arms. I soon was breathless as he continued to hug.

"Okay…." I gasped out. "Aaron?" I pleaded. " Can you loosen up? I really can't breath." I said is a squeak of a voice. He let go. He walked over to the fridge and pulled out the cream cheese. His bagel was soon done. He liked his barely cooked. How does he stand it? I have to have mine almost burned. He spread the cream cheese over both of ours. Mine was loaded while his had a small amount near the center.

He looked at me as I watched him eat the barely cooked, barely cheesed bagel. "What?" He asked with his mouth full. I laughed at him for the third time that day. I shook my head and told him nothing. He sat down at the table. "So what's up, Marker?" He asked using my elementary school nickname. One that he insisted on using all through middle school. Him and Isabella. He didn't even wait for me to say anything before he launched into full detail mode, as I liked to call it.

"Well… did you know that Mira and Brad are dating? Total cliché if you ask me. Don't tell her that I said that. She skewer my ass." He shuddered. Mira may be the most popular girl in the entire grade but she hung around with our little group of outcasts. She was nice and fit in easy. He continued, "Oh yeah, Jamie and Ryan broke up. Nothing more happened. Totally uneventful summer for gossip if you ask me." He paused and looked up at the ceiling for a second. Many people always thought that he was actually looking at the ceiling but that was what he did when he was thinking. "Oh, apparently…. Two new kids are coming here. Brother's one is a freshman while the other is a senior. I really hope one is really cute…..and gay." He giggled a bit after he said it. It sounded odd with his low voice but it was a giggle still. Oh yeah, Aaron is gay. He came out to me first after my dad died. He thought that I was going to move so he thought that he should tell his best friend before he left. But little did he know that we had no plan to move. So he told me and well lets say that it cleared up a lot of things. I really didn't mind. Some of the people here did though. Gods, I hate homophobes. They tormented him until Aaron broke one of his tormenters arms after Aaron finally snapped. The dude has a wicked temper when he gets really angry. I was there. He, I could say, was ready to kill the guy. No joke.

I decided to play along. "Any details about them?" I asked innocently. He rambled on.

"From what I heard. Tall dark haired and gray eyes on the freshman, handsome I've also heard. And the senior was a little difficult to pin down. He changes his hair color a lot and he is muscular and hot. I don't care which one… as long as one of them is gay." He sighed from whatever thought was running through his head at that moment. I seriously didn't want to know.

"Man I sure hope so." I replied with fake enthusiasm. Not mean but playful. I just wanted to see his reaction.

He rolled his eyes at me and spoke in a exaggerated surprise. "Your gay? Why didn't you tell me?" He mock gasped. I punched him lightly in the arm.

"Well, I'm not even gay and I think we need more variety in men at our school. So what does that say about our personalities?" That came out wrong and I knew he understood me anyway.

"Well our school is mainly filled with overly countrified jerks and idiots. I mean not even another gay kid in our entire middle school. Or at least no one out of the closet." He nudged me slightly. I brushed the comment off. He joked like this a lot. Some people thought that it was him hitting on me. But I knew that it wasn't. I pulled my class schedule out of my pocket.

"Hey what classes do you have?" I wanted to have a lot of classes with my friends. Not with some of the other idiots I call classmates.

He pulled a crudely folded up piece of paper out of his back pocket. "Well…" He squinted a bit. I watched as his eyes flew over the paper. The stupid speed reader. He reads books that are like 400 pages in like a day. "Well, Algebra first." He made a face. "Then, science. After that Chorus. Blahhhhh. Then History, then English." I looked at my schedule. He pulled it out of my hands before I was done with half of it.

"Ah." He said knowingly. "Science First…Algebra second…Chorus third. Cool. History fifth… English last. You already know your lab?" He was surprised? I thought he knew as well. He looked back to his own. "including Creative writing lab…Yes that makes four classes with you, my buddy." He threw his arm across my shoulder. "We will rule." He said it like a promise.

We talked for a long time after that about some of the most random stuff. I looked at the clock again. 7:58. We had to get going. I pulled him to my car parked in the garage. It was black and small. I'm not the biggest fan of big cars. Unless they are surfer vans. I don't know why my obsession with them started but I love them anyway. We got to the school ground by 7:13. A longer ride than most but we were stuck behind this grandma of a driver. I have slightly bad road rage. Not my fault, blame my mom. She is the one who taught me to drive. I'm younger than Aaron but I already can drive. I should have had a driver in the car with me. But I didn't need one. Aaron doesn't tell. I am careful. I make sure that when we are near a police officer that I look like an adult. We haven't got in trouble yet… so I assume that we are good at our little scheme. We pulled in and parked near the front of the parking lot. That is the biggest perk of being at school early. Getting some of the best parking spaces.

