Trampoline

Trampoline - Chapter One : Missed Me?

(Don't forget to vote, comment, smile and all of that! Also quick question: which cover? The silhouette which is posted as a picture in the prologue, or the one posted to the right here of Avril Lavigne?)

TRAMPOLINE

CHAPTER ONE : Missed Me?

 (15 years old)

The rain trails down the windowpanes and I stare at it blankly, blaming it for the terrible mood I am in. I've always hated rain, bad things always seem to happen to me when it rains - then again, nothing paticulary good happens when it's not raining. 

My mouth stretches open and I yawn exuberantly. I'm not a morning person, and it isn't helping that this is the first day back at school after the summer holidays.

"Hayden!" my mum calls up in sheer annoyance. "Get down here right now or we're going to be late." I can just imagine her hand balanced on her hip as she looks up the stairs with an incredibly impatient expression on her face. 

I groan and disentangle myself from the mass of colourful patchwork blankets that inhabit the window seat I have been sitting at, and hop down reluctantly. "I'm coming!" I call halfheartedly, wanting to curl up and go to sleep on the seat. 

"Do you have all of your school stuff?" she calls back. This is the normal routine for us on a school morning. We never see each other face to face, instead we yell at one another up and down the staircase - strangely it works for us. 

I do not have any of my things, I realise, and I sprint into my room. Grabbing my tattered messenger bag and textbooks I frantically scour the room for my precious iPod. 

"We need to go right now, Hayden, or you'll miss the bus." My mum's exasperated voice rings loudly through the otherwise empty house and I figure that she has finally decided to brave the stairs and is coming towards my room. 

I quickly scatter the various pieces of rubbish that are lying on my table before I find my iPod sitting underneath a massive book.

"I'm coming!" I yell at my mum, stuffing my iPod into my bag. 

I could almost see the look of annoyance on her face as she points out, "You said that you were coming three minutes ago."

My hand knocks against something on the table and it falls with a small clatter. I bend down to pick up the small, ornate picture frame which I cannot bear to put away and my eyes fill with tears. It holds a picture of two kids, a boy and a girl. They're smiling broadly at each other and laughing, completely oblivious to the picture being taken. The photo slips out of the frame easily and I turn it round to see my writing as a seven year old on the back. 'Hayden and Drake," it reads scruffily, "best friends forever." 

I curl up on my bed and hold the picture tightly to my chest. It would be easy to forget him if it had happened normally - like him moving away after telling me months before hand and simply falling out of touch as we grew older. But this was Drake. I had spent every single night since he disappeared wondering if he was even alive - and if he was alive, where was he hiding himself and why hadn't he tried to contact me after seven years? I thought that we had promised to be friends forever, but that promise had broken the day that his mother took him away all those years ago. It was different with Drake, it always had been from the day that I'd met him. The night that his mother had frantically called us to tell us he was missing was the night that meant that Drake would never leave my thoughts.

I know I should be over it by now, but I can't bring myself to let him go just yet. 

The door creaks open and my mum walks in briskly, which means she is on a mission - which is probably to get me successfully out of the door in time for my bus. A small gasp escapes her as she takes in my curled frame and the tears that run down my cheeks. I feel the mattress sink down beside me as she sits down on my bed.