The Beginning

×

From the first day, she walked in to the school in freshman year, he thought she was beautiful. Utterly beautiful. Magnificent. A blessing to the eye. He thought she was a star and a beam that struck his heart. Her straight dark brown flying in her face and watched her every moment as she tucked it behind her ear. Her brown soft eyes glanced around the area as she walked with pride.

All except his direction.

And he wanted nothing more than to be noticed by her.

He went to a different school all together but they were right next door to each other. He could see her when she left the school, with her books to her chest. And he just wanted to help her carry them.

He had watched her joke with her very shy redheaded friend before and after school. Her bubbly personality often melted his heart. He had watched her talk to plenty of people and constantly had that bright radiating and contagious smile on her face.

He wanted nothing more than to wake up and see that smile everyday of his life.

But he couldn't.

Because he was a mess.

He would've done the opposite. Her smile would've been wiped off her face if she met him. He didn't think she would be attracted to a guy like him. A boring guy who just lazes around at home.

He kept reminding himself to not speak to her because he wanted to keep seeing that smile for the rest of his highschool life. He couldn't see it if she knew him.

He wanted to get over her. Get rid of those useless feelings he had. He didn't want them. They were fake in his eyes. He was in denial.

But after months and months, they never went away. No matter how many times he wanted to burn them- bury them deep within his heart.

Daniel still felt strangely attracted to this girl. Who he later found out was named Kathleen.

He remembered when he was sitting on a bench in his school next to his friends Wesley and Liam with a text book in his hands. Then from the corner of his eyes, he spotted her. Right over the hedge they built in the two weeks we had home.

He felt like suing the school when they built that.

His attention had moved from his book instantly to the girl with the bubbly personality. He stared as she wandered to her best friend, the redhead, who he's never heard the name of, and started chatting while they headed toward the cafe across the street.

Everyday.

That was a routine for them.

He had to admit, the red head was attractive too, very attractive- but not his type. She seemed too wary about her surroundings and around people. At first, she seemed like a handful. She had her bubbly moments too, but her wariness over powered that.

"Staring at that girl again?" Wesley's 'unpuberfied' voice teased to his right and he shot him a deathlike glare. "Jeez, sorry. Are you on your period or something?"

He smacked his friend on the face with his book. "Wouldn't you like to know? Do you want to find out?" He snapped squeezing the book with his hand.

"Can we go to the cafe? Not up for your fighting today." Liam stood up already walking there without their approval. Wesley had stood leaving him behind.

Eventually, they turned to him with a questioning intense stare. "Are you coming with us or not?"

He had stared at them, not wanting to move. She was in that cafe. That cafe! He couldn't. His heart rate increased in speed. He swallowed the anxiety and stood. He'd face her.

Besides, she wouldn't look in his direction anyway.

×

They took a table three tables away from hers. He had pretended to stare into his book but he was staring at her. It was creepy. But he couldn't help it. She was beautiful.

He had only come to this cafe once before and nearly choked on his tea when she walked through the glass doors. His friends obviously laughed at him but he felt someone staring at him too. He quickly looked at Kathleen to see if it was her. She wasn't.

Here he was now, pretending to study in a cafe. The waitress came and placed their orders on the table, his being a hot chocolate. He didn't want caffeine, when he was already energised.

He glanced across at their table and locked eyes with the green eyes of the redhead. He choked on his drink then ended up in a coughing fit.

"What happened just now?" Liam looked across at their table and waved back when the redhead waved. They had been friends since the first semester and would sometimes go to the cafe with her and Kathleen without us.

Both Liam and Wesley had a little thing for her so that often caused tension around the table, not much Wesley though, he just thought she was hot. And Liam had been a girlfriend already but Daniel assumed he always had eyes for the redhead.

"The redhead just looked at me."

"What?" His two friends hissed at him.

"Yea." Daniel didn't know what to reply with. He was just as shocked as his friends were.

"I thought you liked the brunette!" Wesley huffed cutting down on his chocolate cake.

