Hi guys...
For some crazy reason I thought I would enter my story in the watty awards... Just thought I'd let you know :)
So you've met Hayden, Jake and the Petersons... Now I think you should meet Cally (who's at the side) and David, Hayden's dad (who's attached to the external link) ->
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I felt someone softly shaking my shoulders to try and wake me up.
“Hayden” I heard a voice whisper. I slowly opened my eyes and saw my mum’s brown eyes staring down at me.
“Happy Birthday Honey” she said to me whilst pulling me into a hug. I was really confused.
“Mum my birthday’s on Friday... It’s Wednesday”
She shook her head laughing at me, quietly. “Sweetie, you work to hard at school. It is Friday... look” she said pointing at my alarm clock.
She was right it said there in red lettering 9th September. Wow I had been working hard. Although everyday for the past couple of days I have been going round to the Peterson’s to spend some time with Brooke. She showed me all her dolls and books that she reads. I stretched and slowly climbed out of bed.
“Why don’t you get changed and then come downstairs for breakfast and you can open your presents.” My mum had the biggest smile on her face. The biggest I have ever seen.
“Mmuumm... I told you not to get me anything”
“I know... I know but it’s your birthday what kind of a mum would I be if I didn’t get my own daughter anything for her birthday?”
I signed and stood up from my bed “ok I’ll be down in a second.” My mum turned around and started to walk out of the room whilst I walked over to my wardrobe and grabbed my school uniform off of the front and walked towards the bathroom that was connected to my room. I had a quick shower and changed into my uniform I turned to look in my mirror and ran a brush through my hair quickly. I ran downstairs and walked towards the kitchen but hesitated near the doorway when I heard a voice. When I looked into the kitchen I saw my mum stood with her back facing me, whispering into the phone.
“So... your free tonight?” she asked the person on the other end. “Ye it will be a nice surprise” What is she talking about? “Ye... ye... nooo tell him he has to come. I insist” He has to come? Who has to come? Where are they going? “Ok... ok. She’ll really like it. Talk to you later. Bye” she then put the phone down on the counter and walked over to the cooker where she had a frying pan on top of it with sausages sizzling away. I tip-toed a couple of steps away from the doorway and then walked through the door as if I had just come downstairs.
“Hey... that smells really good” I smiled. I mean it doesn’t smell as good as a citrus, woodsy, fresh pine smell I know. Damn it Hayden there you go again stop thinking about him in that way.
My mum started to laugh “hi” she said whilst putting the food onto plates. She was still beaming over something. After a couple of minutes I sighed which caused my mum to look up at me.
“Ok... what are you smiling at?” I asked
“Nothing” she shrugged still beaming.
“Seriously... What is it? Did you get a promotion, a... a new car... what?”
“Ok... ok I’m just thinking about tonight”
“What’s happening tonight?” I asked whilst picking my fork up and stabbing it into one of the sausages.
“We’re going to dinner”
“What! Seriously. Why?”
“Because your 16 sweetie and we should celebrate It. I mean this is the first birthday in years that I can celebrate with you”
“Ye well whose faults that?” I whispered underneath my breath.
“Did you say something?” my mum asked looking up at me from her plate of food.
“No just that I’m excited” I didn’t exactly take it out on my mum that she’d missed my birthday but she could have taken a holiday or something in the past.
“Me too... Presents” she started to lean underneath the table and brought out two presents wrapped up. I rolled my eyes at her and grabbed the presents out of my mum’s hands.
“Thank you. But you didn’t have to” I said.
“Yeah yeah. Just open them” she replied waving her hand in the air. I laughed and opened the smallest one out of the two. I ripped the top of the present and saw a white top off a box with a silver apple shape in the middle. I started to take the rest of the paper off and took a sharp intake of breath.
“Wow mum you didn’t have to. I bet this was expensive.”
“You’re my daughter and I love you”
“I love you too but... an iPhone really?”
“I put my number in it already but that’s all that’s in it. I thought you could put all your friends’ numbers in yourself.” I smiled and nodded. I know what you’re thinking but I let my mum think that I have friends so then she doesn’t worry about me. I took the iPhone out of the box and looked at it. Whoa I have a phone that I will never use because who am I going to text or call using the phone. That’s why I’ve never had one before... I mean I’m grateful for the phone it’s just I’ll never use it. I placed it at the side of my plate and took the second present and ripped the paper off of it and saw an Acer Aspire One D260 netbook.
“Thanks mum”
“Ye well I thought you could use a laptop now whilst you’re in your last year and you have college next year. Is that one ok...? I did get a bit of help”
“No it’s perfect” I said with a smile on my face. I stood up and walked round the island to hug my mum and then walked back round to my seat and sat down.
“Oh... and I’m picking you up from school”
“Why?”
