The Challenge
To Know You is To Love You Volume 2
To Love Once Again is to Love Again Volume 3
The Challenge. 1st Edition Copyright © Aubrey Bailey Publishing 2013. All Rights Reserved.
Cover Art and Design by
Humble Nations
Book Formating Services Provided by Brad Wilson KBG Authors Ecosystem
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CHAPTER ONE
GOOOOOOOD MORNING, LOS Angeles!! It's time for your morning info with Shawn Mac on 91.9 FM Beat Radio! It's going to be another hot day out there, so shorts are recommended. There should be some relief this afternoon because of an anticipated breeze. Traffic is flowing well for all you students going off to school this morning. According to our Eye-in-the-Sky reporter, highways and major roads are moving as usual, so expect to leave at your normal times. Coming up next, Deanna's "Help Me," after these messages...
I smacked the alarm clock and rolled over, burying my face in my pillow.
Five more minutes, then I'll get up
. My dreams were too nice and my bed too cozy.
Some Top 40 song blasted through my alarm clock ten minutes later. My eyes snapped open and I sat up quickly, ignoring the heavy-headed feeling as I smacked the alarm again.
"Kris, are you still asleep?" The door flew open and my little sister skipped into the room.
"Do you ever knock?" I asked.
"Why should I?" she responded.
"Uncle Ethan!" I yelled.
Yeah...I live with my uncle. Nearly seven years ago my mom died in a car wreck, so we moved in with our mom's brother, Ethan, in the suburbs of L.A.
"Megan, leave your little sister alone!" Uncle Ethan called. This was almost a daily ritual. Megan stuck her tongue out at me and slammed the door. My little sister wasn't so little either; I was seventeen and she was only three years younger than me. She looked older however and a lot of guys thought she was hot. For a fourteen-year-old brat, she did have some good qualities, like the big boobs every female on our mom's side seemed to have. At fourteen, she was already a B cup. But I thought it was her strawberry blonde, mid-back length hair and green eyes that made my sister beautiful.
As for me, I was sort of like an older, slightly taller, slimmer and bigger-breasted version of her, except my blonde hair lacked the strawberry tint and was a bit shorter and I had blue eyes instead of green.
"Kristina! You're going to miss your ride!" Uncle Ethan called from downstairs.
I sighed and looked at the clock. I still had at least twenty minutes before Lukas arrived, so I showered quickly and changed into a black tank top with a silver rose printed in the middle and jeans that I had converted to shorts with a pair of scissors-L.A. was too hot for all that denim. I put my hair into a ponytail and had just finished with the lip gloss when I heard a car honking. I ran down the stairs, slid my feet into a pair of flip flops, bolted out the door and jumped into the backseat of Lukas's car.
"Well hey there, Speedy Gonzales," Lukas greeted me. He was the kind of guy a lot of girls at school liked. With his brown hair and eyes, muscular build and gravelly voice, he could sweet talk a girl out of or into anything.
"Just go," I rolled my eyes.
He pulled out of the driveway and the girl in the passenger seat turned to look at me.
"Hey, sweets," I smiled at her with a wink.
"Hey, baby doll," Lukas's twin and my best friend, Lena, shot back at me in a playfully sexy tone. She was a lot like me: blonde hair, blue eyes. Only she was a bit shorter and her hair was bleached. Everyone in L.A. was tan.
"Do we have to go to school today?" I whined.
"Well,
I
think we should," Lena said. "We've got new classmates, remember?"
"Oh, joy!" I exclaimed, sarcastically. Typically, I didn't like new students. They were either too timid or too full of themselves.
"My sources tell me it's a guy and a girl, and they're from overseas," Lukas said.
"Oh, your sources, eh? Did you hack into the school computer again?" I asked.
Lukas just smiled and nodded.
I laughed, then leaned forward and threw my arms over Lena's shoulders. "I'm so bored of the same things every day."
"Christmas break is only two months away," Lena reminded me.
I sighed and rested my fore head against the cold glass in the backseat of Lukas's white Honda Accord until we got to school.
"Last stop-hell!" Lukas exclaimed, pulling onto the sun-cracked asphalt of the student parking lot. I laughed-half at Lukas's comment; half with frustration with having to be at school-as I grabbed my books and got out of the car.