"I do. I never said enjoyed it." He took a a long sip of his drink not making eye contact with his friends and said under his breath. "I just said she looked at me. That's all."

"Secretly wished it was the Kathleen one?" Wesley teased poking him from on his forearm.

Daniel kicked his friend's shin-hard- under the table making him yelp and knock his knee on the bottom. Wesley hiss in pain through his gritted teeth as he glared at Daniel. Daniel just innocently sipped his tea while looking around the cafe.

"You know," Liam started from across the table and Daniel already knew how this was going to end so he replied quicker.

"No."

"You didn't even let me finish!"

"I didn't need to."

Liam sighed yet still continued. "I could ask her of she likes you. I'm her friend, y'know." Way to rub it in, Liam. Daniel wanted to throw his friend out the window.

"Until you are able to tell the redhead that you have a crush on her, you won't be asking anyone anything." He narrowed his eyes slits at his friend who through his arms up in an act of surrendering.

"The redhead has a name."

"Do I look like I care?"

Liam huffed pointing a spoon at Daniel. "Watch your mouth, Daniel." It was his friend's turn to glare at him. "You might not care, but that's my friend you're talking about; someone I care about. You would like if I went around saying 'the brunette' with disrespect, now would you?"

He remained silent because he knew he wouldn't. He'd pummel his friend if he did that.

"Good." Liam read his expression. "Her name's Madison." He shrugged. Daniel wouldn't need this name in the future anyway.

"Well, since the two of you are done with your couple's fight." Wesley chimed in. "There are two girls walking in on direction." Two girls?

He glanced up to see if it was the red- Madison and Kathleen. But he was left disappointed when he only saw two strawberry blondes pull away a chair, each, to sit.

Wesley had instantly snapped into flirting mode and Liam remained quiet sipping his coffee. He just watched finishing his hot chocolate and brushed off on of the girl's hands when she touched him.

Daniel's attention had gone straight back to Kathleen, her side facing him. The two friends were about to stand from the table when the girl that made his heart flutter looked at him.

And smiled.

His heart stopped and his stomach flipped.

His cheeks warmed but he smiled back instantly averting his gaze back to his empty mug. He had heard the redhead call for her friend's attention and the two of them left shortly after.

His friends and him left just in time before the bell rung.

But Daniel didn't really care.

He got a smiled from her. He had gotten her attention.

That had to be some sort of start.

×

When he walked out to the front of the school, ready to head somewhere, a familiar redhead caught his eye, sitting on a in his school. He had wondered why she was here and wandered toward her.

"Hello?"

She looked up at him, her green eyes widening. "Hi! You're Daniel, right? Yeah, you have to be! You're the same person that hangs with Liam all the time!"

"Yep, thats me." He murmurs still wondering why she was here.

"Don't be weirded out, Liam told me your name. I'm Madison." She greets with her smile standing from the bench.

"May I ask why you wanted to meet me?"

"Yes, you may."

Okay, so she was sarcastic. How lovely. "Why did you want to meet me?"

"Let me just get straight to the point. Do you like, or have some sort of attraction and feelings towards my bestfriend?"

"What?" Had he been too obvious? How would she know? She was just messing with him. He was sure of it.

She sighed in what seem to be annoyance. "The two of you are so weird." Then she recited her question slower, as though she was speaking to some idiot. "Do. You. Daniel. Welch. Have. A. Crush. On-"

"Okay! Okay! Stop! I do, okay!" He looked away in embarrassment. She had mumbled something like ,'I knew it' under her breath. "How'd you guess it?"

"I always catch you staring at her." She had seen him? "You are usually too focussed on her to catch me staring. I'm supposed you saw me today."

He shrugged trying to play it off cool. "I do not."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not here for your denial. You're in the theatre club right?" He nodded. "Well, Kathleen's going to be auditioning for the play."

He didn't believe her. Kathleen wouldn't do such.

"Good luck! I have to go now!" And she ran off away from him.

×

After the encounter, he had gone to the school's auditorium to help fix it up for their annual founder's day play. He was in the theatre club at his school but dealt mainly the backstage, directing and the sets for other occasional shows that they did. This year he was also also nominated as the freshman representative judge for the auditions for play.