“Because I thought I would treat you and go shopping”
“Mum... really... shopping... on my birthday. What are you trying to do make me commit suicide” I mean don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate shopping it’s just I don’t see the point in it unless you have to go out and shop for something in particular.
“Oh come on please” she said doing the puppy dog eye thing. “Pplleeaassee”
“Fine... fine. What are we shopping for exactly?”
“A dress for tonight”
I started to laugh until I looked at my mum’s face which had a serious expression on her face.
“You’re... your serious. Me. In a dress. Mum when have you ever seen me wear a dress?”
“It’d be a nice change”
“Ye well I’m not a big fan of changes. You should know that”
“Ye but I thought you could have a look and pick one”
“Ye well it looks like we’ll be leaving without one. You know I don’t wear dresses.”
“I don’t see why you’re being so difficult. I mean all girls wear dresses. Why won’t you” she said raising her voice a little because she was getting a little bit annoyed with me. My mum had never raised her voice at me.
“Because I just don’t want to... ok” I said standing up and grabbing the iPhone from the table whilst walking past the island towards the hallway. I grabbed my school bag from the bottom of the stairs and my coat from the coat rack near the door and just as I reached the door I turned around and saw my mum stood in the kitchen doorway. “And I’ll walk to school this morning... I usually do anyway” I said and instantly regretted it. I never spoke to my mum like that and I saw the hurt in her eyes. I quickly turned around and walked out the front door slamming it behind me. I took a deep breath and started walking down the driveway looking at the iPhone. I turned it on and looked at all the features and apps on it.
School seemed pretty boring lately seeing as I knew everything the teachers were teaching me. I was walking towards the library at break, so then I could finish the English assessment we had been set, until I felt someone push me from behind. I looked up and saw Joe, Jackson’s best friend, stood over me laughing.
“The floors need scrubbing nerd” I looked at the bottom of the hallway and saw all of the local ‘posse’ of football players and their girlfriends. I saw Amber, with her arm around Jackson’s waist and his arm slung around her shoulders, stood there smiling at me whilst everyone else was laughing. As Joe joined the crowd laughing I saw Amber wave her hand at me and smile as if she was a cat and I was the rat in this game. I narrowed my eyes at her because I could see in her eyes there was a specific reason why she was doing this but I don’t know what it is. As they started walking away I turned around so then I could start picking up all of my papers. As I collected them I had this weird feeling in my stomach that something was missing. I looked at all the scattered papers and I couldn’t see any of my papers missing. I pushed my hand in to my pocket on my coat that was now on the floor, seeing as I was also carrying that at the time. I searched all my pockets... no it has to be here... where is it? It has to be here. I started searching my coat and the floor frantically. Where is my phone? I looked everywhere around me whilst throwing my papers in the air to try and find it. My eyes started to feel a little moist. My mum’s going to kill me... that’s if she’s still talking to me. Where is it? I heard the bell ring for third period. Damn it. I collected all my papers and couldn’t see any sign of my phone. Oh no. I put my head down and wiped my hand across my cheek to get rid of the single tear that was running down my cheek. I walked down the corridor, with my head hung low so then people couldn’t see that my eyes were gathering tears, until I walked into something that was hard. I looked up to see what I had walked into or should I say who I’d walked into. Guess who I saw stood there... Jake Peterson. He grabbed hold of my forearm to stop me from falling and that’s when he looked at me and his facial expression changed from a happy one to a worried one in a matter of nanoseconds.
“Hayden what’s wr-”
I freed my arm from his grip and walked away before he could finish what he was saying to me. I put my head down and carried on walking towards Biology.
When the bell rang for lunch I quickly ran to the library and sat in the far corner which is where I always am for lunch. It was in the corner where all the books where full of dust because no one ever came round this area. I had read all of the books in this section. I pulled my iPod and my physics book out of my bag, that was on the floor at the side of me, and started to flick through it looking at the words on the pages but none of them made sense. I plugged the earphones into my ears and turned the volume down low as I started to think. I was so worried of how my mum was going to react when I told her I had lost the phone. After a couple of minutes of staring into thin air I felt someone else’s body heat as they sat at the side of me and I was very aware of the close proximity of our bodies but I couldn’t move anywhere else seeing as there was only a limited amount of space in the library corner. I turned my head to my right and saw Jake sat there smiling at me but worry in his eyes. I pulled the headphones out of my ears.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me with worry in his voice.
“Nothing... just thinking of ways I can commit suicide before my mum kills me herself.”
He laughed a little bit but still had worry on his face. “Why would Cally want to kill you?”
“Because I lost my brand new phone that she just bought me”
“Really” he started to shift on to his side so then he could get access to his pocket, however I tried to move away a little but there was nowhere for me to move which means we were only a couple of inches away from each other, we was that close that i could smell his minty, fresh breath, he then pulled out an iPhone and held it up in his hand.
