Kiana stared at herself in front of the mirror. She saw her face looked like someone who was going to a funeral. That face didn’t suit her. Kiana lifted her fingers making a peace sign, then pushed the fingers upwards to the corners of her lips. She showed a forced smile face.

“Yes. People want to see me like this,” she told herself in front of the mirror. She caressed her own face at the mirror and suddenly thought it would be nice if she could smile like that every time and everywhere.

She went out from her room and greeted her mother, yet she was being ignored. It wasn’t uncommon for her to get such treatment. She used to it since her childhood days.

She arrived at school very early. It was still dark and there were no other students arrived before her. She put her bag and slept in the classroom while waiting for her classmates to arrive.

“How funny. School feels more like home than my real home,” Kiana muttered to herself. She felt more comfortable being at school as she spent most of her time there, about 12 hours. Starting 6:30 a.m. till 6:30 p.m. she changed her character totally. From a gloomy girl to a cheerful high school student.

“Morning, early bird!” a girl with long black hair greeted her with sweet voice.

“Oh, it’s you, Adelle. Morning,” Kiana lifted her head and found that her best friend had arrived after her. Both Kiana and Adelle had been best friends since their second year in middle school. They started becoming friends when they were sitting next to each other in the classroom. After then, they chatted and found out that they both had the same interest, which was music. Adelle would recommend some of her favorite songs to Kiana, but most of them were Korean songs. It was fine for Kiana as she appreciated any genre of music, as long as it would bring calmness and happiness for her as the listener.

“Have you eaten breakfast? My mom made fried rice for us,” Adelle opened her mini pink lunch box. The aroma of fried rice was lingering around and flying into Kiana’s nose. There was no way Kiana would be able to resist such temptation.

“The aroma’s great. I want to have some, please,” Kiana grinned as she was eager to taste that fried rice. Adelle’s mother was a very good cook. There’s no food that Kiana would say no if it was from Adelle’s mother. Kiana hated to admit that she preferred Adelle’s mother’s food more than her own mother’s. Just one reason, because of there's no love in her mother’s cooking. Not that she minded that matter so much.

They ate slowly as it was still warm when munching. Kiana showed a satisfy face. Adelle’s mother’s food never failed to amaze Kiana. Indeed, that day’s breakfast saved them from their stomach making duet in front of classmates. Soon, after they saw their classmates entered, they finished eating and cleaned up their desks.

The first lesson started as soon after the teacher put her things on the teacher’s desk. It was English subject which was Kiana’s favorite subject. Mrs. Mariah Webb was a very passionate teacher. She would never neglect any weak students and tried to teach them using many techniques. And also, Kiana and her group members (the excellent students) would always be assigned to teach those weak students until they could write an essay with minimal grammatical errors and using simple vocabularies they had memorized. As for Kiana, she reminded her fellow classmates to write essays with correct grammar. Grammar was the most important for her to ensure that the readers could understand the message she wanted to deliver. Kiana always got around 45 to 47 out of 50 for essay writing in the examination. She couldn’t get full mark as she lacked bombastic vocab. Well, that was said by Mrs. Webb.

“Alright. Now, get ready with your pen and a piece of paper. Listen to what I’m going to instruct you,” Mrs. Webb stood in front of students while holding reference book. All students obeyed and put their pens and papers on the desks.

“Now, listen to the question for today’s essay. Write an essay using this sentence as the ending: Since then, I never go to that place again.”

“Hmm… Interesting. That sentence can be written for many genres. Don’t you think so, Kiana?” Adelle whispered to Kiana.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah,” Kiana was almost spacing out.

“So, what kind of genre you want to choose for this essay?”

“Lets see,” Kiana thought while scribbling list of genres matched with the sentence given.

“I think I’ll go with psychological.”

“Fantastic! As for me, I’ll do horror,” replied Adelle.

“You sure love horror a lot, right?” Kiana chuckled. Adelle was truly a fan of horror stories. She had a complete collection of Midnight Mystery books. Just name any title of those books, she knew all of them.

After deciding the genre for her essay, Kiana began writing it. She took quite some time for brainstorming the introduction of the essay. Kiana thought it was easier to write using the sentence given as the introduction. Then, she would make her essay as a flashback story.

30 minutes later, she finished writing and Mrs. Webb took her paper to mark it. She looked at her other classmates who were still writing. Some of them had finished and gave their papers to Mrs. Webb.

“Kiana, come here,” Mrs. Webb called out her name and asked her to come to teacher’s desk.