"Think about it this way," Lena said, slamming the door and putting her arm through mine. "This is our second to last year...and the last year we have without your sister."
"Ah...don't remind me," I said, making a face. Megan would be a freshman and I would be a senior the next year and the thought made me cringe a little. I loved my sister-really, I did-I just didn't want her to be a constant, clingy pain in my side.
Upon entering Swan Valley High School, we immediately ran into our usual group hanging out in our usual spot by the vending machines. There wasn't a day since freshman year that we didn't meet up there before homeroom to discuss the usual bullshit drama. There was Sam, a pretty brunette who made up for her laughable shortness-she was five feet even-with a fiery personality. Then there was her boyfriend of six months and the newest edition to our group, Curtis. His skin was a milk-chocolate brown and I could swear his brown eyes sparkled even brighter when Sam was around. He and Mark were the only black guys in our group, but Mark was practically white at heart. Mark was dating Darla, the other blonde in our group who had lived in L.A. her whole life. Then there was Lena's boyfriend, James. He was a tall, sandy blonde guy who played on the basketball team with Curtis. There was Erin-a green-eyed redhead whom I thought was the most gorgeous of our group-and her boyfriend, Nick. Nick was probably the most unintentionally funny person in our group. Part of it was that he was this goofy, mop-headed kid that, in retrospect, I think was stoned ninety-nine percent of the time. Finally, there was Lukas-Lena's twin brother-and Amanda, a half-Asian girl who was also an L.A. native. I know it sounds overwhelming at first-who's dating who and whatnot-but the most important thing to take away from all this was that I was the only single one. I was like some pitiful eleventh wheel doomed to being a spectator for the rest of my tenure at Swan Valley High.
"Yo, Kris? What's wrong?" Curtis's voice sounded very distant. "Kris!"
My head snapped towards Curtis who was standing just two feet away. "Oh, hey Curtis. Nothing's wrong." I looked around and realized all ten of my friends were staring at me.
"You've been here for like, five minutes and haven't said a word," chimed Sam.
"Yeah you need to cop you a boyfriend for real," Curtis said, wrapping his arms around Sam.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because you look so lonely," Curtis replied. Then, as if to not sound so serious, he added, "Because we all know that's all you be thinkin' about underneath all that pretty blonde hair, girl!" He laughed and everyone followed. He and James exchanged high-fives like they were back on the basketball court together.
Lena punched James and threw her arms around me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. "She'll never be lonely with me around," she assured everyone, playing with a lock of my blonde hair. Everyone laughed at this, including me.
"Principal alert," Curtis warned us with bated breath. Everyone broke apart from their significant others except Mark and Darla, who, at some point, had retreated to the other side of the vending machines to play tonsil hockey. I turned and jumped when I saw the principal, Mr. Coughlan, breathing down my neck.
"Miss Williams," he said, as he snapped his fingers. I was right in front of him...he didn't need to do anything to get my attention. "Come with me." He craned his neck like he was trying to look over a crowded room. "And Mr. Opal," he called, referring to Mark. "If I catch your mouth within just a yard of Miss Hopkins's face again, it will be detention for both of you."
"I just got here. How am I in trouble already?" I muttered. Everyone shrugged and gave me sympathetic looks as I turned to follow old Mr. Coughlan down the fluorescent hall towards the front office.
When we entered Principal Coughlan's office, two students I didn't know were sitting in the old green chairs in front of the Principal's pristine desk. To the left of them was - to my horror - my ex-boyfriend, David. His muddy eyes pierced my soul from underneath a swoop of brown hair. David seemed to practically live at the gym. He was packed with muscles and looked like a linebacker. Probably because he was one for the football team until he got a concussion.
"Please take a seat," Mr. Coughlan said, pointing at a decrepit olive drab chair in the corner of his office.
See, Mr. Coughlan sat at a gorgeously-detailed oak desk he claimed to have made himself. He sat in a large, rolling leather chair and had an expensive-looking lamp and pen holder that always adorned his desk. The crimson walls were draped with various framed degrees and awards. A painting of an eagle hung directly behind Mr. Coughlan's chair. In contrast to the rest of his office, he put these worn-down, beat up, baby-puke green chairs in front of his desk for students to sit in because it emphasized the fact that we were beneath him and that was supposed to make us feel intimidated. At least that's what Mr. Mackey, my English teacher, would tell me. And usually it worked.