I lowered the window of the car and let the cool breeze hit my face. The damp air pushed my curly brown hair back.
If there was one word to describe what I was feeling right now, it would be tired.
School ended 20 minutes, now I was driving home myself and my two best friends, Lia and Emma.
Who were both sitting in the backseat, screaming out the lyrics to 'Tiebreaker' by The Head And The Heart.
'I cant believe I almost went my whole life'
'Without you in it, without you in it'
I chuckled as I lowered the volume on the radio. The girls always had trouble singing along to songs. I pulled into Lia's driveway, dropping her and Emma off from school.
"See you both tomorrow?" I asked, shifting the car into park.
"Yup, same routine, you're picking us up for school," Lia replied, guiding Emma towards her front door.
"You got it," I winked
"Bye Madison." Lia screams.
Pulling out of her driveway I was so ready to be home, it was Thursday and thank God Friday tomorrow. I got out of my car and slammed the front door open; no one was home. Aiden my younger brother was at a 5-day camp and my parents were at work, which they didn't come back till 9:00pm. I thought about calling the girls over a bit later, but it wasn't worth my headache.
Lia and Emma had been my best friends since we were in diapers, and although those girls were my second and third half it was a bit of a headache being around them, as both are social butterflies. Lia also had a date with her latest boyfriend Cole. Which God knew I wasn't happy about. CJ (aka Cole Jacobs) was the classic high school player boy, breaking every girl's heart, and I didn't want one of them to be Lia, but it was her choice. They'd already had 3 major arguments in the span of 2 weeks, and they'd been dating for a little less than a month. Literal bullshit.
I had things to get done so I thought about just forgetting about these things and headed upstairs to my room. I was taking design in electives, and I had to sketch out some dresses for the upcoming school social. I headed upstairs and got started with work.
***
It was 8:30pm and my headache was not doing well. Lia and Emma came over about around 5pm to fill me in on Lia's date and let's just say things ended with me having a massive headache, the girls really don't hold back when singing. I went downstairs to grab my takeout that had been delivered because cooking sounded like too much work.
I sat down at the table and started eating the pizza with Harry Potter playing on the TV. The doorbell rang and in came my mum right after my dad.
"Hey Madi" My mum said putting down her bag, she's always called me Madi and today wasn't any different. "How was school?"
"It was good I dropped off the girls and yea pretty much all" I said turning off the TV and finding my way upstairs, this would be a good time to leave before my dad starts with the questions.
"Alice" my dad said, he always used my first name. "We have some guests coming over for dinner tomorrow I need you to be home by 6".
Guests? For dinner? We never had guests over at our house, we always went out with them, so this can only mean one thing.
"The West's are coming over for dinner tomorrow, stuff to do with your dads work." Said mum stuffing cake into her mouth.
The West's were coming over, which also included the villain in my story. Kaleb West. The guy who threw a basketball at my nose in 3rd grade because I missed one shot, the guy who put frogs in my barbie dreamhouse, the guy who threw worms at me on my 10th birthday. The guy whom I personally hated the most.
*****
I couldn't stand West; I always called him by his last name because first name sounded to personal. He was a self-centred, heartless bitch. Our families went way back, but he was the opposite of me. He had a different girl in his bed every week, his current flavour was Zora this week, the school's attention-seeker. He didn't care about anyone but himself. Even though he was good-looking with a sharp jawline, ocean blue eyes, wavy brown hair, and a perfect smile, he was still a jerk. Sometimes I'd feel a pang of jealousy watching him with a new girl every week, but I had to remind myself that he and I could never be a thing.
In the past 4 years, I was in one serious relationship, while he had been with more girls in a week than I could count on my fingers and toes combined. Even though I don't see myself as unattractive, I was nowhere near the girls he casually dated and threw away like trash. Many girls lined up for him, only to be used and forgotten in the blink of an eye.
I hated him and that was it, no-one could bring me to think otherwise.
I was happy I would never possibly see him again but seeing him for dinner tomorrow at my house would be something different.