“Yes, Mrs. Webb. How’s my essay?” Kiana waited for Mrs. Webb’s comment.

“As usual, yours are terrific. You are able to elaborate the story. It’s easy to understand the whole story plot,” Mrs. Webb tapped her pen on Kiana’s paper.

“But, I just have one question for you. Is the protagonist is someone related to you? Either your family member, relative or acquaintance?” Kiana bit her lip slightly.

“No, I just extract the protagonist from a movie I’ve watched last week,” she smiled to her teacher. She had to lie the fact about the reason she wrote that kind of story.

“Oh, is that so? I thought this protagonist is someone you know. For example, maybe she’s your alter ego?” Mrs. Webb raised her eyebrow while shrugged.

Kiana laughed. “Maybe I’ll try behaving like her as my alter ego,” she then took her paper and went back to her seat.

“I’m almost got my cover blown by Mrs. Webb. Better I’ll be careful on my act and also my writing,” that’s what Kiana thought.

The classroom was very noisy as if they were honking many times as they wanted to escape from traffic jam. There was a group of some girls, and the group was called as Glam & Shiny. If you suddenly feel your eyes were going to blind, that was because of they were right in front of you, wearing extreme shiny outfits. There was also a group of Travis Fan Club (part of club in the school). Travis was the best student who was never got any number except first place in the class, the president of astronomy club and the president of student council. Almost all of students were attracted to him, except Kiana. This made Travis liked to tease her all the time.

“What are you doing, baby?” Travis stole Adelle’s seat and sat beside Kiana. He leaned closer to Kiana’s face.

“Can’t you see what I’m doing? I’m doing my homework. Also, please don’t come closer to me and call me baby, I hate them!” Kiana said with angry voice. There’s no a day that Kiana liked his attitude towards her. He would use every second and minute he could to get closer to Kiana and annoyed her.

“Don’t hate me, please. I like you.”

“No, you are just making fun of me. I know that.”

“Really? Why don’t you date me now? You will know my true self if you become my girlfriend,” Travis showed a sincere smile to Kiana.

“Look, Travis. I’m very sure you can see clearly that I’m busy right now. Not only this time being, but I’m always busy with my study. You also busy with your school works. So let’s mind our own businesses,” Kiana gave Travis a stern look. Travis knew Kiana really didn’t want to be bothered.

“Okay, I’m sorry. But about the girlfriend thing I mentioned just now, I’m really serious about it. I’m waiting for you to say yes,” Travis went to his seat after seeing the teacher was coming to the class. Kiana ignored what he said. It wasn’t important in her mind to think about such proposal.

The lesson ended at 2 p.m. After that, it was extracurricular activity time. Travis left the class and walked to the student council room. Most students were having lunch before attending their clubs.

Travis entered the student council room. The members were already there and he was the last person coming.

“Oh, Travis! We need your help,” Harold, the vice president stood up from his seat and walked to Travis.

“What’s wrong?” Travis put his bag and checked a file that was shown by Harold. Harold explained about students’ complaints regarding the poor condition of the music room. Last week, one of baseball club members were accidentally threw the ball so high and hit the music room’s window. The glass broke awfully. Due to lack school funds, the music club members had to cover the window using some patched long plastics. Harold thought as if the window was wrapped like a preserved big pudding. Then, during weekend, unfortunately it was raining heavily and the room was wet. The rain also affected some instruments and notes sheets. Thus, the music club members urged the student council to help them solved the problem as soon as possible.

“I see. Then, for today’s task, I want us to make survey at nearest glass stores and compare the price they can offer for us. If we can find a store with affordable price and good quality product, then we will tell the music club,” Travis said to the council members. All of them nodded.

Suddenly, someone knocked the door. Travis asked that person to enter.

“Hello, I’m sorry to bother you,” Adelle showed only her face after opening the door.

“What brings you here, Adelle?” Travis asked.

“I just want to inform Harold that I’ll be going home late. I have to accompany Kiana to buy some paints for our class project.”

“Alright, I’ll inform mom and dad. Take care, Adelle,” replied Harold. Adelle and Harold are twins, but they were in different class as Harold preferred mathematics more than science. The students were given choices to join the class the preferred and related to their future plans. There were science stream class, mathematics stream class, literature stream class and arts stream class.

“Also please do me a favor to tell Kiana to be careful,” Travis said to Adelle.

“You heard that, Kiana? Travis told you to be careful,” Adelle was giggling while turned her head to Kiana. Knowing Kiana was right beside Adelle, Travis went out of the council room immediately.

