Lost in Between & Outtake by ginginlee COMPLETE.pdf

Lost in Between

by ginginlee

A coming of age tale following two almost-adults as they face the perils of moving to a

new town, finding themselves, and falling in love for the first time. A story of friendship,

love, growing up, and change... AH

Disclaimer: The characters of Twilight are owned by Stephenie Meyer.

No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1

Bella walked slowly down the tiny hallway, trying to surreptitiously spot her locker

without making eye contact with any of the other students. She had arrived a bit later

than she intended, and had to park in the farthest corner of what the administration

referred to as the "gravel lot." Bella noted that the parking lot was paved, but she didn't

question it. She was passing the gymnasium when an influx of people exited, mostly

girls, chattering excitedly with one another. As Bella looked the opposite way and picked

up her speed, she was spotted.

"Hi. You're new?" Bella turned to find a petite girl with red-brown hair and a face full of

freckles looking at her. The girl's accent made her "hi" sound more like "hah" and Bella

almost didn't realize what she was saying. She nodded and looked away, but she

discovered an entire group had surrounded her.

"I'm Cammie. You look... nice. What's your first class?" Cammie's friends studied her as

she stuttered through her answer. Bella would really have to get used to the way they

made "I" sound like "aaah".

"Uh, English. Twelfth grade."

"Great. Lauren an' Ashlie got that, too. Why don't ya'll go with her?" A girl with pale

blonde hair stepped forward, accompanied by another freckle-faced girl, this one with a

curtain of black bangs covering her forehead. Bella looked as if she were in pain as she

started down the hallway with the two girls. If only she'd left the house earlier or

walked faster, maybe she could've found her locker and slipped into her classroom

unnoticed.

She was never that lucky.

The curtain-bang girl was Ashlie, and she offered to show Bella her locker after class,

noting that the number was close to hers.

"But you can git a locker next to us, if ya'ont," she explained. Bella inferred she meant

"you want". "No one really uses the one they're assigned. Everyone just sort of picks

one out with their group, so we're all together. We still have a block from last year.

There's probably one next to it that's open."

Bella didn't really mind the freckled girl or the silent blonde, but she wasn't ready to

commit to "the group." She quietly expressed her thanks on the matter, and looked

around as she entered the classroom. She randomly chose a seat, and saw that Ashlie

and Lauren were standing by the teacher's desk, looking at her curiously.

"Assigned seats. Miss Duncan will tell us where to sit," Lauren offered without ever

actually looking Bella in the eye.

"Oh. Oh," Bella muttered as she gathered her messenger bag and walked back up the

aisle. She saw that none of the other students carried bags like hers; most of the girls

only carried small purses, while her new "friends" had strikingly new-looking L.L. Bean

backpacks with their initials on them. Bella almost winced at the sight at what she

thought was a waste of money.

Miss Duncan entered the room and quickly told everyone where to sit. She assigned

seats alphabetically, and then she adjusted the seating chart as needed. Bella was sitting

behind a ridiculously tall boy named Derrick, with an empty seat behind her. At the last

possible second, a willowy girl with dark hair walked into the room, whispering with the

teacher before rushing to fill the seat behind Bella. Ashlie, sitting one row over, leaned

towards the tardy student.

"Where're you? Ya missed prayer," she chastised. Prayer ? Bella wondered.

"My car wouldn't start and my dad had to bring me."

"Angela! Ya gotta git a new car. Yours is fixin' to run out!"

"I know, I know." Angela's accent seemed slightly less pronounced than Ashlie's.

"This's Bella. She's new."

Bella felt obligated to turn to the girl and give her a small smile. Angela had kind eyes

and only nodded at her, and that put her in a slightly better mood. The class began and

Bella had trouble seeing over the tall boy, Derrick. She eventually slumped down in the

chair, leaning heavily to the right, until the bell finally rang. Her new school had block

scheduling, so each class was ninety minutes long. While she thought the classes felt a

bit too long, she was glad that she would only have to endure the for one semester.

The students were allotted ten minutes between each class to go to their lockers, gather

their books, use the bathroom, or gossip relentlessly. Bella was led to "the group's"

lockers, partially against her will, and submitted to putting her books into a vacant one

near the other girls.

