My name is Bree Jensen, and yes, Bree is short for Brianna. My abusive mother was also named Brianna, so I now despise that name. I live with my dad in a 6 bedroom 3 bathroom house, that we just moved into. The house is inherited from my great grandpa who stuck gold in the Gold Rush in 1849. It’s a tall, two story old Victorian style house, with a full porch, and a balcony connected to my upstairs room. The house is a light blue shade, thanks to the painters who got rid of the nasty yellow it was before, and has dark blue shutters and doors. It’s just me and my Dad for now, but we are expecting his girlfriend Shayla to move in by the end of the week.

Shayla and I get along like best friends. She showed me what a true mom is like and has taught me all the things my mom wasn’t there for. I value her so much for the fact that she took the broken me, and helped me to become a stronger woman. Most people think that she is blood related to me anyways, because of our striking resemblance. We are both average height, of about 5’4, with curves, and small feet. Shayla likes to experiment with her hair, and right now it’s in a pixie cut, and dyed platinum blonde. Whereas my hair, which is in need of a long overdue cut, rests right past the end of my shoulder blades, and is a mocha brown color. Our hair is both naturally wavy, and I never do anything to change it up or style it. The one feature that totally fools people into thinking we are related, is our bright green eyes. Almost like the ones you’d see on your typical black halloween cat. My dad says that he doesn’t see the resemblance, but I think he just doesn’t want to admit she looks like my mom did.

I have been going to Clear View High School since 3rd grade, and now it’s my final year, being a Senior. It’s finally my turn to be the head of the school, which I have been planning since last year. My life in high school has been really great. Freshman year, I started to become more outgoing and actually try out for things like Cheer Leading and Vocals. Since then, everyone has helped me to be the best that I can be. The head cheerleader, Samantha, is my best friend. The short stop on our baseball team, the 6’2, tan, muscled, blonde haired beast? Yeah, he’s my boyfriend, Lucas. We started dating after he accidentally hit me with a foul ball while I was cheering on the sidelines freshman year.

It’s the first day of Senior Year, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.  I am dressed in my usual style, with a pair of white skinny jeans on, and a loose green ruffle shirt. I threw on a breezy cardigan to complete my look, and slid on my favorite pair of Jimmy Choo white wedges. I curled my hair, and pulled it into a high ponytail. I checked my phone to text my two BFF’s what I was going to be wearing for the day. I don’t actually call them my “BFF’s” but it just seemed fitting for their names in my phone. They both told me they would try and match me without copying my outfit, but honestly I didn’t care. I wanted them to be comfortable with what they were wearing anyways. I have been the center of attention since Freshman year. I didn’t want to turn it down and be outcast for the rest of high school, so I decided to play along. I have never really loved being the center of attention. Except for the fact that I can get a freshman to bring me my coffee every morning before school starts.

I grab my Gucci backpack and sling it on my back. I then grab my blue Under Armour bag which has all my cheerleading gear in it and head out of my bedroom into the downstairs. The house has many different rooms and space to do whatever I feel like doing. We have turned half of the downstairs basement into a private room for me and my friends to do cheerleading practice when we feel like it. We have been coming in everyday for the last few weeks, because we have a giant pep rally for the football players on Friday. We are going to be doing a new routine that I came up with on my very own.

As I am walking down the stairs to the kitchen, I hear my mom behind me, just coming out of her room. She is dressed how you would imagine any upper class mom to be dressed. She is wearing the latest style of “casual mom” from Ralph Lauren. Her dyed platinum blond hair is cut into a short pixie style, the kind you would imagine on the moms who ask to speak to your manager at work. She is also your typical “soccer mom”, which while that is great for PTO and school board meetings, she is always trying to send cookies and sweets with me to cheerleading events.

Since we are cheerleaders, we are never able to eat them. So we sneak them to the baseball boys, on top of the dozens of sweets she sends with them. I have the typical Super Mom, as we call her. She is one of the most amazing people that is one of my role models. I like to call her mom, because I never got to call one mom growing up. She has been with my dad for around 5 or 6 years, and stays the night on most nights. Her stuff is going to be moved in by the end of the week.

“Have you eaten breakfast yet, hunny?” Mom asks in her motherly tone, saying if you haven’t eaten breakfast then get your butt to the dining room.

“No mom, but I was just headed that way to get some toast.” I say, as I am walking down the stairs.

“Good! You need to eat more than just some toast though!” She yells from the top

“Sure, sure! Bye, I love you, See you after school!” I yell as I grab my toast and head out the front doors.