“You should inform me that you are coming here, baby.”

“I said I’m not your girlfriend, Travis! Stop calling me that already,” Kiana glared at him. Then, she grabbed Adelle’s hand and stomped her steps to leave that place.

“Travis, are you really serious?” Harold was very curious with Travis’ behavior just now.

“Hum? About what?”

“About you said that you fall for Kiana.”

“Yeah, I really love her. She’s very different from other people, but I still can’t discover her mysterious side,” Travis replied with a smile.

“I hope your feelings towards Kiana are true. I’m telling this as one of her best friends,” Harold was worried that Travis planned to only play with Kiana and made her cry after that.

“I can’t see the reason you should be too fierce with Travis. You knew that he was just teasing you,” Adelle suddenly brought up about the scene in front of student council room. It wasn’t anything new that Kiana would always rise her voice angrily at Travis every time they encountered.

Kiana turned her face to Adelle after paying two small tins of paint at the counter. “Which is why it’s a problem, Adelle. Because he is Travis, the boy that most girls idolize too much. Ugh, it’s annoying to see his fan club always makes fuss at school.”

Adelle became silent for a while, trying to interpret her friend’s words (in her own way). “Then, do you actually have feelings for Travis?”

“Exactly no. you should know me the best,” replied Kiana.

“Then, you like someone else to the point that you want to avoid Travis so much because you don’t want that person to misunderstand you and Travis?”

“No, Adelle,” Kiana’s eyebrows almost made a bridge, “I really don’t have feelings for anyone for this moment. Study is the only thing I have on my mind.” She crossed fingers at the back. Indeed, she prioritize her study, but how could she stay focused when she had a major problem shadowing her all this time? Kiana just kept that to herself. She let no one to intrude in her private life.

The road they passed through was quite a view. The sun shone brightly yet it wasn’t warm. It made the stream nearby showed a beautiful color at the particular time. At their left side, they saw some boys, about 13 to 16 years old were jogging at the jogging lane. The boy with a black hat who jogged backwards facing the others might be the leader. Kiana assumed that they were having practice for an upcoming tournament. A smile created at her face as she appreciated the boys’ hard work.

Adelle suddenly stopped her steps as if she was playing ice and fire game. “Oh! By the way, Harold invite you to watch his rugby match this weekend. After then we can have lunch outside, his treat. You’ll go?”

Kiana smiled weakly, “I’ll think about it and inform you soon.”

Few minutes later they arrived at Adelle’s house. She waved a cute goodbye and reminding Kiana to bring the paints to school the next day. Kiana continued walking after confirming Adelle was safely at her home and closed the gate properly. Walking to her home was not something she was very looking for. To her, she envied Adelle secretly as she could see clearly the difference between her mother and Adelle’s mother was like an angel and a demon. She knew it was cruel of her to think that way, but that’s the reality she had in her life.

She arrived at her home. As usual, she did her greetings as a hint to people inside that she was back though she expected nobody would care to hear and greeted her. “I’m home.” Kiana put her school shoes on the lower shelf.

“Humph! Coming home late, you sure were having fun with your boyfriend out there,” she saw her mother glared at her as if she went outside illegally.

Their eyes met even though Kiana wished she shouldn’t have to force herself to be polite. “Mom, what makes you think that way?”

Her mother shrugged. “Well, most girls would go home right after school ended. And you, well I’m not sure where did you go. But surely you went out with someone,”

Better telling the truth, was that she thought. “I admit that I went somewhere after school, but …..” but then her mother interrupted in a split second.

“See? Finally, you confessed that! I knew it, you start to show your rebellious side,”

“Mom, I just went buying paints with Adelle.” She had to show to her mother that she was unhappy with her mother’s accusations. They were about to have another fight, but luckily Kiana’s father arrived at the moment. Her mother then went to the front door to greet him.

Kiana walked to her room. It was useless to explain to her mother, she thought. She had already known what kind of her mother was. Not that she gave up trying to please her mother almost every day (there were times she just ignored her totally for whole days).

Lying herself whilst sinking her face onto the pillow, Kiana went to her dark zone again. She reflected her own self, thinking what else was wrong. She copied things Adelle did towards Adelle’s mother hoping that the relationship with her mother would change to a better one. Instead, the rage of her mother increased. Kiana was blamed as her mother said that she didn’t seem to know anything which helpful to the family. That time, Kiana was seen as if she’s an unwanted child of her mother or maybe worse than that.