The play had been Beauty and The Beast this year. Which was why they chose him. For some reason, Daniel had known a lot about Beauty and the Beast. That was his younger cousin's favourite show. He would babysit her often along with his younger brother.

He sighed making himself comfortable in the cushioned judge's seat. After, he fidgeted with the pen resting on the long glass table in front of him. Only one of the judges were there and she was the oldest one, the senior year representative judge from the female school and from what he had heard she was the leader of the theatre club there.

His leader wasn't the judge because he was directing the contestants backstage.

The sophomore representative, who was also from the female school, pulled out the seat next to him and plopped down lazily in it. Then she proceeded to drag the chair under the table. Then she began to clean her nails in a bored way.

He really hoped he would not be the only boy chosen to be a judge.

The sophomore girl looked at him with her brown eyes and smiled, but that wasn't the smiled he wanted to see. He politely smiled back anyway before fidgeting with pen again.

"You're the one they chose for this year?" He merely nodded giving her side glance. She blew a curly blonde strand from in front of her face. "I'm Tracey from the theatre club at Everbelle."

"Daniel."

She had reached across and pointed to the top of the paper, also laying in front of him, and dragged her finger across a line. "You write your name here, then your year, and grade." He did just that and she continued to explain. "These lines on this side is for the contestants' names and year. These ones are for the roles they trying out for. And these ones are for rating how well they did out of 10 for these categories." He nodded understanding.

The categories were Expression, Communication and Interpretation.

As she continued to explained what needed to be done and how it was to be done, the last judge strolled in who he recognised to be one of the members of his club at his school, the junior representative. And then a few minutes later, the acts began.

They decided to start with the least important characters and go up to the most important.

It wasn't very entertaining. About 45 percent of the contestants that he saw weren't looking at the audience, they had forgotten their lines, had the poker face of the century or just froze all together on stage.

They had just completed all of the roles for the legendary Tea Pot- which this one girl had sounded really amazing when she was singing- and moved on to the character of the beast.

It was going okay until the last contestant for the beast when he saw his friend, Wesley, walk onto that stage. Daniel covered his face with his palms in frustration as his friend introduced himself to the other judges.

"My name's Wesley and I'm going for the role of the sexy beast!" The senior judge just groaned in annoyance, already writing something down. Daniel peeked in time to see Wes wink at the sophomore judge. And her response to that was a cringe and fat 0 on her paper for interpretation.

Daniel sighed speaking into the microphone in front of him. "Good luck." He had said because he really needed it. From what I learned was freshman rarely get some of the main roles of the plays. It would usually be a sophomore or junior, sometimes seniors but they don't participate in plays that often. And Wesley wasn't helping his chances of getting the role.

After his friend's sad excuse of a play, the next role up for grabs was Belle. The thing Daniel had liked about this was that you didn't have to be a brunette or fair skinned to get the role. They had accepted blondes, redheads, dark haired, light haired, black, white- Everyone!

He was quite bored of the judging already. It had been about 2 hours already. He sighed in exhaustion writing the scores of the last contestant down on the paper and grabbed the water in a glass on the table to drink.

He didn't get to swallow that water, though. For he had choked on it when he saw the next person walking from behind the curtain onto the centre of the stage.

Her smile was bright when she stood in the middle of the stage and looked at all of us. She shyly waved and greeted them with a sweet 'hi'.

The senior was about to speak but he had beat her to it, trying not let his voice sound a bit desperate. "Hello, what's your name?" He said resting his cheek on the palm of his hand, his elbow on the table, trying to portray a bored attitude.

Her brown beautiful eyes snapped to him. "My name is Kathleen Bayley, I'm here for the role of Belle." And she was perfect for it. Her smile, her attitude, her looks were all perfect for it.

Holy crap, the redhead was right!

"What year are in?" The sophomore next to him chimed in, a smile playing on her lips.

"I'm a freshman." She answered with ease, her smiled broadening.

"Which part of the movie are you going to acting out today?" The junior said.

