• CHAPTER 1
    Today was a real exciting day for my school; we all had been informed that there was a new student that was attending starting today. Now, in any other school, this probably wouldn’t be very big news, but here, it was one of the very few causes for excitement, because our school was so small that everyone knew everyone.
    So today I was dressing up extra cute, well, to impress him. Yes, it was a him, his name was Ian Stelps. Maybe he will be nice.
    Today, I threw on my only blue outfit; a deep blue, ruffled, ultra mini skirt, a tight fitted, ice blue, v-neck long sleeved T-shirt, and my dark blue flip flops. It was still early fall so it was still appropriate to wear this attire. I wasn’t entirely confident about myself, I was skinny but not really pretty, but I had promised I would wear this outfit, and I don’t break promises, however weird and nutty they might be.
    I looked at myself in my huge mirror, and critiqued myself. My skirt made my legs look long, quite a feat actually, considering that I’m only 5’ 4”. The shirt made me look skinny, but not stick-lick. Now for the hard part… my make up.
    I’d never been very good at make up, so I almost always just wear cover up and foundation. So, today I was going to try on more makeup, like mascara and lip gloss. I brushed on my foundation, dragged the mascara across my eyelashes a couple of times, and dabbed some gloss on my lips. There. I looked in the mirror, and was satisfied with what I saw.
    My hair was the color of light caramel, and down to the middle of my back. It had brown and blond streaks through it, and it was natural. I was not very athletic, but I played volleyball, so my arms were muscular. I flexed them in the mirror, did a body builder pose, and laughed at myself.
    “Molly! Breakfast time!” my mom called up the stairs. I could smell cinnamon rolls, so I dashed down the stairs and plopped into a seat. My mom placed a plate in front of me and I dug in. She laughed quietly and went back to cleaning up. “You look nice” she noted. My mom was like that, the kind of person that missed nothing.
    “Mmmm” was all I said. Then I thought of something, “Mom? Does this color make my eyes look even weirder?” I asked anxiously. My eyes were the color of water, and they moved like they were MADE of water. It looked like there were waves in my eyes. Blue might make them look creepier. I hated them, because they made me different from everyone else. The first thing anyone noteces about me, are my eyes. Well, I guess, on the bright side, I won’t every be over looked.
    “Look here” she said. She was always honest, so she needed to look. I turned my huge, watery eyes toward her. “Actually, no it doesn’t, sweetie. They look as beautiful as always, well time for school” she said lightly. I murmured thanks, jumped out of my chair, and skipped out the door.
    I guess I wasn’t on time like I’d thought. I was walking along, taking my time, when I checked my phones clock. It was 7:29. School started at 7:30. I started sprinting down the sidewalk toward my school. Finally I made it to my school, up the stairs and into the building. All was silent in the hallways, and that meant that I was REALLY late. I rushed to my first class.
    “Good morning Molly” Mr. F said sarcastically as I rushed into the room late, again. “Glad to know that you were able to make it, take a seat” she said. I blushed deeply and took a seat without looking to see who was in the seat next to me. I heard a quiet laugh and glanced over to my right. Hmmm… I don’t know him. Wait a second. I don’t know him? I looked back, and sure enough, I was sitting next to the new guy.
    “Morning” he whispered, “Molly, is it?” I just kept staring, because he had eyes like fire, they looked like they were flaming inside. They were the kind of eyes that made you feel extraordinary just by looking into them.
    Then he froze, staring into my eyes, he must have realized that my eyes were as weird as his, but my eyes were moving water, not fire. I turned around and moved my Carmel blond hair in between him and me as a curtain. There, now he couldn’t stare at me. I saw a hand come up to my hair, and he swept my hair behind my ear, then turned my face toward him again.
    “Yah, that’s my name” I murmured softly, “And your Ian, right?” He nodded and dropped his hand. I couldn’t look away from his eyes; they were exquisite, beautiful, and full of curiosity.
