12Let It Rain: Chapter one
"WAKE UP!" someone suddenly yelled like a foghorn into my ear, startling me. I opened my eyes and glared at the person at the side of my bed.
"That's not funny," I said grumpily and tried to close my eyes again. I needed some more sleep.
Of course, my brother didn't give me a chance to doze off again. With one swift motion, he pulled my blankets off me, causing the chill to suddenly replace the warmth of the comforter.
"Give me back my blanket!" I warned and opened my eyes again. Goose bumps appeared on my skin immediately from the sudden cold. The only thing I wanted was my blanket and to go back to sleep.
My brother smirked annoyingly, clearly enjoying the whole situation. What the hell was wrong with him?
"We need to leave for school so hurry your ass up," was the only thing he said. As soon as the words left his mouth, he left my room, dragging my blanket with him. Argh! He knew me way too well!
Because I didn't want to freeze my ass off, I crawled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. After a nice warm shower, I got dressed and went downstairs.
"Watch out, grumpy Sophia coming through," the last person I wanted to see said. In front of me stood none other than my brother's friend, the jerk known to the rest of the human species as Tristan. I don't know why, but we've never gotten along well. My brother James had long given up on us. He knew by now that we didn't like each other and had accepted that.
It wasn't my fault that Tristan was the most conceited asshole I had ever met. The guy acted like he was god's gift to women or something.
Ignoring him, I stepped into the kitchen and poured myself some orange juice. Because I was only 16, I needed to get a ride to school with my brother every day. Both Tristan and James were 18 and were doing their last year of high school. I was stuck there for two more years. Life could be so unfair sometimes.
Half an hour later, we arrived at the school. It was already packed with loads of people, all hanging out in their different cliques. You had the cool people, the loners, the geeks, the stoners... basically like every other high school you know. Of course, Tristan and James both belonged to the cool crowd. The reason for that was that they both played soccer and had the kind of looks that could make any hormonal teenage girl swoon.
Any other girl would probably smack me on the head if she heard me describe their looks as 'fairly well', since most girls seem to think that they're drop-dead gorgeous. Those girls are who I basically call sluts. They would date anyone just because he plays soccer. Pathetic, right? I'd say so.
Let's start with describing James; my adorable brother who loves to wake me up way too early. I swear he does it just to annoy me. He has dark brown hair with some locks of blue in it. Yeah, blue! My parents totally freaked out when they saw what he had done to his hair. I knew it was a mistake to watch "Playing By Heart', the movie where Ryan Philippe has blue hair, with him in same room. Once he heard me and my friends going on about how extremely hot Ryan looked in the movie, my crazy brother decided that it was time for a change and directly went to the hairdresser.
Imagine the surprise he got when we laughed in his face when he came back. I guess he'd expected all the girls to fall at his feet or something. And then I haven't even mentioned the reaction from my parents. My dearest brother got grounded for a whole month. I'm used to the hair by now, but he doesn't looks as hot with it as Ryan -my brother could never look as hot as Ryan Philippe after all.
Tristan looks nothing like James. He has this whole blond god thing going on. To match his sandy blond locks, he has light blue eyes. Some girls claim they can get lost in them, but I don't see it. The only thing I see is this annoying pervert who thinks he owns the world. To make him even more 'appealing', he apparently plays the guitar. In the many years I have known him, I've never heard him play though. Maybe he made that up to attract more chicks or something? I wouldn't be surprised.
"Hey Soph," my best friend Madison said, coming up beside me. "What's up?"
I smiled at her while opening my locker. "Nothing much," I answered cheerily and started searching for the right books. Where the hell had I put them?
Madison and I have been friends for a few years now. She's a stunning looking girl and is always fun to hang around with. The only thing she lacks is taste in guys; she's had a crush on Tristan for a few weeks now. Tristan doesn't seem to even acknowledge her existence and I didn't understand why. Mads totally has the looks he normally goes for: a perfect figure, really beautiful, long blond hair that always looks flawless and chocolate brown eyes.
I'm sure she's his type, but to be fair, who isn't Tristan's type? Brown, black, blonde or red haired… I've seen him date them all.
I had tried talking Tristan out of Madison's head, but she patently refused to listen to me. She claims that I don't know the real Tristan and she does. Yeah, I only see him every day, but I don't know him. What a joke!
"Hi sis," James who was passing by said and ruffled my hair in the process. God, I hated it when he did that. Like I wasn't having a bad hair day already! Now my brown/reddish hair looked even messier than when I left the house. I opened my locker again and looked in the mirror that was inside, trying to use my fingers to comb my hair back into shape.
