The Angel,The Devil,The Nerd

Chapter 1 - I Hate Mondays

on the side ---------------> Natalie

CHAPTER 1 - I HATE MONDAYS

Monday. I hate Mondays. It means I have to get up and go back to that Hell. Why couldn't I just receive my letter to Hogwarts and leave these muggles behind? Oh, maybe I'm just a too powerful witch and Dumbledore thought I could become another Tom Riddle. Yes, that must be it. Lazily, I got up and groggily opened my wardrobe. I'm not a morning person, in case you're wondering. I'm with that one who said 8 am are the "incontrovertible evidence that devil dwells in the world", well, in my case it's 7 am. Even worse. I sighed. Damn, I should definitely stop going to bed so late. Last night I remained awake till 2 am just to finish my book. That's what books do to me, they take away my sleep and sometimes my appetite. I'm a hostage of those printed papers. A very happy hostage. School starts at 8.30 but I live something half an hour from it and normally I walk all the way to it. I stopped taking the bike when, on my sophomore year, some idiots threw it in the dustbin. "It was just an innocent joke" they defended. "It's just a week of detention" the principal retorted. I couldn't hold back the evil laugh, so now those guys hate me. Like I even care. The above mentioned idiots are some of those football jocks too stupid to reach college but that will get to it anyway because of their sportsmen scholarship. Me, I have to work my butt off to reach the adequate points for at least one decent college to even consider me. Well, maybe I don't work that hard, I mean, it's not that tough for me to get a good grade. Guess I'm just lucky. Or a genius. Who knows. Anyway, there is a bus that takes kids to school, but since I'm antisocial and that bus counts many of my peers as well, I just walk. I like walking anyway. I stared into my closet for a few minutes, not like I have this huge variety to choose between, but right now I'm even without glasses and without glasses I can't see much. Yes, reason would tell me to just wear them before getting up, but I'm used to walk blindly around my room and I don't easily change habits. I pulled out simple dark blue loose jeans and a black sweater with Pucca on it and hurried to the bathroom to take a quick shower before having to, like always, run because I'm late. In half an hour I was ready, had arranged my shoulder-long hair in a sloppy bun, put on a pair of white snickers. Grabbed my black shoulder bag, I hurried downstairs. Mom was in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of orange juice as she'd just finished making breakfast.

"Making progress, uh? Five minutes early today."

She mocked me and I rolled my eyes. Annoying her, I only picked a muffin as breakfast and ran out, knowing I'd be late if I stayed any longer. I obviously put on my headphones and dipped into music while walking, so that I could tune the whole world out and ignore everything. This allowed me to lose myself in my daydreams, so I literally erased everything else, at least till I stepped into the school property, and there he was ... Kyle Romano. My crush. Gorgeous as always. The hottest guy in the school. Captain of the soccer team, good student, many friends, a bit of a bad fame for hanging out with the wrong people lately, but overall a good guy. Inevitably, my heart started thumping in my chest, but I did my best not to stare at him and silently but awkwardly made my way to the entrance as he was sitting just nearby among his friends. I restarted breathing only once I was out of sight. I know, it's such a cliché for the invisible nerdy girl to have a crush on the hottest guy of the school, but I can't help it. Obviously Kyle doesn't even know I exist, well, he does, just doesn't really pay attention to me. Like pretty much everybody in this school. Not like I really care, I mean, next to the definition of introvert you'd find a picture of me. Oh, by the way, my name's Natalie, Natalie Watson. One would think I've heard the "elementary, Watson" thing a thousand times, instead no ... my peers don't even know who was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and if they know Sherlock Holmes it's because of the TV show. I'd forgive them if it was Sherlock (BBC), but it's most of the times Elementary, which is a lame parody of the real story if you ask me, but whatever. I live in quite a little town, the kind where everybody knows everybody, there's barely one school so at some point all teenagers come to meet each other, well, in theory, in reality it's not totally like that. Me, I'm the perfect example of nobody knows her. I've spent a huge part of my life being invisible, mostly for my choice. You need to know that as a child I was very, very shy, I still am, but was able to shrug it off the most I could. The thing is, shyness faded but introversion remained, so yeah, I'm that quiet girl who never talks and doesn't even try to make friends. I did have a best friend, but she moved away just last year, so here I am all alone. Sprinting to my locker, because I had Physics in like five minutes and the teacher was a ball-breaking spinster that hated everybody and would send me to detention for being one single second late (I'm not exaggerating, she's done that already), as I approached the above mentioned locker, I couldn't help but gaze at the end of the corridor, where, like always, right at the end of the stairs, stood the other most attractive boy of the school, Eric Rivers. Opposite to Kyle, Eric is the bad boy, that element fathers don't want their daughters anywhere near, the one even some teachers fear and that is said to be not only reckless, but also cruel, evil and even a jailbird. This is Eric Rivers. Icy blue eyes, short blonde hair, broad shoulders, perfectly sculpted abs, long legs ... just like opposites, Kyle is dark-haired instead, light brown eyes that always shine with cheerfulness, a smile that, my God, would make every heart tremble, well, at least it does that to mine ... Kyle is as well fit as Eric, though, well, honestly I can't be unbiased, I'd obviously choose Kyle, but yeah, they do cause many female hearts to skip a beat. Even with, no, also thank to his bad boy reputation, Eric has plenty of girls swooning for him, but differently from Kyle, who's friendly with everybody, Eric frightens whoever happens to cross his road. Neither Eric does really bother my existence, but I've known him since 4th grade, while Kyle moved in only for freshman year. Eric and I have never been friends, but I remember he was kind of ... nicer back to elementary school. Oh, well, we all change and hell, did he change for the better! At least physically. As a child he was cute, yes, but growing up he's become ... wow ... I didn't know Kyle as a child, so can't say. Anyhow, I grabbed what I needed from the locker and silently walked past Eric and his little crew, since I needed to go upstairs and they were just there. I silently thanked God once I reached my destination without embarrassing myself, more specifically without tumbling down like I do pretty often.