chapter 5

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Hailey took a deep breathe as she stood out the front of her step brothers room. His door was painted a light purple from when Hailey and Zander were 9 years old and got to choose a colour to paint their doors. The paint had started to chip but they never had the heart to repaint it as it had so many memories. She held her shaky hand up and knocked 3 times. She heard a bit of shuffling before hearing a muffled "come in!"

She opened the door and made eye contact with the purple haired boy on his bed.

"um hi.." she mumbled.

Zander rose an eyebrow, "ya need something?"

Hailey sighed, "yeah well, kinda."

"okay well spit it out" Zander sighed.

"Okay well so um" Hailey didn't know how to word it.

"I- I sort of made a few friends and they want to make like, a music club... where we practice and maybe preform some day" she said, rubbing her arm and looking down at Zanders wooden floor.

Zander nodded, "and why are you telling me this?"

"I told them that you would maybe want to join it with Luke.." Hailey said, dreading his reaction.

"right, and who are these people?" He asked.

"Well um one of them is the boy i told you about before, Jake. This girl called Milly, and this other guy, Sean." She started getting nervous and picking at her fingers, a habit she had picked up over the years.

Zander shook his head, "i dunno Hailey, ill ask Luke about it, now shoo"

Hailey nodded and walked out. It was a better response then she thought she'd get. Honestly, Hailey herself wasnt too sure about the whole idea. She hadnt made any new friends for a while and her experience with 'friends' wasnt too great.

Hailey used to have a very close girl best friend. They were inseparable. This was until Hailey decided to tell her about her passion for music and sang a song in front of her. Little did she know, she was being recorded the whole time. The video got sent around to everybody at school. Rumours were spread around the entire school about her, she was called a music freak and picked on constantly everyday. Since then shes only had Zander and Luke and she hid her passion away from everyone, never singing in front of everyone ever again. As much as she wanted everyone to forget about that, she was reminded every day from her typical group of bullies.

Hailey walked down the hallway, to her bedroom, the only place she ever felt safe. Her door was painted a teal colour, as that was her favourite colour at 9 years old. She still loved that colour, she always did, it just kind of stuck with her. She gripped the door handle and turned it, it made a quiet squeak before she pushed the door open, revealing her room. She had posters of various bands all around her walls. The gaps between posters were filled with music note stickers, small notes, quotes, and pictures of her Luke and Zander throughout the years. Her walls were a very light, pale teal and her floor was a grey carpet. She had a wooden desk where she would sit and do homework for hours. Her bed was perfectly made with a collection of different stuffies. Her blue guitar leant on a stand in the corner. It had some stickers on it, the same ones that were on her walls.

She sat down at her desk and stared at the math homework she had yet to complete. Her motivation was completely gone. She turned her attention to a book that had been sitting on her desk, untouched for a while. She picked it up and set it down. It had a thick layer of dust on the cover, she blew it off to reveal a dark blue cover with 3 white music notes on it. She opened to the first page. "Haileys music book" the title read, she smiled, remembering all the time she spent writing songs in this. She looked to the inside of the cover and it had a pocket. Curious, she reached inside and took out a picture. It was of her and her childhood bestfriend, the one that betrayed her. This was the night she told her about her singing, the last sleepover they ever had. Hailey sighed and put it back in the pocket and flipped through the pages. It varied from songs, to verses, to guitar cords, to just small drawings. Her attention was quickly drawn to the last page though, which had in big bold letters,

'music freak'

Her heart dropped at those two words, that mustve been the last thing she ever wrote before hiding her passion away from the world. She closed the book and set it to the side of her desk. She sighed and looked up at her ceiling which had yellow stars painted on it from when her and Zander wanted to go star gazing but couldn't. She suddenly remembered that Milly had given Hailey her number. She whipped out her phone and typed in the numbers, one by one. Hailey was still a bit intimidated by Milly but she still sent a text.

H: Hey, is this Milly? Its Hailey

M: OMG HII HAILEYY! YES ITS MEE

H: Hii, so i talked to my brother about the music club and he said he will ask Luke about it.

M: Yay!! Also whos Luke?

H: Lukes his childhood best friend, he can always convince Zander into doing stuff. Dont tell them i told you but theres obviously some sort of chemistry going on there.

M: Oooh im intrigued, well i hope they agree because im excited!!

H: Same!

Hailey put down her phone and smiled, maybe making friends wasnt so hard. She could only hope that her stubborn brother would agree to it. Suddenly she got another text, not from Milly though. It was from an unknown number. She opened it and it said,

'Hi is this Hailey?'

Hailey was confused but replied,

'yes? who is this?'

'Oh good! Its Jake 😁'

Hailey frowned, she still hadn't got comfortable around Jake. She had a weird feeling about him but she didn't know why.

H: oh hi

J: Watcha doingg

H: nothing

J: oh ok

———————-

Jake sighed, he knew Hailey hadn't gotten completely comfortable with him. But he wanted to know everything about this girl. He wanted to know about her past, and her present. He wanted to know what made her this way, why people bullied her. He just wanted to know her. He put his phone down on his bed, not wanting to bother her anymore and laid back, looking at the roof. He rolled over to his side and looked at his wall, it had random posters from movies or singers he liked. It wasnt too decorated but Jake liked it like that. His room had a few clothes on the floor and some rubbish. Jake was never the organised type, his room was always messy.

Ding

Jake sat up at the sound of his phone, who was that? He looked at his phone screen to see that the person who he least expected to text him, texted him.

Hailey

H: What are you doing?

J: Nothing im so bored

H: Same lol

J: what did your brother say about the music club?

H: he said maybe, hes gonna ask his best friend about it.

J: okay well lets hope he says yes

H: fr hes so stubborn

J: what dose he play?

H: Zander plays the piano and Luke, his best friend plays the drums.

J: oh cool, how about you?

H: I can do a few things but i mainly play the guitar.

J: dont you sing?

H: yeah, barely.

J: well im sure you sound lovely

H: im not that good, but thank you.

Jake smiled and put his phone back down on his bed. He was happy that he had a proper conversation with her, maybe she was warming up to him?

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