I was miserable for the next week or so. My teeth ached from the amount of chocolate I devoured each day but that didn't stop me from snacking. Chocolate was the only thing that helped me lick my wounds and quite frankly, it was the only thing that I looked forward to each day. It motivated me to finish the Geography essay and to mercilessly edit it, it was a way of bribing Amy and Jessica to come outside with me because I wasn't allowed in their classroom and it was a way of making new friends in the newspaper team. Chocolate was my savior.
Savannah and I ignored each other. Alice tried talking to me but quickly retreated when Savannah snapped at her and soon, both of my friends had ditched me. I kept going to therapy and I was taught techniques but the hazy memories were very very slowly leaking back into my brain. I remembered the time Savannah, Alice, our younger siblings and I had gone around houses for Halloween dressed up as creepy dolls and monsters and the time we went ice-skating in November. There was no trace of their anger or anything negative towards me in those memories and I was even more confused.
My bruised forehead still got some unwanted attention, but the spotlight was moved onto Shawn Athersmith who cheated on Faith Raynott with Love Bonneville (and vice-versa). A lot of the people in our year had gathered around the conflict and I wasn't surprised; everyone wanted to know what was going on. I can guarantee you that by the end of the school day there would be fifty different interpretations of the situation.
Love silently suffered as Faith questioned Shawn and the argument escalated quickly. Her fair complexion was lost beneath the angry tears pouring out of her eyes and her cheeks were crimson. Slumped against Kaydence, her shoulders shook every few seconds, trying to find breath and calm herself down when she would burst into fresh rivers of tears.
Faith had the expression that she was on the verge of tears too but her teammates had to hold her back from lunging at the popular Bonneville twin. Her forehead contorted, bringing her eyebrows together and she pouted, trying to not let the tears flow down her face. Our PE Prodigy wasn't a crier, she was as solid as a rock and always composed so it was rare for her to cry.
I heard some of the girls gasping and whispering to each other and all I wanted to do was stick tape over their mouth. Perhaps I was a hypocrite but I wanted to ensure that Faith was going to be OK. We were kind of friends and I didn't want her to get in trouble for the slight chance of committing murder.
"Listen, all things come to an end," Shawn reasoned. "Faith we were long over and I thought you knew that. I was only hanging out with you because we were friends so I don't see why you're dragging Love into this. We're over and I already have a new girlfriend."
"Now you're the one who's going to listen to me. I don't know when you thought we had broken up but I'm telling you right here and right now that you never said such a thing. I don't know what's going on but I just want you to tell me something; are you going out with her? Why did you kiss her when we were obviously a thing?"
Shawn was silent at the question and looked around as an excuse to ignore it.
"Because he's my boyfriend!" Love answered for him, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.
"I wasn't asking you Drama Queen. For once I thought I had found a guy who wasn't going to act like a prick but I was obviously wrong. I fell for it all and you told me you loved me every single day. Shawn, I want you to answer me right now; why did you kiss her at the gates when you were telling me how much you loved me yesterday?"
The crowd held its breath when Shawn didn't reply and headed to the football court after a few seconds of staring Faith straight in the eyes. I saw Jarrett, Fred, Gabe and Keiran follow him, along with some other people on the team.
Faith was at a loss for words and looked at love with a slight tinge of curiousity before storming off. Her blonde ponytail swung as she angrily walked into the building and I didn't see her until form time. I wanted to follow her but I couldn't catch up with her because she always had places in the school where she could be on her own. That's the only thing she'd told me in maths a week ago; I have my private places that pretty much no one knows about.
I sauntered over to Room 7 in English to find Eliza typing away at one of the computers.
"Good morning," she turned to greet me. "You alright?"
"Fine, thanks. Athersmith is making everything a soap opera outside. I swear I could see someone eating popcorn while their eyes were literally glued to Love Bonneville!" I reply, setting my stuff down.
"No way," Eliza looked out of the window to see the crowd around Love. "Did he cheat on her again?"
"It was mostly like he'd cheated on Faith Raynott with her but Love was still the one that was crying her eyes out," I said. "I don't blame her, these boys are the most unloyal of the unloyal."
