106A/N: : : Waves sweetly : : Hello everyone! I'm back! I know most people are waiting for an update for Beginning of the End but I am by no means abandoning my fanfic! I'm just posting two stories at once. And since I've nearly finished this one anyway I might as well start posting now. Why deprive you lot any longer!
And since at the rate I'm going, Beginning of the End won't be finished till sometime around Christmas I've decided to start posting this now so that I don't have to wait until the end of my titanic length fanfiction.
Disclaimer: Wow I've gotten so used to doing these for fanfiction. All work in this fic (to the best of my knowledge, see below) is my own and therefor any attempt to steal from me is plagiarism. However for any song lyrics or jokes that I may use I will add additional disclaimers in the chapters.
Plagiarism: I would never seek to copy that which I love. I've already emailed one other author on this site just to make sure she's okay with me posting this fic (dustmitebunny – go read her stories! They're amazing!). Any one else's work I may unknowingly make a reference too in here is purely accidental and I apologise well in advance. If there is anything in this fic that I have copied that you think I shouldn't have please email me before reporting me and I will do my best to fix it.
Dedication: This story is dedicated to those who will never read it; everyone in my year at Grammar. I will miss you all more than words can say.
Chapter 1 – So this is morning?
Cat's POV
BEEP! BEEP! BE-THUMP!
…
I hate mornings.
Well how many teenagers don't hate them?
First my clock goes off. Then I'll have my curtains ripped back by my mother.
One word.
Ow…
It burns!
Then…
"Mum! It's cold!"
Well it is November and I've just had my covers stolen.
"Get up Cat or you're going to be late!"
Christ it's freezing…
So like I do every morning I take this as my cue to roll out of bed.
Literally…
And I half walk half crawl to the bathroom. Bumping into my Grandmother on the way.
"Good morning Catherine."
I grunt in reply, which earns me a very disapproving look from her highness.
My Grandparents have been living with us for the last three years and so far have come to be one of the banes of my existence. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to be close to the family (Mum was their only child) and so my Mother, being the angel that she is, offered them a house.
Our house.
…yay?…
So we now live with my Grandparents. And I have come to loath every second.
First of all, my Grandfather was in the war. And therefor he's exceptionally paranoid. He lost his left leg in the war and has a prosthetic now. He's very fond of sitting there and retelling the story over and over again.
My Grandfather understandably has many friends, most of them also war heroes. However when they come over it is wise for me to fast track it upstairs. A group of dear old men sitting around a gin and discussing their memories?
Nope.
Instead we have five, chain smoking, perverted, eighty year old men gathering in our lounge and leering at me whenever I pass. I love my Grandfather (…well…most of the time) but listening to his friends tell me what a 'pretty little girl' I am, makes me want to hurl up my insides.
Then there's Grandma, who on the outside is nothing more than a slightly forgetful little old woman who loves cats, gardening, and routinely loses her false teeth and finds them a week later in the fridge (don't ask me how they got in there! All I know is I abstained from ice cream for a week because my stomach couldn't take it).
On the inside however my Grandmother is the biggest nag on the face of the planet. She constantly finds something wrong with the house. If she can't find something wrong with the house she'll find something wrong with our food. If she can't find something wrong with that she'll find something wrong with the neighbourhood…and you get the idea.
But what irritates me most is that she always finds something wrong with me. My Grandparents think I'm the most disrespectful little girl ever. They (or rather my Grandma more specifically) also think that I dress like a man and I'll never get a boyfriend unless I become more feminine.
Which translates roughly to,
We're worried about you Cat because you don't show any interest in the important things in life like getting a boyfriend. Also since you're seventeen almost eighteen and you've never bought a boy home we're slightly worried that you'll turn out to be a lesbian.
Gag me!
I have no interest in becoming a clone of everyone else in the school, all whom have boyfriends/girlfriends and frequently take part in the sport of snogging in the caretakers store cupboard.
And as for the lesbian remark? I'm not a lesbian and so what if I was? What's wrong with lesbians? Then again this is my Grandparents we're talking about. They come from the generation where if you weren't dating someone by the time you were eighteen it was automatically assumed that there was something wrong with you. Or that you were intending to join a nunnery.
Anyway, my reputation is a nice security blanket. I am Thirfield High school's resident bitch. And it suits me just fine. It gives me the excuse to cut myself from the social game and at the same time let everyone know exactly how I feel.
"Come on Cat!"
Impatient much?
My mother's up way before me. You think she'd have the sense to use the bathroom before me too. Apparently not.
My Grandparents were already at the table. Grandfather grunts a good morning at me from behind his newspaper and Grandma takes one look at my appearance and rolls her eyes skywards as if praying for deliverance. I had this particular argument with her a few days ago.
"You'll never get a boyfriend if you continue to dress like that! You look like you're about to rob someone in the street. Why when I was your age…"
What would she like me to do? Dress like the people at my school, most whom look like they just washed up from a night of clubbing, which actually most of them have.
