Art Shoes

It's hard to mark an exact beginning. I suppose it is best to start that very first day when I met Ben Crofts.
I was a typical 13 year old girl. Moody, stroppy and rather hormonal. I was labelled as an "emo" for my all black clothing, heavy eye make up and my inability to be happy about anything. In my eyes the world was against me and nothing was good. My life was too hard, too much effort. My life was shit. But truth be told I had no idea what shit was. I was so far from it.
I walked out of an art lesson crying because of some meaningless comment one of the pricks in the class made about my appearance. I sat in the corridor crying and watched shoes walk past. I was just deciding where I was going to go when a pair of Art shoes slowed and stopped in front of me. The shoes were brown, heavy duty, with fraying lasses. They were too scruffy to be a teachers surely? My curiosity got the better of me. My eyes travelled up taking in all I saw. A man. Black trousers, but seemingly casual, a pale shirt with cotton jumper, striped with different shades of blue. A mucky lanyard hung around his neck, on which dangled a bunch of keys. His hair was a mousey brown short back and sides, but a long side fringe. His teeth were stained, from what I later realise is smoking, but were very straight. Although he had two very fang like teeth that could only be seen when he smiled at me. His nose was fairly average. He had blue eyes.
"Hello" He said, in a gentle tone.
"Hi" I mumbled into my chest.
"I'm Mr Crofts. Do you need some time out?"
I nodded, fringe hiding my face.
So I let myself follow this man. And it changed my life forever.