    Mr. F cleared his throat and practically shouted, “If you two love birds are done staring at each other and talking, I’d like to get back to my lecture” and the class abruptly burst into laughter. I blushed a deep red and looked at my paper.
    When class was over, I turned around to get up, but felt a hand on my shoulder, then Ian said “Wait, what class do you have next?” we compared schedules, and it turned out we had almost every class together. “Can I sit by you? I don’t know any one…” he trailed off, and I knew that he was making up an excuse.
    “We’ll talk after school” I waited until he nodded, and added, “Yeah I’ll sit by you”. When I said that, his fire eyes lit up to make them look even hotter, like the flame had been turned up. I smiled and led him to the next class. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his eyes racing up and down my outfit every few seconds, and I felt pleasure, for some strange reason. What feeling I couldn’t get rid of was the one that I was being watched, so I glanced around and, sure enough, everyone was staring.

    CHAPTER 2
    Ended up we never did talk, and that was because both of us were just too cowardly to talk about… IT.
    So day after day, week after week, we just hung out like real friends do. He was immediately accepted into our little group. The girls liked him, and he got along great with the guys. My friends asked if we were going out, and I said no, what would bring them to that conclusion? They explained the reasons. First, they had said, he sits by me every day at lunch, and second, we are always talking to each other and hanging out. I just said that we had become good friends.
    So, from then on, they were all over him; flirting, hugging him “casually”, hanging with him more than usual. Turns out I guess, that the only thing that had been holding them back, was that they thought that I was dating him.
    Well, they didn’t get much response from him, he still paid the most attention to me, and I to him. So they gave up, and life went on.
    That’s when things got weird. I didn’t fit it all together until the last clue had fallen into place.
    The first weird thing was that there was a fire in the school. Not so weird on its own, but grouped with this next bit, it seams suspicious. You see, this fire started right before Ian and I had to take a test we’d both been dreading, and Ian went to the bathroom because he claimed he was going to “pee his pants any minute” so the teacher let him go. Two minutes later, the fire alarm went off, and we all heard that one of the classrooms that had been empty at the time had burst into flames. Well, at least all the paper had.
    Then, when we were walking home from school, he was mad about something and wouldn’t tell me what, so I let it go. But I noticed that I smelled something burning, and looked around. I couldn’t find the source, and when Ian walked down his street after hugging me good-bye, the smell went away.
    That was it for the weird fire happenings, and I forgot about them for a while. The cause of this is that I got a boyfriend. A couple of weeks after the fire alarm thing, Ian asked me out. I said yes and that’s that! My friends said they all envied me. We hugged more often, but we hadn’t kissed yet. We were both shy. Although I could see he very much wanted to kiss me when he kissed me on the cheek with his lips that were the weirdest temperature, they were warmer than they were supposed to me, I was sure.
    We were almost to our 5th class together, which was also the last period of the day when he took my hand; his hand was warm, really warm. I’m sure mine was cold, it always was. I looked over at him, and he was staring around at everyone that was staring at us, and then started skipping. An 11th boy was skipping down the hallway, and it looked fun so I started too. I laughed and we swung our hands in between us. We skipped into class and fell into our seats. I ended up falling into his lap. I tried to scramble off, but he grabbed me and kissed me on the head, then set me in my seat. This wasn’t an unusual thing, but I still blushed. He started cracking up, and I laughed too.
    When class started me and Ian started passing notes again, as did in all of our classes. Usually, our notes were almost always silly things, like stories we were making up together, or something random. Today was no different.
    Suddenly the note was snatched from underneath my pencil, and I looked up, startled, to see that our teacher was walking down the isle to us, and I held my breath, what would we say when we didn’t have anything to explain with?
    “Do you have something to share Molly, Ian?” she asked. I shook my head and Ian just stared at the teacher. I saw him writing on a piece of paper underneath the desk, but I paid no attention, because he was trying not to get us in trouble. 5 seconds later Ian said “My notes?” and handed the teacher the newly fabricated list of notes on the lecture on history Mrs. Yen had just given.