“Is this yours by any chance?” he asked slightly smiling.
“Yes” I let a sigh of relief out and took the phone out of his hand. “Thank you” I said and grabbed hold of him so then I was hugging him and then let go off him straight away to hide the bit of a blush that was warming my cheeks. “How did you know it was mine?”
“Because Joe and some football players were passing it around during my maths class and I took it off them but they didn’t seem to argue back which is weird because normally they argue back when I take their phones off them. Anyway there’s only one person I know who would have a muse album cover as their background”
I laughed “Isn’t that called Invasion of privacy”
“Ye... BUT and that’s a big but I had a reason... they were acting fishy” he shrugged.
I raised my eyebrows at him “fishy?”
He held his hands up at me in defence “hey I teach maths not English”
I laughed at his comment. He soon joined in but then he looked into my eyes.
“What’s upsetting you?” he asked.
“What... nothing” I answered shaking my head and trying to laugh so then I seemed fine.
“You can’t fool me. Tell me” that’s weird. I could always hide my feelings even my mum didn’t know half the time how I was feeling. So how could he tell? I mean I’d been getting to know him and his family over the past week but how did he know me so well already. I hesitated. “Come on tell me. I’m your friend”
“No you’re not... your my teacher” I said quickly. I instantly regretted saying that to him... I only said it so then he’d stop asking me. I looked at him and I saw sadness, anger but mainly hurt in his eyes. I hated it.
“Ok” he started to stand up from where he was sat and walk down the aisle of books.
“Wait” I said standing up quickly and ran up to him grabbing his forearm. I could feel that his muscles were tense. He turned to me with his eyes looking cold.
“Miss Smith I have papers to mark” he hissed. Normally people would have probably flinched away but I wasn’t going to.
“Please... I didn’t mean that.”
“No your right I am your teacher” he started to turn around again.
“Ok you’re my teacher” I said a little bit louder so then he could hear me but not the whole library. “Teachers can give advice right?” I saw him nod his head stiffly from behind. “Ok I need advice” he slowly turned around to look at me.
“Miss Smith I really need to get back to my classroom” he said still hissing at me with his jaw tight.
“It’ll only take a couple of minutes” he nodded and indicated for me to continue what I was saying but yet he still had the angry and cold expression on his face. “Ok 5 days ago I met this amazing family and I’ve grown too really like them, all of them, and I would hate to do anything to hurt any of them” I said looking at him. I watched him take a couple of deep breaths before his jaw loosened and his hands uncurled out of fists. I also saw the coldness slowly disappear out of his eyes.
“Then why push me away?” instead of hissing it he asked me with sadness in his voice.
“Because I’m scared” I said looking in his eyes. I never admitted this to anyone but I felt like I could tell him anything and he wouldn’t tell anyone. I felt so safe around him and that nothing could ever harm me... nothing verbally... nothing physically could harm me.
“Scared of what?... that if you let anyone in... any friends past that barrier that you’ve put up around your heart that they’ll disappear and hurt you” he said.
I nodded “I guess... I mean my dad did and I trusted him.” I looked down so then I could wipe the tear away from my cheek. I looked back up and saw pain in his eyes as if he was being tortured. He closed his eyes and curled his fingers into a fist, took a deep breath and let the fist loosen before he opened his eyes to look at me. I turned back around and sat down in the same spot I was sat in before. He turned and walked over to where he was sat before, at the side of me, and sat down.
“I’ve never had a friend to talk to or share things with. I mean I’ve always had my mum but she was my mum not a friend” I said whilst looking at my school shoes. “I just feel that if anyone comes close to me just for a second I’ll lose them like that” I clicked my fingers together. “Can you believe that my mum actually thinks I have friends at school” I turned to look at him. “I mean she gave me that phone this morning and the first thing she said was that I could put my friend’s numbers in there. I mean I would if I had any.”
“Hey... shh” he said putting his arm around me and pulling me into a hug. God it was so warm in his arms listening to him mutter ‘shh’ over and over again. He pulled away a little and looked into my eyes. “I’m your friend well except for when you’re in school then I’m your teacher” he said which made me laugh. “See there we go that’s what friends do make their other friends laugh when their upset.” He pulled his arms from around me and I moved back so then my back was leaning against the wall. I kinda felt cold now without his arms around me. “So answer this question why does Cally think you have friends at school if you actually don’t?”
“Really you don’t think she’d worry about me at all if she knew her daughter was the social reject in school and had the reputation of ‘the nerd’” I said whilst putting my hands up and using my fingers to quote speech marks when I said ‘the nerd’.
“Ye well... I understand what you mean but that’s their fault for not getting to know you” he said whilst nodding his head in the direction of the wall opposite us, indicating that he was talking about people at school. I laughed again. “Could you answer this question for me if it’s not too personal?”