******
It was 7am in the morning and thankfully it was Friday.
Living in Australia, you don't get to wear normal clothes to school, so I put on my uniform.
Luckily our school's uniform was decent, it was winter so I put on my school skirt, shirt and my jacket that was a part of uniform on top. I threw my curly brown hair up in a half up and half down, I put on my school shoes, which would be black leather.
I ran down the stairs grabbing my keys, I was already running late, and I had to pick up the girls still.
"Bye mama, I'll see you after school and don't worry I won't be late for the dinner and yes I'll eat something when I get to school." I said in a hurry answering all her questions before she could stop me.
I darted out the door into my car and got on the road on my way to pick up the girls. I started jamming out music. It wasn't that long of a drive just about 6 minutes.
I pulled into Emma's driveway this time, and Lia was already there.
"Let's go bitches, get your ass in the car we're already late."
We pulled into the school car park jamming out to Lia's playlist. We got out of the car and headed straight to our lockers getting ready for first period which started in less than 20 minutes, and being late wasn't going to help.
I stood by my locker and was taking my stuff out talking to Emma until they walked in. The image of the jock, the player and the guy with the bad reputation. Altogether, Cole, Jake and the one and only Kaleb West.
***********
As soon as they walked in, the hallway went silent, girls started twirling their hair and all boys had their face emotionless, to seem more intimidating.
Lia walked up to Cole and they smashed their lips against each others, already making out behind their locker like they hadn't seen each other in weeks. Lia's tongue already down his throat was making my gag reflex activate. Gross.
Jake just shuddered is disgust and walked up to me with a smile, typical Jock.
"Hey Monroe, what's up?" Said Jake looking at me, flashing his dimples every girl would fall for. Emma next to me just shifted like she wanted to leave, which by reading her face I could clearly see.
"Hey Jake" I smiled at him back. Jake was my good friend, and so was Cole along with the girls but West, no thanks.
I was about to head to class when suddenly I got thrown at my locker, I turned back to see West looking at me with a smirk on his face.
"Watch it there Mads" He said, Zora his current pick of the week slid up beside him holding onto his arms. Zora was a complete bitch, the pick me of the school, and for some reason had something against me and the girls.
I hated the fact that he called me 'Mads'. It was his nickname for me mainly because when we were younger, he thought I was crazy, and then named me 'Mads'.
It was after my middle name 'Madison'. Now normally guys nick naming girls is something I'd consider cute, but West was the last person I'd want calling me any cute names. But I had to admit I'd grown to him calling me Mads.
"What do you want West?" I said crossing my arms in front of my chest.
"Nothing Mads, you're the one who bumped into me." He smirked and right after that his tongue was down Zora's throat. Having a heated make out session in front of the whole grade and I could guarantee you it was Zora's idea to make every other girl jealous.
I moved out the way in disgust, this was one way to start off my morning. Before I could make my way around to class West purposely slammed Zora onto my locker. Out of all places they could be doing this it was my locker.
"Can we please leave?" Emma said with horror written on her face.
"Yes please" I grabbed my water bottle and ran down to class with Emma by my side. I was too out of my mind to even realize Lia wasn't with us. She had a class down in drama with Cole after he left. And Jake well, he was flirting with another short blonde near the science rooms.
The girl seriously wasn't even trying to hide the fact she was seducing Jake. She very consciously let down her hair and pushed her fake boobs up, not even trying to be slick.
Oh, I can't wait to leave next year.
"Can we please just go?" Emma said shooting daggers at Jake like she wanted him 6 feet under.
We made our way down to design and material's class just in time for Ms. Nelson to start her lecture and PowerPoint.
"I can't wait to be home already" Emma muttered under her breath.
I sighed "Same."
*****************
Design and Materials was my favourite class, it was a time I could actually just focus and have fun with my work. After Ms. Nelson finished the PowerPoint about the dresses for the school social Emma and I made the way to our workstation.
"Hey girls, have you started your design yet?" asked Avery, another one of the girls in our design class.