Phh, no thanks!
Sadly Thirfield high has a dress code for sixth formers. We have to dress smartly. So for me it's my baggiest pair of black trousers and my red and black long sleeved top.
…Oh and my black converse trainers. You can't forget them!
I like black. Black is covert.
So not caring my for breakfast, I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door to the sound of my Gran saying, "she looks like a man!"
My car is my pride. It's not as flash as some of them but it was the symbol of my freedom.
And it's black too.
And it's my means of blasting music as loud as possible and letting people know how I feel.
So off I drive with Halo blasting out.
"I've seen the angels in your eyes. At least that's something…"
And predictably I get stuck in traffic.
"But I don't believe in compromise. It's all or nothing…"
Welcome to one of the busiest roads in Britain.
OOO
Jodie's POVEight thirty, on a Friday morning.
Mornings are the worst.
Especially today.
I've been dumped.
Again.
That bastard!
How could he dump me for another girl?
I feel like hell.
I must look like it too.
I checked my appearance as I got into my car. I loved my pink Smart Car, but the bright colour only succeeded in making me look pale and sickly looking. The face in the rear view mirror was pale and my dark blue eyes looked miserable. My pink blouse made me look even more washed out than the car did. I really just couldn't be bothered this morning. I felt pretty worthless.
No wonder he dumped me.
As I started the ignition my mother hurried out to me. My mother is supermodel material and she's filing for her second divorce. Smartly dressed and beaming. She claims she's free again. Why does her life have to go great just as mine crashes?
"Honey, I'll be in court until six. Then I'm going out for a drink with the girls to celebrate!"
I shrugged and smoothed my skirt over my legs. She gave me another grin and got into her own car. I sighed as my phone went off. The caller ID said it was my friend Chantel. She probably wanted to know why I had been ignoring her calls last night. I cancelled the call and switched my phone off before starting the ignition again.
My mother had been married twice already and she was thirty nine. She looks like she's twenty three though. She's a financial consultant, but she has the build of a swimsuit model. She's gone under the knife four times to change her shape.
Her first marriage lasted four years. Mum was thirty and I was nine. I remember that. Darren wasn't my real father. Mum kicked him out after an argument. Darren had bee promoted (he worked for HSBC) and his job required him moving to Scotland. This didn't suit well with my mother, who didn't want to leave the city she had grown up in. So they fought and finally they got divorced. Darren wanted his job, Mum wanted her home. They went their separate ways. Last I heard, Darren had just got married again and his new wife had just had twins.
I had felt so confused. For the last four years Darren had been my father. I never knew my real father. He left Mum at the alter when she was twenty one. She found out later that she was pregnant with me. And at nine years old I was understandably distraught when I learnt that Darren wasn't coming home. As I got older I learnt to accept the fact but in my mind it was Mums fault. She was the reason he had left. All because she didn't want to leave her perfect life here.
Then two years ago Mum met Brett. A year later, they were getting married and I walked down the aisle as my mothers bridesmaid feeling slightly bitter. I didn't like Brett. He always looked down at me like I was an inconvenience. I hated him he hated me, it was mutual. I was too busy going out with my mates to spend much time around him.
Anyway, about four months ago, Mum found out that Brett was having an affair. A friend of hers had walked in on them kissing in a café. Mum, rather than handling it gracefully went and picked up some guy in a bar for the evening. I told Brett, not because it was unfair but mainly because I wanted him out of the house. He left that evening. Mum was pleased. She didn't have to have an ugly confrontation.
So that marriage didn't even last a year. My mother's track record with men wasn't exactly blindingly spectacular. Mind you, neither was mine.
I still felt miserable as I drove towards the school. I replayed the conversation endlessly in my head.
"I'm ending it Jodie. I've found someone else."
And the he hung up.
That's right. He hung up. He dumped me over the phone.
I hate him.
I really hate him.
I mean, what the hell did I do wrong? He never said he was unhappy with me. Hell we'd had sex three days ago. Now he's left me alone.
What the hell did I do wrong?!
BEEP!
"FUCK!"
I braked. I had been pulling into the school car park and had almost gone into another car. The loud rock music and the equally loud swearing labelled it as one person.
"Sorry Cat," I said miserably. Catherine Smith was out resident man hating bitch. Now any other person in my position may have tried to shift some of the blame for almost crashing. But you don't argue with Cat unless you're a guy looking to be castrated, or a girl looking to be slapped. She's got the worst temper in the world. No one was friends with her and it suited her just fine.
"Jesus Carter you look terrible!" Cat said bluntly. I felt like smiling. Cat was about as subtle as her black and red streaked hair.
"You get ditched again?" she asked as we parked our cars. I nodded, feeling the worthlessness coming back in droves.