"That sucks. Check the email, I think there was a problem addressed to you,"
"Thanks."
Someone had finally sent in a problem for my advice column and I set to transferring it to my newspaper page. Eliza had given me the position the day after I went home and it was the best news I had received that week.
Dear Anonymous Adviser,
I've had a dream to audition for the talent show happening after half term with a song that I've been practising for the past few months but I'm terrified of the feedback and I'm scared I'll humiliate myself but I still don't want all my hard work to go to the wind. What should I do?
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
I say go for it! You can't let opportunities slip through your fingers, you've got to stop dreaming and make things happen when you are given the chance. Sure, it may be scary but would you rather regret not having a go? Just do it and don't overthink it. You don't have much to lose.
Good luck,
Anonymous Adviser
I added a few images and worked on the layout but there was a minute until the bell would ring and Eliza was already gone. I was still getting to know the newspaper team but I knew I could rely on them. Eliza was kind, welcoming but firm and a good leader. Christopher, the sports reporter, was confident and helpful and the rest of the team was supportive. I got along with pretty much everyone and I had had lunch with them the day that Eliza gave me the position.
Controversy was brewing in my form and I could see people sitting on different sides of the room. Faith was sat on the right side of the room while Love was on the left. I looked for a Neutral Party but it wasn't there. I took a seat at the back of Faith's side and got out my equipment.
I steered clear from talking to anyone in my form because I was still processing a lot of the stuff that had happened last week. Sally talked to me about her sleepover on Saturday in Science, I had to talk to Fred (and Filip) and I had to do partner work but other than that, it was either Amy, Jessica and the School Newspaper.
I sat next to Faith in double maths but I kept quiet. I knew she didn't want to talk so I didn't push it and instead marked her maths homework. Everyone was glancing at her and whispering but luckily Shawn wasn't in our maths group. That would've made things much worse.
"I heard about what happened last week," I turned to her hoarse voice. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot but she did a good job of covering it up by looking down.
"What?" I questioned.
"Jarrett,"
"Oh," I inhaled. "Yeah, he's into someone else. I should've expected it; everyone makes it out like I've become a whole new person and they don't like that."
"It still isn't right to break up with someone over text. He was boasting about being single in volleyball yesterday and I told him about you going home last week."
"And?"
"He looked pretty guilty if I must say but I think he's over it."
"I still feel bittersweet but hopefully I'm going to get through it."
"You will," Faith said, ticking one of my answers. "I know I will too. Perhaps I wasn't the most mature person being mad at Love Bonneville but I was caught so off-guard that I didn't know what to do."
It was break time when I finally checked the comments on 'Rabbit-hole'. It had been over a week but I had felt too broken to check it.
His loss, girl. ~MissHippyHappy
I can totally connect your feelings to the poem. Stay strong. ~FD
What a douche! ~Ivison
Your poems are slacking. ~jellyfishmusic
Why aren't you replying to our comments anymore? ~jellyfishmusic
Just at the right time. I needed this poem. Thank you. ~xo_bree_xo
No offence, but this isn't your best poem. I am not going to be blunt like @jellyfishmusic but perhaps you should try a bit harder? ~Lara
My heart sank and I exited the app.
***
I went to the library after school and Fred was already at the computers, typing something.
"Hey," I greeted, sitting down next to him.
"Sup," he replied, not looking up. "OK, we've done the essay, we just need to make slight adjustments and print it out."
We had spent a long time thinking about the essay and I was crossing my fingers that we would get a good grade.
"Do you want to take it home or shall I?" I switched off the computer after printing.
"You should because I'll probably forget it."
I nodded and put the essay in my bag. He left to go to the pizza place with his friends and I sprinted home because I was going to be late for our call with Dad and Katherine. I wanted to chill out and even if Dad was overshadowed by his ambition, he could still tell funny stories and crack jokes. I missed that light-heartedness and that was everything that Mum's past boyfriends didn't possess.