"Yup just getting on with the sketching." Emma said right after me.
We started collecting our materials and on with class. I had design first and next I had marine biology, which I also enjoyed a lot. Learning about the ocean and all the sea creatures was something I could do my whole life if I didn't have design. When I chose these subjects, according to my family I could use marine biology as a hobby and design as an actual career path.
It was now pretty late into the session, and we started packing up for next period, which was marine biology. This was one of my favourite classes, as I had all my friends there, Lia, Emma, Cole and Jake. It was a good addition to my day. Though 90 percent of the time we'd end up talking and getting little to no work done, it was really a booster to my mood no matter how my day was going.
"Alright, thanks everyone I will see you all on Monday, make sure to send through the designs over email by Sunday so we have an idea of the presentation. Other than that, have a good weekend." Ms. Nelson finished the lesson, and we got out the door.
*******
The theatre for classes of marine biology were literally across the school from where we had classes in design. Luckily on the way I caught up to the others and we made our way down in a rush. Our teacher for marine biology Mr. Winters hated when we were late, and never missed a chance to bash us on about it.
"Monroe" Jake yelled behind me. "I need to tell you something you might not like."
"Now's not the time Jake, we're going to be late just tell me at lunch or when we get to class." I yelled back in frustration.
"Hey, you might want to know before this ruins your da-"
I didn't let him finish and just sprinted down to the theatre, I didn't have time for Jake to ruin my day, it was going so well.
I opened the big heavy door leading inside the theatre where we'd have most our marine classes. Again, just in time not to be late.
"Alright everyone, take a seat we shall begin, but before we do so I need to get some important stuff out the way." Said Mr. Winters.
We all sat down in one row and let the teacher begin his lecture.
"Firstly, as you guys know we have an assessment task coming up that is worth 40 precent of your grades for this subject. And after talking to the leading teachers, we have decided that this will not be an individual task and will be set as group work. Now you can work in pairs or groups of 3, that is up to you, but all parties need to contribute to the task equally." He finally finished in one big breath.
"Talk among yourselves to figure out groups until I tell you the next notice." He speaks.
I turned to my friends looking for answers about how we would be grouped. And then remembered Jake had to tell me something.
"Jake, you had to tell me something?" I said, my eyes slightly squinting.
"Oh yea, umm so basically I just got tol-" He gets cut off when the whole theatre consisting of so many kids suddenly go silent. "What I had to tell you is behind you" he said with a boyish smile.
I didn't have to look back to know who it was, the tension in the air was enough.
It was West.
I slowly turned around to see my guess was correct.
Now that I was getting a good look of him pretty close up, I could see every little detail on his face. The little mole right above his mouth, the specks of brown in his blue eyes and I'd never noticed before, but his eyebrows stood firmly furrowed. His pink lips were gorgeous, parted slightly. This guy was built like a model, not real at all.
We were so close up I could have kissed him right there.
I was clicked out of my horrendous thoughts. When Cole cleared his throat, like he was trying to clear the tension that was being sensed.
West took a seat right next to me still not breaking eye contact. I knew he'd done that to piss me off even more. He smirked and finally looked ahead. I looked over to Cole and Jake, who clearly knew about this way before Jake was trying to tell me. They just gave me a 'you will get your explanation later' look.
Before I could say anything, Mr. Winters started speaking.
"As you all may have already figured out, we have a new student joining our class. Kaleb West will be our new student and I need you all to make him feel welcomed and get him caught up on work that I can't, since he is joining halfway through the year."
That's when my inner hell broke loose.
Kaleb West was joining our class. A class I was in. I had avoided him for years and now I'd have to see him every day. For the rest of the year. But there had to be a reason for it, or was he just doing this to piss me off, was he trying to be a bitch? I had so many questions.
Oh fuck could I just be home already?
*************
There goes the first chapter, I know it's not a lot, but the story will only continue from here. Again, I am still editing so there will be a lot of mistakes here. Just comment any feedback or mistakes I need to fix.
-J