I am walking out of my front door when I see my best friend pull up to the front of my  house. I run up to her car and jump in. Sammy and I have been friends for a very long time. We met when she started talking to me the first day of freshman year. She told me that I would be a great candidate for the high school cheer squad, and that I have the perfect figure for it.

We started hanging out after school, and started to go to each other's houses more and more. Now three years later, we are both heads of cheer squad, and going to be Seniors together. Sammy is a very loud and bubbly person. The only fall back about her is that she doesn’t stand up for herself. She constantly has to be lead around by someone else.

Sammy comes from a home of just her dad and her. Her mom overdosed on Meth when she was 3 years old. I think this is also some of the things that her and I share. We both are without a mom, so we both turn to each other for advice. I have Shayla, and she treats Sammy just like a daughter also. I can tell that this means a lot to Sammy, because every girl needs a motherly figure in her life. There have been times when Sammy and I have gotten into some pretty heated arguments, just like any other best friends that have ever been around each other for long periods of time. We once had a fight about my boyfriend, who was supposedly trying to flirt with Sammy. All he did was pick up her books from the hallway when she dropped them. Another thing about Sammy is that she is crazy for attention from boys. She will take any little word or blink of an eye from a dude, and think he is trying to flirt with her and get into her pants.

As we are driving along to school, I notice another girl walking to school on the side of the road. She looks to be about our age, and a little smaller in height. I asked Sammy is she knew who it was, and she said that she didn’t. This girl looked very familiar to me, with her short dark black hair, and what seemed to be green eyes. I was just not sure where I had seen her before.

“Hello? Are you even listening to me?” Sammy said right in my ear, snapping her fingers in front of my face.

“What? What are you talking about?” I replied, pushing her hand away.

“I have only been trying to talk to you for the last 2 blocks. Who is that girl? I don’t recognize her, but it seems like you do. Do you have other friends that you aren’t telling me about?” Sammy said, the tips of her ears turning red.

“No, you dummy. It’s just us and Rach. But that is not important right now. She looked familiar, but I can't place her anywhere. Maybe I don’t know her.” I said, sneaking one last look at her out the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know, but you need to start paying attention. We are almost to school.” Sammy said turning into the parking lot of the school.

The school is a pretty big landmark for our town. It has been around since the 1800’s and is a private school. We have kids from all over the state coming to our school, and some of them are on scholarship. This doesn’t bother me, because everyone needs a little bit of help sometimes. Our school is composed of the typical groups of friends that any high school has. The jocks, the popular kids, the band geeks, the burnouts, the nerds, the goths, and then the misfits. I fit in with the jocks and the popular kids. We all hang out a lot.

As I’m walking to my locker, I am approached by Lucas, my boyfriend. He looks amazing, wearing a pair of dark jeans, with a blue and gray baseball style tee shirt. He is holding his math textbook, and has his hair up in a stylish type bun at the back of his head. He usually wears his hair down, but with his big game tomorrow, he wants to look good today for his photos. Lucas has some college scouts coming to look at him for his baseball game tomorrow, and he is getting his portfolio put together by the yearbook team.

“Hey babe.” He says pulling me into a hug

“Hey! How was your morning? I’m sure your mom was crazy like she always is.” I said, giving him a hug back.

“Yeah, tell me about it. You should have seen the look on her face when I came down the stairs with my hair like this. She wasn’t very happy with it. She eventually let me out of the house, only because I told her I was going to miss my pictures” he said putting his arm around me and walking me to gym, our first class together.

As we were walking to the gym, I got a really uneasy feeling in my stomach. I get these feelings sometimes, and there’s a good chance in just making it up, but sometimes my “crazy feelings” end up being something more.

I brush it off and focus on walking with Lucas. I don’t know how I am still with this amazing person. He is nothing but sweet to me, and sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve it. He has always lived the life of the popular boy. I never started out as a popular girl until coming to this school and becoming friends with all the right people.

There are so many people here that make my life an amazing experience. I love being here with everyone. Sometimes, I wonder if they only like me because I was new here, and they just keep putting up with me, but i’ve noticed lately that I actually fit in with these people, and because of that my life has been uphill for the last few months.

“What do you think we are going to be doing in gym today?” Lucas asked me as we were walking hand in hand down the hallways.

“Well, he said something about us running the mile, so I think that's what we may be doing, I’m not sure.” I replied, looking at the new art work that plastered the wall. A certain painting stood out to me. It was an all white picture, but right in the middle, was a small black dot. Like something that no one would usually notice, but can only be found when looking for it. Something that means something a little deeper than what other people saw. I didn’t get a chance to see the artist's name before I was once again pulled back into the real world.

“I would rather die than run one of Coach Kyser's miles. If you don’t complete it in 4 minutes, you run it again, and again, and again, until you either puke, or make it in time.” Lucas said running a hand over his head and smoothing down and stay hairs.