“Of course” I said whilst nodding my head.
“Why did your dad leave?”
I sighed “I was about 8 and I’d just been dropped off at home by one of the girl’s mums that was in my class. I went in the house only to see suitcases at the bottom of the stairs. I heard arguing coming from the kitchen, and seeing as I was a curious child, I walked in and saw my mum stood up crying and my dad looked a bit upset. He kept trying to apologize constantly over and over again but my mum just shook her head. The one thing I always remember her saying to him and the last thing was that if he ever walked out of the front door he couldn’t come back. The next thing I knew my dad looked at me and gave me a hug walked down the hallway, grabbed hold of his bags and that was it I never saw him ever again. I thought he’d gone on holiday or something... I mean I was 8 at the time. But after a couple of weeks of waiting near the front window I just knew it. I knew I wouldn’t see him again. When I turned 13 my mum told me the real reason why he left she hadn’t told me before because she didn’t think I would fully understand. She said that he’d been cheating on her that he’d been seeing a work colleague of his behind my mum’s back and that he went home that day and asked my mum for a divorcee. She was crushed I mean my dad was her first love and they were only about 19, 20 when they had me. My dad told her that he didn’t love her anymore and that she’d told him the day that they were signing for the divorcee that he could see me anytime he wanted. And do you know what he said... that he wanted all the lines from his old life cut... he didn’t want anything to do with me. I know I should be upset by that... I was at first but now I couldn’t care less if I saw him. No doubt if I did see him in the street he would just walk past me.” I laughed a little bit at the end not from humour but from something that I wasn’t quite sure what it was.
“Wow. All I can say is that he is stupid for dropping you and Cally” Jake said shaking his head looking a little bit angry.
“I don’t care... I truly don’t”
“Anyway why were you upset before?” he asked changing the subject so then we weren’t dwelling on the fact that I didn’t care that my dad had dropped me. Since I’ve started to get to know Jake for some reason if we were talking about something serious, like this, and he knew that I wouldn’t want to talk about it anymore he would change the subject straight away.
“Because this morning my mum told me that she was picking me up after school and taking me shopping.”
“Really... I thought all girls loved shopping”
“Ye well like I said you don’t know that much about me. It’s just” I said taking a deep breath “I don’t hate shopping but I don’t exactly love it I mean I will shop but only when I have to”
He laughed “you never fail to amaze me Hayden Smith.”
“Well that’s me” I shrugged, smiling a little.
“So really that’s what was upsetting you?”
“No... She’s taking me shopping for a dress tonight because we’re going out to dinner and I never wear dresses. I don’t feel comfortable wearing them. But it’s not that, it’s the fact that it started an argument and I’ve never argued with my mum because she’s never around but when she is I make sure I spent my quality time with her. But seeing the hurt in her eyes because I’d argued back... I hated it. And now I’m dreading seeing her. I don’t know if she’ll be angry, upset I... I don’t know”
“I bet she’ll be fine when she sees you no doubt she’ll forget everything that happened this morning”
“I hope so.” The bell rang signalling the start of fourth period we both stood up, well him first and then he helped me. I turned around to pick up my school bag, my physics book which I put back into my bag and then went to get my iPod until I saw it wasn’t there.
“Anyway why were you in the library?” I turned around to answer his question and saw that he was holding out his hand with my iPod in it. I took my iPod out of his hand and shoved it in my bag.
“This is where I usually come at lunch.”
“I see why... it’s quiet round here” he said looking round with his hands in his pockets whilst we both walked down the aisle of books. “Peaceful” he said looking down at me smiling.
I shrugged my shoulders “helps me concentrate and doesn’t give me any unwanted attention unlike the canteen where no doubt people would be shouting things at me” I started to adjust my bag onto my shoulder. As he opened the library door and waited for me to walk through first. I started to walk down the corridor towards the exit of this block so then I could go to geography until I felt someone pull me back gently. I turned around and looked at Jake.
“Could you come to my office after school?” he whispered, as there were still people in the corridor, he looked a bit nervous.
I sighed “I can’t my mum’s picking me up hopefully-”
“It’ll only take a couple of minutes”
“Ok” I nodded my head “see you later”
“See ya” he said smiling. He turned and started to walk towards his classroom. I turned around and started to walk in the direction of Geography. I wonder what he wants?
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Oooooooooooo
Was anyone expecting that about Hayden's dad?
What do you guys think Jake wants Hayden for?
Do you think Cally will have forgiven Hayden?
Please comment guys because I really want to know what all you guys think of the story so far and if it's worth entering the watty awards... Feel free to click the vote button and the fan button or even add to your library.
Thanks to all the guys who have been constanlty voting and who's fanned you have no idea how much I appreciate it... I don't think I can thank you enough :)