    “Hmmm… well Ian, you may want Molly’s help if you are going to pass this class, try and catch more of the information okay?” she walked back to the front of the class with her heals clicking against the wood floor. I looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was staring at the note. I was about to ask him what he was staring at when the small double sided note started to burn where his fingers touched it, and within seconds the note was just a small pile of ash on his disk, which he casually swept off with a swift movement of his hand.
    I gaped openly. He had just burned a piece of paper with his hands. I was still trying to compose myself when he glanced over, hearing me gasp I guess, and asked “What?” in a hushed whisper. I shook my head and murmured “nothing”. If he was keeping secrets from me, than that was just fine, I’d bust him after school.
    When the bell rang, I stood up stiffly and waited for him to gather his things. HE looked confused. Well, HE shouldn’t be keeping secrets from me, so I will keep secrets from him, for the time being. We walked over to the Big Oak tree and I called my mom, telling her I wouldn’t be home for a while, and she told me just to call when I was on my way. I slid to the ground, and Ian plopped down next to me.
    He started playing with my hair, and I got distracted. I looked over, and I was lost in the depths of his red-hot eyes. He chuckled, and pushed a lock of hair behind my ear. “Did you have something to say?” he asked, sounding amused. So, he still hadn’t guessed had he? That brought back my former irritation, and I whipped my head away from his hand. That hand dropped, and I stared at the ground.
    “Since when do we keep secrets from each other?” I asked rudely.
    “What do you mean, Molly?” he asked, and now he sounded guarded. I looked at him, and his eyes displayed the same. “I always tell you everything” but I heard the false note in the lie.
    “Then why didn’t you tell me that you could, like, burn things?” I growled. This really got to me, for some reason. He jumped up, and started stalking off. I tried to catch up to him, but he was walking so swiftly that it was hard enough to stay within ten feet of him. “IAN!” I screamed. He didn’t turn. He just kept walking as if he hadn’t heard me. “Ian I didn’t mean to upset you!” I cried.
    “Well” he said, “I don’t really care what you intended, Molly” he said, and I thought that I heard tears in his voice. That’s what choked me, what kept the next words from flowing from my mouth, and stopped me cold. He kept walking, and turned down his street. It was Friday, and that was the last I saw from him until the weekend ended. It was a long weekend.

    CHAPTER 3

    I peeked outside my window, and Ian wasn’t there, like he usually was. I sat down on my bed again, depressed. I sighed, and whipped the last of the tears from last night from my eyes. Looks like I didn’t have a boyfriend anymore.
    I walked onto the schoolyard, and straight to my friends group. I expected to see Ian, but I didn’t. This worried me, all of his friends were in this little circle, where was he? My friends asked me where he was, and I just said I didn’t know. They peeked at me from the corner of their eyes every couple of seconds. I guess that would be the cause of the fact that I probably looked like my grandma had just died.
    I didn’t see Ian until the first class we had together, and in his usual seat. That didn’t surprise me, because we had assigned seats, and we couldn’t move from them. I sat down, looked at his face, and looked down again. He looked like he was being tortured, and that he was extremely angry about something.
    I didn’t realize that I was crying until the tears splashed on my binder. I tried to rub them out before Ian could see, and it didn’t work. He reached over and tapped each teardrop on my binder and when his finger left, it was dry. Then he ran his hand across my face, and left it dry. Then he went back to staring at the front of the class.
    “What did I do?” I asked brokenheartedly. He peaked over at my distorted face, and his softened. He pulled me into him in a hug, and whispered in my ear “you aren’t afraid of me?” and I was so shocked, that I froze. He misinterpreted it. He shoved away, scowled at the white board, and muttered, “Knew you were afraid”.
    “I am not! How could I be! What…” but class had started, and I couldn’t get any more out. He looked at me, saw the trust and truth radiating from my eyes, and relaxed into his chair. From then on, he walked with me and sat next to me, but didn’t talk to me.