I remembered when we first moved out of our flat in London and into our current house. It was too big for us; we didn't have many possessions to fill it with and it felt cold and uncomfortable. Martin was just a few months old and needless to say, he whined and cried a lot of the time. Mum was stressed out into getting a nanny to look after us and working was difficult for her because we were all really young. We got some benefits but they weren't enough to cover all of our bills and our basic necessities. We only clawed our way up and out of the well of misery with the help of one of mum's boyfriends. He was nice and even though he wasn't Dad, he was still quite close to us. His name was David and he remained one of Mum's best friends even after they broke up.
"I'm here!" I panted and Amy and Martin were already sat in front of the laptop, Dad and Katherine sat on the other side of the screen.
"Finally! Dad was cracking up the worst jokes known to man!" Amy said but I knew she secretly laughed at Dad's jokes. I smiled as I put my coat away and sat down next to my siblings.
"Oh come on Aimes, I'm not as bad as Paul! In fact, Paul isn't the worst at jokes, you just like saying everyone is terrible at them!" Dad chuckled.
"How's Poppy doing?" Katherine asked.
"She's fine," Amy's expression darkened at the mention of Mum. "Paul's moving in at the end of next week. It's like we already haven't got enough crap going on."
"Look I know it's probably difficult and you guys weren't the biggest fans of me at the beginning but you'll get to like him soon," Katherine's voice softened. "Cut your mum some slack, she's trying to make it good for everyone."
Katherine and Mum were friends, even if our parents were divorced. Mum and Dad remained friends just to make it easier for us. I appreciated that because I felt at ease with both Mum and Katherine, even though they got over-protective of us a lot of the time.
Katherine started talking about our half-sister that was due in March. She was so excited and I knew that deep down I was excited as well. I had always wanted a younger sister that I could boss around but also play imaginary games with, no matter how old I was. Unfortunately Amy used me for the stupidest things like giving her toilet paper when she ran out and saying that that's what siblings were for. We ended the chat with Dad and Katherine and we all got on with our separate tasks. Amy got on with revision, Martin watched TV and I opened up Pen&Paper. I looked at my private messages.
Hey, would you mind doing a small questionnaire for my book, Daughter of Dawn? ~Ivison
Since Ivison had been nice enough to comment on all of my poems, I felt it was right to check out some of her stuff. I had settled for a book called 'Daughter of Dawn', a Greek Mythology retelling and I had fallen in love with it.
Sure, of course! I am so excited for Daughter of Dusk! ~Me
That's great, thank you for being so supportive. I'm excited for Bohemia but I'm getting annoyed with all those negative comments. ~Ivison
Yeah, I'm getting a bit angry as well but I can't really do a lot. I've been trying to write poetry for the past few weeks. Inspiration and a lot of emotion has to hit me in order to even write something, no matter if it's good or not. I'm in huge writer's block but hopefully inspiration will come again. ~Me
Maybe that's the thing with poetry; you have to wait for inspiration. Why don't you try out something else? Try to write fiction or short stories? ~Ivison.
Yeah, I will. ~Me
By the time I finished chatting with this girl I had found out that her real name was Ivy Harrison, she was eighteen and studying in Scotland for a Creative Writing Degree and that her favourite food was nachos with guacamole.
Most importantly, I could finally discuss the Pen&Paper books that I liked and general things that no one else understood about me. She was so easy to talk to and even though I knew that there were boundaries for the internet, I found out so much about her without pushing it.
And that's when the idea hit me.
A/N Ughhh guys this took me forever to edit. The conflict between Faith, Love and Shawn was so flimsy that I wanted to bawl my eyes out but I finally did it! This chapter was probably boring but the most important thing to me was to introduce the situation between Faith and Love. What do you think of these girls so far? I know you haven't seen a lot of Grace and Prudence but they will have a much more thorough intorduction in the next chapter, which is Sally's sleepover.
Note to struggling editors: Use google translate. The voice reading it out does sound kind of dumb because it stops at the wrong points but it can help you improve things.
What do you think hit Hope? Do you think it was something physical or do you think it was an idea? What could it be?
I know it sounds so silly asking this question but I want to know what others think hit her. Make sure you're following me on Instagram (antoana0502) for book recommendations, bad edits and quotes and with that, I will see you in the next chapter!
Antoana