Author's Note: I edited this part a bit, since I realized that the tenses were mixed up (thanks to one of the reviewers!).

I don't understand what these love stories are telling you.

I mean, they're totally not true. They're definitely sending false messages. Seriously. It's the same thing as someone misleading you on into that they actually like you.

The evidence for this conclusion? My life.

See, I'm the new girl.

And well, in those typical romance books, the new girl falls in love with the popular guy, the popular guy suddenly loves her, something dramatic occurs that makes the whole story juicy, but then poof! They're together and are happy forever.

Um, rewind. Please.

The ugly truth is that the new girl falls in love with the popular guy, the popular guy does not love her, in actuality he barely pays ATTENTION to her, and well, the drama? Definitely a no. Not to this girl, at least.

I mean, what dramatic thing has ever occurred in my life?

Answer is: nothing.

For the past sixteen years of my existence, I, Emily Johnson, have never experienced any drama of any sort. Therefore I have never experienced love. Or more like, someone liking me back (I think).

I've moved my life from the small-town Preston, Maryland to the high-class Hamptons. East Hampton, to be specific.

I know. Hamptons.

Surrounded by rich girls, spoiled brats, designer clothing, shiny cars, and more real jewelry than you can imagine, I currently attend the Sutton Academy for Girls. It used to be an all-girls private school, but apparently two years back, they added some boys too.

Except my parents are a little behind in life and still have those brochures from two years back when it was still a school for only girls. They got it on one of their business trips, and last year they thought, hey why not move to East Hampton so Emily can go to this school? Yeah, why not, and tear her away from all her friends and make her attend prom and everything somewhere else and start over fresh? It's great, since we got these jobs that are paying us more than $300,000 per year. Yeah, let's move, that's such a great idea!

Gosh, sometimes my parents are completely clueless when it comes to the teenage mind. My mind, more like. They should know that I would never want to give up my simple life for the wealthy one. The only good thing is that they didn't pull me out of school half-way through my sophomore year.

And now as I walk into my new school, a junior, I have no idea what to make of it.

Tall, magnificent, and standing gloriously is this amazing school in front of my eyes. White, marble steps lead to the door and ancient Greek columns, ionic style I think, stood before me. The architecture was beautiful.

Sure, the building is great, but the people?

We'll see.

No uniforms were acquired for Sutton, so I see girls around me wearing such short skirts and shirts revealing so much skin that at my old school they would definitely be chucked out and a call home would be made.

Now, can I say slut?

They really ought to get a dress code around here.

Guys were arriving in their sweet new Porsches and polished BMW convertibles. And I have to say: they all looked like Abercrombie & Fitch models.

I spot some Coach bags, Chanel sunglasses, and some DKNY clothes that were definitely not bought at Sears.

Welcome to the high life. Which I admit, is not for me. My eyes are still spinning from all the wealth. And it's not like my family wasn't always rich, we just weren't well, this rich.

I look down at my own clothes. Jeans, a t-shirt, and a necklace. Very casual and so not stylish compared to all the other girls. I knew I should have did some shopping last week.

I walk to the principal's office and speak to the assistant, "Hi, my name is Emily Johnson, and I'm here to get my schedule."

The assistant looks up from her papers. She's quite pretty, with her auburn hair tied up in a bun and glasses that made her look oh so professional. Burberry glasses, it seemed.

"I'm sorry, what did you say your name was?" she asks me.

"Emily Johnson," I reply, a bit ticked off that she didn't hear me the first time.

"Johnson, Johnson, John- ah." she says, while flipping through the files. "Here we are. This is your schedule. You know how your classes work?" She handed me the piece of paper.

"Yes," I say dully, "I read the manual already." Like 25 times. Courtesy of my mother, who wanted to make sure I knew everything.

"Well then. You're all set! I hope your day goes well!" she says, plastering a bright, big smile on her face.

I turn around and sigh. It's going to be a long day, as I don't really know where I'm supposed to go. I mean, where the heck was classroom 231? My first day, my first class, and I'm already going to be late. I look down at my schedule once more, to see which class I'm going to be late for.

Great. Honors English.

At my old school, my English teacher was extremely strict.

Hopefully, the name that read on the paper, "Ms. Lansdale" was much nicer.

Gosh, when were there so many hallways? I sprint through the building. 101, 103, 105… boy, is this going to take a while.

Almost no one was around at this time, as the bell was about to ring in like, 3 seconds. I couldn't ask anyone for directions.

Why didn't I just ask the assistant where the classroom was?!

I climb a flight of stairs, reasoning that if it's in the 200's, it must be in the 2nd floor, right?

Being very aggravated before, my heart did start calming down when I saw 211. Now 231 must be near! Well, like 20 classrooms away.

As I turned the corner, I wasn't really paying attention to what was ahead of me, more like paying attention to what number was on the wall, and completely collide right into a dark-haired boy. My stuff goes flying, and so does his. We both fall to the ground. My binders being about 5 feet away from me, I get up swiftly and snatch them right up. "Sorry!" I apologize quickly to the boy, but I didn't have any time to help him up.

I feel guilty about that.

I shake it from my head though, and continue dashing down the hall. 231! Finally.

I calm myself down a little before opening the door though, so I don't look that rattled.

Everyone in the classroom was sitting beside their desks, all neat and perfect looking. Plus, the desks were in rows. Whenever they're in rows, it's a bad sign. No side conversations were going on, no whispering. The class was absolutely silent except for the teacher talking.

Apparently, I have stumbled into the English class with the most disciplined teacher.

Great. Just great.