The group seemed to have grown since the morning. Every girl was white, except for

one, who looked to be of Asian decent. Each girl was dressed modestly, three of them

even wearing the same shirt in different colors. Bella knew that the only place to shop

was in the neighboring town's mall, so she assumed this was a side effect.

She was told that her next class, U.S. Government, was upstairs and that the Asian girl,

named Audra, and the curly-haired voluptuous girl, Jessica, both had the class with her.

Bella walked alongside them obligingly.

"So where'd ya move from?"

"Phoenix."

"Is that... that's in... where's that?" Bella looked at Jessica incredulously, seeing that she

was serious.

"Arizona."

"Ya drive here?"

"No, I flew."

"I've never been on a plane before," the girl admitted. "How far away is Phoenix?"

"A few thousand miles at least, I'd say. I didn't check, to be honest."

"I never met anyone that watn't from here, or Virginia or Carolina. Arizona... wow."

Bella noticed that her new friends liked to combine as many words as possible when

they spoke, as though there were some sort of contest for the fewest number of words

used in a day.

Bella wanted to mock the girl in her head, but she new it was unfair. She knew that most

of the area was impoverished before she moved there, and even though her new

friends seemed to be fairly well-off, she shouldn't expect them to have traveled all over

the US. And no one in their right mind would move to the middle of the mountains in

Tennessee for the heck of it. Most of the students were probably raised here, just like

their parents, or had relocated from somewhere nearby.

Bella's government class wasn't terrible. Her teacher had a northern accent and was

extremely sarcastic. He was the first person she'd come across so far that felt remotely

like herself. The saccharine politeness of the South was hard to adjust to.

Bella had Probability and Statistics next, which Audra was in as well. The break in

between third and fourth block was only eight minutes, which Bella found odd. They

walked to class together, and Bella noticed that a large population of boys was checking

Audra out. Bella looked at her and had to admit, she was quite beautiful. However, the

way Audra was strutting down the hallway informed Bella that she knew how beautiful

she was.

"So... are you, um... part Filipino?" Bella was hesitant to ask about her ethnicity, but the

two hadn't spoken a word to one another yet, and she felt like she should at least say

something to the girl.

"Japanese. A quarter. My grandmother met my grandfather during the war." Bella could

tell that Audra was intelligent, just by listening to her short statement. Something about

the way she enunciated let her know that just because her accent was thick and slow,

didn't mean she was stupid. The two girls entered the math classroom with hoards of

boys saying "hi" to Audra. Only a few of them cast a glance at her. Bella was used to

being wholly ignored by the male population, but it was still odd to be instantly

discredited, even at a school that was one/sixth the size of her last one.

Bella discovered that her Prob/Stat teacher was the mother of one of the girls in the

"group." Although Mrs. Hamilton had brown hair instead of strawberry blonde, she

could see a striking resemblance to Tanya, one of the girls she met during the break.

Mrs. Hamilton was familiar with all of the students already; Audra informed her that

their teacher also taught Algebra II, Algebra III, Pre-Calculus and Calculus. Apparently

she was the only apt math teacher the school had. She was stolen from a larger school

across the state line.

Bella was a fairly good student, even in math, but she could already tell, twenty-five

minutes into the class, that she hated Prob/Stat. The bell rang, and the students stood

to file out of the classroom for lunch. Bella discovered that this school had three

different lunch times. First lunch was used for high school students with gym third

period, and the majority of middle school students (yes, the cafeteria connected her

high school with the middle school). Second lunch and third lunch were split evenly

amongst the high school classrooms, many of which middle school students were in as

well. Bella had spotted quite a few miniscule, sweaty, pimply, cracked-voice kids

wandering around already.

The high school only technically consisted of tenth through twelfth grade; freshmen

were still housed in the middle school. Students from eighth grade and above typically

had at least one class a semester in the high school until they actually graduated from

middle school.

From the outside, the middle school was clearly much larger and newer. While it had

large windows and central air, the high school still had small windows that had to be

opened, and radiator heat. The lockers were only about six inches wide, making it

difficult to actually fit anything in there besides a light jacket. Bella was perplexed at the

way the school was set up, but she was thankful it was so small that it was impossible to

get lost in.

The cafeteria was swarming with students when she entered. She followed her new

friend, Audra, through the lunch line, noting the small, but admittedly good looking,

variety of food. She accepted scoops of everything the lunch lady was offering, but saw

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