There For You | Luke Hemmings

Chapter 1 | Age 5

Kat squealed as she slid down the slide. First day of kindergarten and she was early, as usual. Her mum was a bit of a perfectionist, and sometimes perfectly on time wasn't good enough. At any rate, there were hardly kids at school yet, which was both a blessing and a curse: no one hogging any part of the playground, but no one to play with either. That was, unless she wanted to play with a boy. And there was one here, too. Hogging the swings. Kat loved the swings. They were the best part of the entire yard. But she couldn't go on them when there was a boy on them.

She ran to her mum. "Mummy, there's a boy on the swings!"

"So can you go ask nicely if you can have a turn, darling?" her mother coaxed.

"But he's a boy, Mummy!" Kat was indignant.

Her mother said nothing more, but looked at her sternly. Kat crossed her arms, harrumphed, then stalked over to the swings. "Can I go on a swing please?"

Man, this boy was very not-smart, Kat thought. (Stupid was a bad word, of course.) He was spread out on both swings, feet on one, arms on the other. He seemed mean. Kat didn't like him.

He giggled. "No way! You're a girl!"

His mother turned to him. "Luke," she warned. "She asked nicely, please sit on only one swing. You can do that, can't you, hunny?"

"But Muuummm," he pressed. His mother didn't budge.

He begrudgingly moved onto only one swing and Kat sat on the other one smugly, but thinking, How rude! She was one of those little girls who thought she owned the world.

"Kat!" Her mother called from the other side of the yard, reading her magazine and waiting for the bell to ring so that she could leave, "what do you say to the nice young man?"

Kat sighed. "Thank you," she murmured.

Luke moved back while sitting on the swing so he could start swinging without saying a word to her, but sighed as well and said, "You're welcome," after a sharp glance from his mother.

The children both started swinging, the enmity radiating off of them at every intersection. And from that day on, their mothers became best friends, and they became worst enemies.

It was bound to happen when you were the only ones on the playground.

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No matter what Kat said, she could get on no one's good side. It seemed the universe - the universe of kindergarten, that is - was against her. Everything she said, did, was wrong.

A girl in her class, Barbara, would show off her new finger polish. "How come you don't have any nail polish, Kat?" she would sneer.

"I'm not allowed to have nail polish," Kat said softly.

And Luke would laugh along with everyone else in the class.

Or another time, "I watched a rated R movie this weekend." And while everyone crowded around her to ask how it was and to feed off of her popularity, "Have you ever even seen a PG-13 movie, Kat?"

And before even hearing the answer that they knew she would give, they laughed at her. It was sort of inevitable when you were the goody-two-shoes, big-headed-snob that Kat was. She was 'too smart' for kindergarten, too lame' for kindergarten, 'too loserly' for kindergarten (she had had to remind them that 'loserly' was not a word, but it didn't really help her case), too much of anything for kindergarten, it felt like.

If she told her parents, what would they say? Darling, they're jealous of how talented and intelligent and beautiful you are. Don't let them bother you.

Like that would help.

Most times, it was Barbara who was bullying her, and she never stood up for herself. But somehow, when it was just Luke, early as usual along with her to school every morning, it was okay for her to stand up for herself. When there was a crowd, she usually ended up making a fool of herself. And she did that in front of Luke sometimes too, but it didn't really matter in front of him. Especially because their mums were still friends and neither of them knew that they hated each other.

Kat wasn't allowed to use the word 'hate,' but she knew one thing. She hated kindergarten.

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bro new story I cannot. i think this is going to be so cute and fluffy and just...ugh. luke is a penguin, js.

and listening to good enough by little mix while writing this is not okay. bc it's perfect for the bullying scenes tbh x