"The one where Belle thanks the beast for saving her." She said playing with the ends of her hair nervously.

"Okay..." The senior looked down at her paper. "You'll need someone to play beast for that. Daniel?" His head snapped toward his senior. "Say the beasts lines for her. I think you remember them."

He nodded, his attention returning to Kathleen. She stared at him, most likely waiting for him to say something. "Just say where you want to start and I'll just continue." He'd said, forcing his voice to remain steady. He pushed away from his seat and stood, then strolled onto the stage to stand right in front of her.

Nodding, she breathed in then out before starting. "Hold still." She started off mimicking a half worried expression. And it continued, back and forth.

Even though it was short, it was enjoyable. He got to play Belle's potential lover. She'd looked at him with a kind sweet face at the end. He had loved it, even if it was just acting.

She bowed when he sat back down into his seat and left after being dismissed. She had deserved the role, she was perfect. She had the grace, the elegance, the voice and the beautiful features. She was Belle.

But then a thought hit him

She would have to dance with a random person, and look at them lovingly. He didn't want that. That was the last thing he wanted.

But then he thought about how much the role probably meant to her. How badly she probably wanted this role. It would make sense that she wanted it since she came to audition for it.

The rest of the contestants went by pretty quickly. Every judge gave the senior their papers and left. Daniel however stayed behind a little bit to think. When he left the auditorium, it was late, but he spotted Kathleen, standing outside of by the door as though waiting for someone.

"Hi, there." Daniel greeted and the girl he had a crush on jumped. "Waiting for someone?" He asked, but he had regretted it. He knew his heart would break if he found it wasn't him.

"No! No one in particular!" She shrieked, probably still shaken up by the jump scare just now. "I mean- no I'm not waiting for anyone. Just thinking."

He hummed in response, catching the lie. "Want to walk to the front gates together and wait?" Desperately praying she'd accept, he asked.

She smiled that wondrous smile and nodded. They began to walk side by side, back to the front of the school, together.

"Your name is.. Daniel, correct?" She said his name. She knew his name. His heart swelled for a moment as he nod. "Yep, Liam told me. He talks about you a lot." He wanted to murder his friend.

"Oh, is that so?" She nodded. "Yours is Kathleen, right?" She nodded once more. "Liam told me that too." He lied straight through his teeth.

He'd heard her name being spoken around and people called her that.

"Really now?" She laughed. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. "I think Liam needs to stop talking about us behind our backs."

"I think so too."

"You hang out with Liam a lot, right?" He nodded as she glanced over him with those dark chocolate eyes of hers. They had suddenly turn to recognition and she dropped her book bag. "Holy crap." She murmured under her breath with her eyes wide.

He picked up her book bag for her from the ground. "What?" Daniel had asked in confusion.

"You're the guy that looked at me in the cafe this morning!"

His cheeks heated. "Yea, and you're noticing that now?"

"I mean, I'm usually aware of things but- I don't know! Stupid Madison! I was saying you looked familiar but I couldn't put my finger on where I'd seen you. Oh wait, crap. That must've sounded rude. I'm so sorry! I didn't mean it!" She rambled as she played with her fingers.

"I'm hurt, Kathy." He had said in a fake offensive voice. "We had a whole hour of auditioning, and you just recognised me!"

She snapped out of her daze, blinking once- twice as her face turned a reddish colour and then scrunched her nose. He found that adorable. "Don't call me that! You're like Maddy now!" She complained then snatched her bag from me.

"What? Oh, you mean Kathy?" He snickered and she groaned. "Why not?"

"It makes me sound kind of oldish..." She turned and started to walk away, her face toward the ground.

He walked quickly to catch up to her before matching her speed when beside her. "I think it's cute." He said honestly. Anything to make her smile.

She side glanced him. "Really?" He nodded. "For some reason, part of me doesn't believe you, but the other part of me does." He just smiled at that.

A vehicle horn honked and she stared ahead. "That's for me! I'll see you around later, Dan!" She waved and he waved back.

He held a conversion with her. He held an actually conversation with her.