"Now you must be Ms. Johnson, correct?" Ms. Lansdale asks me, her cold eyes boring into me.

"Um, yes." I say, a bit squeaky, to my shame. "I'm new here. I'm sorry I'm late, I just got lost, and-"

She cut me off abruptly. "No excuses. I don't care if you're new or not, you will have detention with me this afternoon. Understand? Do not be late again, or it will be a week's worth of detentions."

I gape at her.

I had never gotten detention before. I was a model student. I was even called "teacher's pet" occasionally.

And now, I had gotten detention. On my first day.

My parents can not find out about this.

"Go take a seat Ms. Johnson, beside Mr. Brown there." Ms. Lansdale instructs, pointing a finger at the blonde-haired boy at the back of the class.

I have never hated someone with a passion before, especially teachers. Ms. Lansdale would be the first. Usually, I find at least something good about a teacher.

This one? Two words: pure evil.

"She's a witch, isn't she?" the guy next to me whispers. 'Mr. Brown.'

I nod. "I'm Emily," I say softly.

"Scott."

"No talking!" Ms. L. barks, clearly hearing our whispering. Thank God that she doesn't know it was me.

Notice that it's 'Miss'. No wonder she's not married… which guy would ever want to date her, let alone marry her?
Basically, the whole class was boring. Ms. Lansdale just talked about the rules and what we were going to be covering (Shakespeare for the first term, AGAIN. I still don't see why teachers are still teaching Shakespeare when we did it in the 5th grade!). And I swear, when she was explaining how if you were late, you would get detention, it was totally directed at me.

The only interesting thing was Scott. I admit, I was sort of staring at him the entire class. He had these sparkling blue eyes that were to die for. And his beach blonde hair that reminded me so much of those Californian surfers, except his was short and a little spiky. He had a strong jaw, and I could tell that he worked out from his biceps. He was obviously fit.

Then, finally, class was over. I stand up to leave, and I wanted to talk to Scott a bit, but he rushes out of the classroom and into the hall, wrapping his arm around a beautiful blonde girl, who is another blue-eyed beauty.

A pang of jealousy hit me.

Why was his arm around her? Why not me?

Maybe because she's his GIRLFRIEND? The little voice inside my head reasons.

Of course. Now why did I think a gorgeous guy like that wouldn't have a girlfriend?

Stupid, Em, stupid. Like I would ever have a chance with him.

See, it's not like those romance novels. That cute guy in my English class doesn't happen to like me.

I sigh and look down at my schedule again. Honors Biology, room 215, Mr. Biggs. Good thing I know where that is, as I passed the classroom on my way.

So far, my day isn't going that bad. Just the fact that my newfound crush already has a girlfriend who's way, way, WAY prettier than I'll ever be was the stab to my back. Or heart. Oh, and I got detention… but I'm trying to forget about it.

I walk into the science room. Grey tables sit around the room and science paintings adorn the walls. I randomly sit down at a table, the one with a shy-looking girl who is currently reading a book. At least she isn't like most of the other girls, who seem pretty ditzy and clueless.

Then again, we were in Honors Bio. The smart Biology class.

I thought I'd talk to her. Maybe become friends?

"Hi, I'm Emily," I say to the girl. "What are you reading?"

Her face unburies itself from the book, and glares at me. Glares. "None of your beeswax," she says hostilely.

Whoa. Even rejected by the nerd.

And plus, who says 'beeswax' anymore? That was like 1st grade! All I asked was what she was reading... she didn't have to be mean about it.

I take a deep breath and decide not to take it personally. I'm bored out of my mind.

First class, I'm late. Second class, I'm wicked early.

I decide to just study the teacher, and figure out what he's like. He's partially bald, and has some white hair. Mr. Biggs is well, big, it seemed. He isn't fat or anything though, just tall and a bit chubby. He was sitting on his chair, focusing intently on the screen of his laptop, a smile on his face.

Huh. Now what's a teacher smiling about?

But he seems nice enough, a total change from Ms. Lansdale.

As I rest my head on my arms, staring at the clock, people start filling in. I must have blanked out for a period of time, because before I knew it, everyone had taken a seat and Mr. Biggs had stood up.

I look around the room, seeing if anyone here was in my English class. Nope. Entirely different.

"Welcome!" Mr. Biggs booms. He has a loud voice. "I'm Mr. Biggs, and I'll be your teacher for the year. This year, we'll be learning…" and I tune him out for that part, as I don't feel that it was important to know what we were going to be learning about. I mean, does it matter that much? It's probably just something for the teachers to say on the first day.

I notice that in both classes that we never did any introductions. Must be because everyone already knew each other.

"And now, I will tell you your lab partners for the year." Mr. Biggs says. I perk up at this. I always like seeing who my partner is and hoping that it's someone I can cooperate with, but mainly wishing that it's a friend. Today, I just hope that I don't have to work with the book girl.

"Casey Smith and Todd Buchanan, Victoria Jackson and Katie Moore," he says, continuing to read off his list and pointing to where each pair should sit. People are moving around and then I stand up so someone can take my seat, waiting for my name to be called.

"Lance Jones and Tina Hannigan, Natalie Griffin and Ben Adams, Emily Johnson and Will Campbell, Paris Stone and…" and as soon as I hear my name, I walk to my seat and look at the empty seat beside me where my partner is supposed to be.

If I heard correctly, Will was the person I'm paired up with. So where is he?

And then as Mr. Biggs finished calling all the names on the list, I see someone out of the corner of my eye walk towards my table. As I turn my head to get a better view, I see that the guy is fairly tall and has dark, brown hair.

He's the person I crashed into earlier.