"Shhh!" I hissed. I slammed my locker door, grabbed Maggie by the wrist, and dragged her out of the hallway and away from the curious bystanders who heard Maggie's exclamation.

"I told you not to say anything!" I complained.

"Come on, Sky, you canNOT just pretend your birthday doesn't exist."

"Um, actually I can." I persisted.

"You have to admit though," Maggie said as we started walk to math together, "seventeen is when people really start treating you like an adult. It's really exciting!" Maggie bubbled. How would she know? She's three months younger than me.

"9-11 Day is exciting for you, Maggie!" I snapped, my anger bubbling over. I've always had a short temper.

"Well, Christmas Day is like a funeral for you! I'm sorry for caring about my best friend." Maggie started to stomp away.

"Wait, Mags," I walked brisky after her, regretting our stupid arguement. I caught up with her and stopped her. "I'm sorry. I just don't need any more attention than I get from this." I pointed to the scar over my left eye. It was bright, blood red, as if it had never healed.

"Alright, I forgive you. And I told you, put some kind of ointment or something on that scar."

I shrugged as we started walking again. "And I told YOU that nothing works. It won't go away or even fade over time." And the doctor couldn't help because I didn't know how or when I got the damn thing.

Maggie and I argued over whether I should try lazer treatment or surgery to remove my scar, because apparently I won't get a single date. After math we walked to lunch and joined our friends at the table towards the center, two tables away from the windows in the back of the cafeteria.

There sat Rachael Jackson, whom you might call "goth". She did look that way, with her black, spikey pixie hairdo with blue highlights and mostly-black wardrobe. But Rachael's actually the animal-shelter-volunteer, rather-be-reading kind of girl.

Alexis Lavrelle, or Lexi, sat next to her. She always has her chocolate brown hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She's 100% tomboy and is constantly teasing her friends. Then there was Ryan Santiago, who had a baby face with sparkling blue eyes and soft, curly brown hair. He was into me, a lot, but I just didn't like Ryan that way.

Lastly there was Dylan Northsongue, who was gay. He has a blonde, cute hair cut and wears name-brand clothing. Any girl would fall for him, and many did, but then everyone soon found out he wasn't straight and literally stayed away from him like he had some kind of disease.

Stupid, wretched homo-phobes.

I guess you could call us misfits; we didn't belong anywhere in the society pyramid of high school. But we loved eachother (in that non-homosexual way) and accepted the differences between us.

Oh my God, I'm starting to sound really stupid. But it's true.
Every hour flew by thanks to passing notes and whispering in class (and not to mention lunch). At the end of the day, every student poured out the doors of West Seattle High. And, like it is much of my days in Seattle, it was cloudy.

I bid my farewells to my buddies and headed toward my silver, used Plymouth Breeze. I was just about to open my car's door when I saw Maggie, about eight spaces down, on her cell phone standing in the middle of the road. You can't blame her, she had ADHD and had no idea that a group of speeding seniors were going to crush Mags in a few seconds. I stared in horror.

It all happened very quickly then.

Some strange feeling came over me. It made me alert and focused. Suddenly, I was running. Fast. I had never run that fast before. And what was stranger was that I could see everything-every stare of horror, license plate number and the car that continued to charge toward Maggie, who had dropped her cell phone and was staring at the black SUV in shock.
Two seconds until Maggie met her death.
I turned and slammed into Maggie. We flew across the road a second before the SUV sped by and then skidded to a stop.
It seemed like the almost-accident had lasted an eternity even though it was only a few seconds since I first saw the car fly toward Maggie.
Speaking of...I ripped my gaze from the car to my best friend, whose eyes were wide in terror. Following my gut, I lept up to my feet, ran off (at a human pace this time) to my car as a pouring rain started to fall.