    I was fine as long as I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. But he didn’t touch my hand again, or touch my hair, or anything, and this bothered me. So when we were walking home, I reached out to grab his hand. He flinched away, but I kept reaching. I got hold of his left hand, and held it tightly. It was warm as it always was, but it frightened me now, if he didn’t want to hold my hand he could just burn my hand off. But of course Ian wouldn’t do that, so I relaxed and walked right next to him.
    He chuckled, and squeezed my hand. I smiled wide at him, and he smiled back. When it came time for him to go down his street, he just kept walking with me. He’d never been to my house, in all the months that I’d known him. We walked up to my front steps, went in side and dropped our backpacks off in the hallway.
    I had a very small house, and I was an only child with a single mother, so it fit us very well. Ian looked around at my slightly messy house, and looked a little like he was at home. I started walking, not knowing what to do. Then Ian came behind me and whispered, “Where’s the kitchen? I’m hungry” and I laughed. OF CAURSE Ian was hungry and he never stopped eating! I lead him to the kitchen, where he immediately started raiding my refrigerator. I sat down at the small table, and watched him with a small smile on my face.
    He looked up, a slice of ham hanging out of his mouth, saw me smiling, and said “What?’ and the ham fell to the floor. I bursted out laughing and had to hunch over to catch my breath. I looked up when I was done laughing, and he was gone.
    “Ian?” I asked. He wasn’t in the kitchen. Where could he have gone?
    “In your room!” he called. That’s when I panicked. I hadn’t cleaned my room in a week. I rushed through the house, tripping over stuff on the floor, and finally made it to my room. I stared at him from my bedroom door. He was staring around my room with a amused look on his face. My room was, like me, very random. The walls were swirls of blue, orange, green, and pink. You could hardly see that though because most of my walls were covered in posters and crap like that. Besides that, my room was disorganized, messy.
    “Sorry” I apologized, “It’s a little messy in here” and I blushed. He was staring at my walls, filled with my favorite paper items; posters, awards, drawings, cards. He turned toward me, and then sat on my bed.
    “Well, I like it” he said. “It’s got a nice homey feel to it” he sighed. His eyes got a dreamy look in them for a couple of seconds while he was staring at me, but then the expression was whipped from his face, and replaced with a cocky smile. “My room is cleaner” he mocked.
    “Whatever” I muttered and sat down on my orange beanbag. It was pretty big, and I sank in pretty far. I laughed quietly, and sat up a little. “My moms going to be here in about a half hour, you can meat her then” I smiled. She’d been pestering me about it, but I doubt she’ll be happy that I had a boy alone in the house, though. My smile faded.
    “Sounds cool” he smiled. Then he say that I was frowning and asked, “What?”.
    “Well” I began, “My mom probably won’t be very happy that you were in the house with me without ‘parent supervision’ and I don’t know what to say to her” I fretted.
    “Oh” was all he said. And then he dropped his eyes before I could read what emotion there that had made him avoid my gaze. What I could see, though, was that he was blushing slightly. That made me think of something, what he would have heard in my sentence, and blushed too.
    “Well, what are we gonna do?” I asked casually. “Homework, talk…” I suggested. I was eager to hear about Friday, but I was trying not to show it.
    “How about homework? That way your mom won’t have anything to complain about” he was still staring down. “Ok” I said complacently. We did homework until my mom came home. Turned out that I needed help, I hadn’t paid much attention in class today, and Ian helped me with what I had missed. It seemed that he was getting a kick out of it. We joked around and finished my homework in the nick of time.
    We were sprawled out on the floor surrounded by our homework and books, when I heard my mom’s car pull into the driveway. I was too mentally exsaughsted to remember why I had to get off the floor, so I just laid there, letting Ian play with my hair. It felt nice, and I was close to falling asleep right there on the carpet.
    “Molly?” my mom called. Ian was still playing with my hair, and that distracted me, and the reason to get off the floor escaped me again, so I yelled “In my room!” and went on laying. “You know you shouldn’t spend all of your afternoon in your room, its not healthy” she was saying, her voice getting closer. Then she was at my door, and I was myself again. I snapped up into a sitting position, and Ian sat up too. Strange, I thought he would have remembered about my mom, but like me, he’d been distracted. I looked at him, and he looked disoriented.
