Highland Hearts

CHAPTER THREE

Mhairi

Practice was good today. I left Lochmartin community hall today feeling confident for an upcoming competition, a little sweaty and listening to Dawn yap on and on about this new kid.  Me and Mirren keep sharing looks at each other in the car park whilst we wait for Dawn's mam to pick us up. My looks say, 'I want to die' and Mirren's say, 'You and me both girl'.

Objectively, there is nothing wrong with this new kid; Lachlan. I think he's cool. He seems like a nice person, he's a good dancer, and he's not ugly. Like, at all. Dawn certainly thinks so.

"I'm not even kidding!" She goes on. "You reckon he's going to go to our school?" She asks, possibly thinking out loud, possibly waiting for an answer.

"Nah," Mirren responds. "He's our age, he lives around here, he's gonna go to school in Edinburgh."

"Ha ha, M." Dawn responds, rolling her eyes. "What about you, V? What do you think of him?"

I shoot her daggers. She knows I hate it when she calls me that. "He's fine." I say, pulling out my phone for the time. 20:41. Dawn's mam is eleven minutes late. As usual.

"He was staring at you at lot, V." Dawn says, wiggling her eyebrows.

I scoff. "Yeah, right."

"He was," Mirren chimes in.

"Okay? And?" I ask, irritation creeping into my voice. "He was probably just looking to..." I hesitate, searching for the word. "Familiarise himself with us."

"Aye, right," Mirren scoffs. "Our ride's here." 

And with that, we dump our stuff in Lorna's boot and begin the ride home.

As soon as I step in the door, I drop my sword bag – and school bag that I had to take to Mirren's house after school today – onto the floor of the lobby. I sigh and kick my crocs off. I wait for the familiar sound of my mam, Ewan or John, but when I hear nothing, I remember that I'm home alone. I quickly pick up my sword bag and school bag again and dash up to my room. I jog up the stairs, my socks sliding on the wood as I do. I walk down the long hallway and take another left into my bedroom. I switch on my light and flop onto my bed, leaving my bags in a messy pile by the door. I feel my phone vibrate and I let out a groan that ends up being muffled by my pillow. I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the notifications.

Aaron added new participant to the 'Better dancers' group chat

I sit up and open the group chat and wait for Aaron to elaborate on who he added, although any genius could work out it was Lachlan, but he doesn't. I decide to shower in the meantime, so I put my phone down on the shelf beside my bed and make my way to the bathroom. 

I grab my towel that's hanging off the back of my door and progress down the hallway to the upstairs bathroom, mainly because the shower is better in the upstairs one but also because I'm lazy. I close the door and turn the shower on. I take my clothes off and dump them in the washing basket while I wait for the water to heat up. 

Thirty minutes later, I'm out the bathroom, in my pyjamas and wrapping my hair in a towel. Once the towel is securely placed over my hair, I turn my attention to my room. I'm tempted to just leave it but then I recall what my mam told me just before she left for work this morning; 'If this room still looks like this when I get home, you're in serious trouble, Mhairi.'