"Men are bastards," Cat told me, swinging her bag over her shoulder before heading to the school. I glanced at the building ahead before going in. I was going to be in for a long day.
"Life's a bitch Carter, get used to it!" Cat yelled back over her shoulder.
OOO
Bev's POVI turned the page of my book not really focusing on it. The bus jolted so much it was impossible to read properly.
I hate mornings. Heck I hate my life.
I woke up and found myself on my own in the house that morning. My parents had raced off to see my brothers doctor leaving me to lock up the house. I wish they'd told me. I worry about Sam too.
My little brother Sam was still in hospital. He had been diagnosed with Leukaemia almost a year ago and two weeks ago he had a bone marrow transplant. Now it seemed they finally had the results. I prayed so hard that it had worked and he would get better. I couldn't handle it if he got worse.
Why couldn't I go to see him? Why did I have to go to school? No one would miss me if I left. No one at Thirfield High knows who I am really. If I didn't show up today no one would realise that I was gone. I had spent seven years at Thirfield High and I had no friends. Only a couple of students actually knew who I was and most of them only by sight. I was good at remaining hidden. I didn't like meeting people. I was happy baring things on my own.
So if no one would miss me why wasn't I heading to the hospital to see my brother. For the last two weeks we had all been on the edge of our seats and now the moment had arrived and I had to go and sit in lessons in which I would never be able to concentrate.
But the words of my parents were what had convinced me not to jump on the next bus for the hospital.
"Your last year at school is crucial Beverly. You want to go to University don't you?"
I do really. And I have applied and everything. But it doesn't stop me being miserable about it. My brother is important too.
But I knew the last thing my parents needed right now was the stress of me failing my classes. So unhappy I may be, but I still had to go to school. Year thirteen was like one long class in itself. Coursework, exams next term. They were all enough to drive anyone up and over the wall.
I aimlessly turned the page of my copy of Othello. It was my English Literature homework that should have been done last night. I wasn't really paying attention. I knew what happened, I just hadn't read each page. I wanted to do English at University. Reading books was what saved me from the harshness of reality. Books took me to another world where everything was possible.
The bus jolted again and I looked out of the window to see Thirfield High staring back at me. The school was in two parts. The old building was the main school area where all of the lower secondary school got taught. The Sixth Form was primarily classrooms specially for the year twelve's and thirteen's.
It wasn't a bad school. We had our cliché groups sure, but in sixth form everyone was a little more understanding of each other and just a little more tolerable. The Goths weren't shunned, neither were the nerds. There was a popular group sure but they didn't act like everyone was dirt beneath them…well not all of them anyway.
I got up and headed towards the door of the bus.
"Cheer up Bev, it'll get better!"
That was Peter the bus driver. He always takes this route first thing in the morning, so he knows me. Sadly today, I don't believe his words. This day wouldn't get better. Not until I got home and found out what the doctor had said about Sam's bone marrow transplant.
The corridors were already full of people. Groups of friends hugging each other and gossiping. I saw some of the girls from my year gathered by the lockers. One of them was being hugged by the rest of them. It was Jodie Carter. I guessed she had been dumped again.
Jodie Carter was one of the most popular girls in school. She was pretty, fairly smart, artistic and sweet to everyone. Today however she looked as though she had lost everything. She was a little different from the rest of her friends. The rest of the popular girls still tended to look down their nose at everyone who wasn't their friend. Jodie was nice to everyone. She had never spoken to me however but I'd seen her help plenty of people who would otherwise have been ignored by her friends.
Jodie didn't look like your typical popular girl either. She had light brown hair which had blonde highlights, where as the rest of the girls went for dyed blonde. She didn't dress like them either. The skirt she wore today came down to just above her knees, and her shirt, was well fitted but not in a way that made every guy leer at her. I envied her in that respect. I felt plain and boring next to people like Jodie. Despite having no chest I still wore size twelve clothing. My dull blonde hair hung straight just below my shoulders. I wore glasses some of the time, only when I woke up late and couldn't be bothered to put contacts in.
I shook my head. I would never look like Jodie and there was no point in even thinking about it.
I shoved my folders in my locker. Like everything else about me, it was fairly boring compared to what most of the girls did to their lockers. They covered them in stickers and pictures as if to assert that the locker was their property. Mine was bland. I felt bland too. I had my black trousers and my baggy white jumper on. My clothes were a barrier from the rest of the world. A way of keeping people out and keeping me unnoticed.
I sighed and glanced at the notice board nearby. The motto for the week was pasted near the top.
"Life is not fair. Get used to it – Bill Gates."
I snorted. Nerds do know what they're talking about.
Voila! One chapter. Updates will be every Wedensday unless for some random reason I am unable to post, in which case I'll be sure to let everyone know!
Now press the review button and tell me whether I should continue or whether I should start finding a hole to crawl into! :)
May Stardust fall in your dreams!