    He recovered himself, and stood up. He held out his hand and my mom took it, eyeing me. “Hello Mrs. Shepherds, my name is Ian Stelps” and then he dropped his hand.
    “Hello Ian” she said, then she looked at me again, her brown eyes startled and a bit crazed. “Molly? Could I see you in the kitchen?” I sighed, squeezed Ian’s hand, and followed her to the kitchen. There, she dropped her purse on the table, and spun around to face me. “Molly Merie Shepherds, who is that?” she demanded. I looked into her eyes, and all I saw was curiosity and surprise, no anger, so I answered.
    “That’s my boyfriend mom” I murmured. She pointed to her eyes and mouthed ‘what?’. I sighed. I didn’t want to discus this now. “His eyes are like mine mom” I muttered, “except that his look like fire not water”.
    “I can see that” she said quietly. “Why do you have him at our house ALONE” she said louder than before. I looked up at her, I had my story straight for this one.
    “We were doing homework” I said lightly. “And we finished early so we just waited for you to come home” I said. Then reached for an apple, an excuse not to look at her. I heard her sigh, and I looked up automatically. She was staring at the kitchen doorway, and I said “Can he stay for dinner?”. Her gaze flitted back to me, then she caved. “OK” she sighed.
    “YAY!” I screamed. Then I skipped back to my room and into Ian’s waiting arms. “You wanna stay for dinner?” I asked him eagerly. I looked up at his face, and he was staring at me. I could see the answer before the words fall from his mouth.
    “Sure” he said casually, and I hugged him tighter. “What are we having?”
    “Spaghetti!” I squealed, “My moms specialty” and I sat back down on my bed and flopped backwards. That’s when I noticed that Ian wasn’t in the best of moods, and trying to hide it. “What’s wrong?” I asked anxiously. He was staring out my window, and he looked like he was upset about something. “Do you not like spaghetti?” I questioned. No answer. Humph. Well then. I walked over to him slowly, and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned toward me with a blank expression.
    “I can’t talk about you-know-what with your mom here” he murmured. OH. Then I realized it. He wanted to explain. Well that was sweet, but I was a patient girl when I wanted to be.
    “We can talk later” I promised. He searched my eyes for something, and I’m not sure what he found, but he liked what he saw. He sighed with a small smile on his face, then went over to check what CD’s I had. I had not a lot, so it didn’t take him long to choose one and put it in. Seconds later, Chris Brown started singing out of my music player. I laughed when he turned toward me with one of his eyebrows raised.
    “Chris brown?” he asked. I nodded, still giggling. Then I got crazy and started rocking out to one of his songs. What I hadn’t seen was that my mom had appeared silently at my door, watching me rock out. She cleared her throat, and I spun around, embarrassed.
    “You guys wanna help me make dinner?” she asked. We both nodded and I skipped to the kitchen. She put me in charge of chopping stuff, and Ian in charge of the meat, after asking him if he was a vegetarian. He wasn’t. So I chopped, he simmered meat, and my mom made salad. It smelled wonderful in the tiny room.
    When the meat wasn’t cooking fast enough for Ian, I saw him discretely heat the pan with his hand, then say “Done Shelly”. My mother had asked him to call her by her real name. He looked over at me, and I was smiling and shaking my head. He mouthed ‘you saw that’ and I nodded. He sighed, but seemed happy that I didn’t run screaming out the door.
    After we were done eating, I walked him home. When we got to his road, it was time to say goodbye for the night. He leaned his head down to peck me on the cheek, but I was done with that. When he was near enough, I turned my head and kissed him on the lips. He froze in surprise, and then leaned away.
    It didn’t surprise me, his lips were like the rest of him, extremely warm. But what I didn’t expect, was that I wanted to kiss him again, and soon. I reached up on my tippy-toes and pecked him on the lips again. This time he kissed me back. Then I jumped away, smiled wide at him, and skipped home.