“You would honestly rather die? Isn’t that a little extreme?  Why don’t we just try to sweet talk the nurse into giving us an excuse pass?” I replied with a small laugh.

“We’ve gotten 1 from her every week for the last month. You’re lucky I’m Kiser’s favorite on the baseball team, otherwise we would be running those miles everyday for a year. I can’t believe he keeps taking our notes like it’s no big deal.” He says with a laugh.

We walk into the gym and see the rest of the kids standing around shooting hoops and going into the locker rooms to change into our school gym uniforms. Lucas and I tell each other bye for the 3 minutes that we are going to be apart, and both head into our separate locker rooms.

I walk into the locker room and it feels unusually cold in there. I pick up that there are some difficulties with the heating in the school, that’s why we aren’t getting heat into the locker rooms. I say hello to the girls changing out, and go to my locker and grab my clothes. As I’m putting them on, I notice that I have a small hole in the center of my shirt. I don’t really care, but I’m not sure if anyone else is going to notice. I shrug it off and head back out into the gym.

Lucas is standing with the jocks, and I make my way over. I still can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong today. I just can’t seem to put my finger on what it is. I know that I have things to do after school, so I try and tell myself that’s all it is, but deep down I know it’s really not.

“What do you two plan on doing after school today? Any big plans to prepare for the big game tomorrow?” Lucas’s friend Jamee asks us as the rest of the team snickers in the back.

“Oh yeah!” I said grabbing onto Lucas’s forearm and practically wrapping myself around him, “We are going to go absolutely nuts, we have a great night planned out!”

Lucas looks at me like I’m crazy, and laughs since we actually don’t have plans. I just wanted to say it to shut the rest of the group up.

“You two crack me up. So what is the actual plan tonight then? We wanted to know if you guys wanted to meet up for pizza or something to wish you good luck for impressing the scouts tomorrow. We all know they're coming for you, so we are going to play our best  to make you look better.” Bradly, another one of the jocks says.

“Well, I have to get a really good night sleep, so after pre-game practice I’m probably going to end up going to go home and go to bed. You guys can bring pizza over to my house and we can all hang out?” Lucas says.

As the boys were getting ready to reply, Coach Kiser walks in and tells us all to just have a free day in the gym. He has to go take care of something that came up in the office, and he isn’t going to be able to be in here to take care of us. He tells us to be on our best behavior and not cause any problems. If he comes back and there is a single scratch on anything, he is going to make us run until HE gets tired.

“I wonder what happened. Do you want to shoot some hoops or play with some tennis balls for the hour?” I asked Lucas and the boys. They all nodded and we started to just chill in the gym. We were playing with the basketballs and playing a game of HORSE that I was unfortunately losing at. It’s hard to play a game of horse against a bunch of six foot something seniors, and win against them, even with my athletic ability.

We were all just having a fun time, laughing and playing around. That’s when I heard the back door to the gym open. I didn’t think anything of it, since most of the time people will go in and out of the gym. It was when I heard the sound of a gun being cocked, and the screams of the kids around the person, that I realized that this was no ordinary person walking into the school.

As I turned around, I see a boy who I had seen before. He was the type of kid who no one really talked to, and he just existed in this school. I don’t think he has any friends, except for maybe the one shy asian girl who sits with him at lunch.

I grab onto Lucas and he pulls me with him to try and hide in the locker room. That’s when I hear the release of the first round of bullets. That was one of the worst sounds I have ever heard in my life. People are screaming, but all I can hear is the sound of my heart in my own ears. I realize with sudden clarity that this is the last time I’m ever going to hold this boys hand. This is the last time he’s ever going to be walking with me. He’s never going to get to play for the college scouts. His team is never going to make it state again. This is the end for us, and I wasn’t ready for it.

As I hear the reload of his gun, I am suddenly not able to walk anymore. I realize that I have been hit in the lower left side of my back. The pain isn’t being felt yet, since I am in shock, but I know that I am bleeding out, and I will not make it home alive. I actually look around me, and see suddenly the people who were just running with me, laying on the gym floor still, with growing puddles of scarlet blood pooling around them. I look over at Lucas and see that he, too, has been hit and is laying on the floor as well.

By now, my tears are falling, and I can’t help but shiver. The terror has set in, and I find myself looking at the shooter. He has walked closer to me, seeing as I’m the last one in the gym to be alive, but slowly bleeding out. I make eye contact with him, and suddenly,  I realize that I know the truth behind this boy. He raises his gun at me, and I take one last breath, closing my eyes.

He is the one black dot, in the sea of white.