A/N: Hey there....tech week's over!! So i have time to upload now! This came out of pure boredom one day...my OC Julie makes another appearance...YAY NATALIE/HENRY FLUFF! lol...a lot of dialogue...oh well! REVIEW PLEASE!

Disclaimer: *Sigh* I STILL do not own Next to Normal...i will NEVER own Next to Normal...I'm a crazy obsessed N2N freak, but I don't own it...

"Ugh….its official. I hate high school…" Natalie complained to her best friend Julie. It was their first day of freshmen year.

"Why? It's the first day, Nat…"

"Yeah, but I have SOOO much homework…on the first day!" Julie merely smirked. 'Well, that what you get for taking AP courses…"

"What? Now it's bad that I'm smart?" Julie playfully pushed her aside as they walked out of the building. Natalie craned her neck, looking around the parking lot. "God, where's my dad?"

"He's not here yet? What the hell? I thought this carpooling thing would work…"

"He's probably just running late. He'll be here soon." About an hour later, her and Julie were still sitting there.

"Ok, Nat, he's not coming." Natalie groaned and slouched against the wall. Why did this always happen to her? Why did it have to be her family that was all fucked up? Why couldn't she just live life like a normal teenager? That was, of course, if she knew how a normal teenager lived. She took out her cell phone and called her father. "Hello?" he answered, sounding slightly rushed.

"Dad? Where are you? We've been sitting here for over an hour!"

"Oh, shit, Nat….I'm so sorry…your mother-"

"Yeah, yeah….I know…can you please come pick us up?" She rolled her eyes, causing Julie to giggle slightly. "Ok. I'll be there in a little while."

"Ok." Natalie said, immediately hanging up on him. "So what's the verdict this time?" Julie asked.

"Who knows? Who cares?" Natalie fell against the wall again. About thirty minutes later, Dan finally arrived to pick them up. "I swear to God, Natalie, if I get grounded for being late-!" Julie whispered to Natalie in the car.

"Just be thankful your parents care enough to ground you!"

"Wanna switch places with me then?"

"I wish…" They had dropped Julie off at her house before silently retreated back to theirs. Natalie didn't want to ask what happened. She wanted to know, but as soon as she heard, she knew she'd regret hearing it.

"So, how was your first day?" Dan asked, hoping to break the silence.

"It was ok. I mean, apart from the fact that my life is a living hell and I'm the laughing stock of the school." She sighed as they pulled into the driveway. "And it's about to get a whole lot more suckish."

Natalie returned to school the next day, her face completely tear-stained, her makeup all messed up. She trudged into her English class taking the front seat of the first row as usual. She got out her homework to check it over. But she couldn't help but to stain that with tears as well. Last night had been the fucking night from Hell. Her mother was being her usual self as always. Freaked out in the neighbor's yard again. They threatened to call the police on her...

Natalie tried to shake the incident off her mind, but she couldn't think of anything else. "I said, YOU'RE IN MY SEAT, MORON!"

Natalie came back to reality. A big tall boy stood towering over her. "Oh. Um…sorry…I'll move…" So she did as she was commanded and moved to the row next to the boy. Another boy sat behind her. He wore a black Nightmare Before Christmashoodie with the hood up which concealed his messy black hair, all in his face. His expression was somewhat vague as she watched him scribble into a notebook. He had his iPod blasting louder than it should have been. She expected to hear some heavy death metal screeching from the ear phones. But no. Instead she could only hear Debussy's "Claire de Lune" softly making it's way out of the little device.

He looked up and noticed her staring. He shut his notebook and paused his music. "What?" he asked, almost irritated. She stumbled across her words.

"O-Oh…I was just…um…"

"Why were you staring at me like that?" She still struggled to get the right words out. "Well, you were-"

"Just leave me alone…" He gave her a death stare until she turned around. His music resumed as he opened up his notebook again. Throughout the day, she noticed the boy was in about half of her classes. He always sat behind her with his iPod and his notebook. She never asked the boy his name nor did he ever participate in class. She was oblivious to him. Towards the end of the week, in her history class, where, again, the boy sat behind her, she decided to confront him.

"Hi." She said brightly. He ignored her and continued to scribble away. "Um, I'm Natalie."

He looked up at her. "Natalie?" She nodded.

"Yes. That's what I said." He turned back to his notebook. "What are you working on?"

"Just some stupid shit…"

"Well, can I see your stupid shit?" He glared at her. "Hell no. Why would you want to see it anyway? It's shit."

She smiled. "Come on, I bet it's not that bad."

"It's shitty." He bent over to get his pencil that had dropped while Natalie stole his notebook and looked through it.

It was a song written I his scratchy handwriting. "'Darkness will disappear/As long as you are here/The light of day will come again/I'll be your light, girl,/you know that it's right, girl/ the dark of night is nevermore.' Oh my God…this is so amazing…" He noticed that she had his notebook.

He grabbed it from her hands, yelling, "Give that back! I told you it was shit!"

"You're really good. Have you ever actually written any music?" He nodded and continued to add on more.

"Can you get me a copy? I was just wondering, I mean, I play the piano…"

"Me too." She smiled at the boy. "You know, I still don't know your name."

"I'm Henry." He slightly grinned for the first time and went back to working on his song.

So that was his name….Henry…

A/N: AWWWWW! Wait...Sorry! It was in italics...reviews, anyone?