Our school may be small but we have a cool fountain. Our unofficially marked territory. No one tried to take it away from us and we didn't bother other people so we were in balance. Only two other people were at the school so far. I knew them but I wasn't friends with them. We were there for 15 minutes talking while we waited for someone else to come up. The first one to make it there was Isabella. My other best friend. Aaron and me ran up and gave a big hug. She was gone all summer with her cousin. They were visiting California. Lucky. Isabella hated that we called her by her full name. She preferred that we call her Bella. She said that it was easier and that she liked it more. Her long black and red died hair hung at her waist. She was wearing it out. She looked better without some sort of hair piece with it. She wore one of those small Goth dresses. You know the ones that are short tight but had the buckles on the front along with the d-rings and stuff. She loved that type of stuff. And I must say that it looked good on her. Our Goth /punk / steam punk girl. That is what she called herself.

"What are you two doing?" She smiled. "Are you two dating yet?" He asked slyly. Much to my surprise Aaron was the one who answered.

"No, Isabells, he still hasn't come out." He turned to me and smirked. I knew he would say something like that. I frowned as he and Isabella laughed at me. When they stopped and Isabella started to tell us about her summer. After asking about ours, of course. NO way to get out of that. A small pale blond headed boy ran up to us. He threw his backpack off into the side of the fountain.

"Hey! What's up?!" He near shouted. Even Aaron was surprised. Usually Jared was the more quiet type. Then again… first day was always the best day to him. Crazy. "Long time no see."

"Hey Jare." We all replied. He was the youngest of all of us. The youngest in our class. He was born late in the summer while everyone else was born during the school year. Him and two others were the only ones born during the summer. We sat down on the edge of the fountain while we waited for our little group to be completed.

It was when two people walked up. They both had blond hair and bright green eyes. The man was less groomed. His hair was flung over his face and his shirt was simple and okay. But his sister was the polar opposite. She was wearing a small dress. Much like Isabella, but hers was smaller and was bright red. Way to make an entrance. She was always the center of attention but she was able to be herself around us. Which was a slightly funnier side than when she was around her other friends. She was also Isabella's best female friend. Bella had gotten up and ran to her before I knew anything had happened. THE grabbed arms and jumped up and down like children. Us guys looked to Aaron to translate what was going on into easier to understand concepts. He shrugged and looked confused. Great. Our gay guy didn't even know what was happening.

"I can't believe he asked you out." "I know I heard." "Isn't it great?" "Were are you guys going for the first date?" The girls fired questions back and forth at such a speed that it was near impossible to understand. I looked at her twin brother Ryan. He wasn't the happiest camper. Then again he hated school with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. When the girls were done with their question fest we all went to the gym. The chairs were set up in rows. They sat near the back close enough so that they could get out fast. Fast enough to avoid the crowds. After a while of talking to Bella and Aaron who were on either side of me, the gym started to fill up. When the bell rang and all the kids filed in the principal walked out onto the stage. Principal Davenport was a kind of old man. More middle aged than anything else. He wasn't my favorite principal of our many but he was better than some. He had a microphone in his hand which was attached to a speaker. Yes we were that loud where our principal had to pull out the microphone on us.

"Welcome, students. To a new year at Darkriver High School." The best. High school name. Ever! "We hope that this year will be an successful year for all of us…" He droned on and on for about 15 minutes. I timed it. 14 minutes 39 seconds. Were we very bored. Even the teacher's pets were. He listed off the homerooms according to grade. Seniors first. Then Juniors. Then Sophomores. Then us Freshman. "Okay last names starting with A-H go to Mr. Matthews' room. I-Q go to Mrs. Rivers' room. While R-Z go to Ms. Rosa's room." We all grabbed our bags and headed for our individual homerooms. Mrs. Rivers wasn't my favorite teacher but she also wasn't the worst. I had both Mira and Ryan in my homeroom. I sat with them. The entire class was here but half the chairs were still empty. Our very small school. I thought in my head. Just as she was about to take role someone walked into the room. He had long black hair that hung over his face and when he looked up at the teacher then us I saw that his eyes were the most amazing shade of gray. Pretty much silver. He would be MY friend if it was the last thing I did. Wait when did I become so possessive over I guy I never even met? It must have been because of everyone else's reactions. They were much like mine with the boys. While all the girls simply started, mouths hung open. Really drooling. He looked up with a slight frown. He didn't seem to like the attention. Mrs. Rivers told him to take ay seat he wanted. He looked near me and decided on the seat right next to me. Wow. Me Mira and Ryan all turned to look at him. He seemed scared. Why the heck would such a person be scared?

"Hi. I'm Mark." I put my hand out and he took it hesitantly.

"Hi…. I'm Erik." He smiled at me. Mira, as well as Ryan introduced themselves. Soon Mrs. Rivers got to me on the role call.

"Marcus Knight?"

"Here." I turned back to the new kid.

"Erik Lore?"

Erik's hand raised. "Here." He said meekly.

This was going to interesting.