"Soph, Soph, Soph," someone tsk-ed. "Don't you know by now? No matter how long you're going to stare into that mirror, you're not going to look pretty," Tristan said dryly, making me stop what I was doing right away. I was about to say something back - something that wasn't appropriate to say in the school hallway, but Madison beat me to it.
"Hey Tristan," she said flirtatiously while twirling a lock of hair around her finger.
What the hell? Hadn't she heard what that jackass had just said to me? Unbelievable…
I slammed my locker shut and stuffed my books into my bag as fast as I could, ignoring the wide smirk on Tristan's face. He was so enjoying the whole situation.
"I'll see you later," I said to my supposed friend before turning around and walking to class. I didn't know why I let Tristan always get to me, but he knew exactly how to push my buttons.
"You okay?" my brother suddenly materialized next to me, startling me. I had no idea that he'd followed me. "You know Tristan was just messing around, right?"
I smiled softly. James could be so sweet sometimes. He had this very rare thing for a teenage boy. My brother knew exactly when he needed to stop fooling around and when he had to be serious. Like I said, a very rare quality for a teenage boy. It was one of the things I loved most about him.
"I know," I reassured my brother. "I'm fine."
"Good," James answered and patted my back. "I'd better get to class. I'll see you later, sis."
"Bye," I called out to him and saw him disappearing through the large hall packed with students.
When the bell rang, I made my way to my first class, ready to start the day.
xxXxx
"Do we have to pick up Faye?" I asked my brother as we climbed into his car after school. Faye was my adorable two year old little sister. I hadn't got to see her this morning because she already left with my mom.
"Nope, Mom said she'd pick her up," my brother answered as he revved his car. I was sitting in the backseat, scowling at Tristan's back. Who cares if he couldn't see me or the angry expression on my face?
"Stop scowling," he suddenly spoke up, making my cheeks flush red. How the hell had he known that I was scowling?
"I can see you in the mirror," Tristan answered as if reading my thoughts.
"I knew that," I snapped, frustrated, and turned my head to look outside. We were passing houses and landscapes, everything seeming so peaceful on the outside. I wondered if everything inside was as peaceful and good as it seemed. Were all these people living a happy life or were they just pretending?
When we finally arrived home, my mom was making dinner while Faye was playing with her stuffed frog.
"Hey there, princess," Tristan greeted my little sister and softly pulled one of her ponytails.
"Twistan!" Faye squealed enthusiastically and leaped off the floor. 'Twistan' is how Faye calls Tristan because she can't pronounce his full name yet. The next moment, Tristan picked the little girl up in the air and tickled her tummy. It's really weird how good he is with my little sister, seeing how she completely adores him. I would never squeal when Tristan enters the room, for instance.
"Why can't you be more like your little sister?" Tristan said and pinched my cheek. Quite hard too, I might add.
I shot him my best glare and hit him in the ribs as he passed by. He grabbed his stomach in mock pain, showing that I had a lousy right hand. I couldn't help that I was a girl and that I wasn't used to hitting people. Damn idiot.
See, this is how we are. We tease each other the whole time, but we're never really sure if we mean it or not. Some things he'd said before had really gotten to me, not that I ever let that show. I wouldn't be able to live it down if he knew that he'd actually hurt me.
"How was school?" mom asked, her eyes looking tired.
"It was fine," I answered and started filling her in. I loved my mom to death; she's more like a friend to me instead of a mom. A year ago, my dad left her to be with a younger woman. I still don't know how she made it through, but she did. She never showed her pain in front of any of us. I know she suffered a lot and probably still is, but she refuses to show it. My dad's a complete asshole, considering that we haven't heard from him since he left to be with his new girlfriend. It hurt to lose my dad but I was over it. He obviously didn't care about us either, so what was the point of wallowing?
I felt a tug at my pants and looked down to see Faye smiling at me.
"Hey sweetie," I said and picked her up off the floor. I absolutely loved having a little sister like her - she was so adorable. Although she had her bad days, like every other two year old, it wasn't hard to love her. She'd even managed to get into Tristan's heart, which is quite hard considering he doesn't have one. Hah!
The rest of the evening went by quite peacefully. Faye went to sleep early since she was tired and Tristan left not too late after that. I watched TV for the rest of the evening before going to bed and dozing off.
xxXxx
I shrieked loudly and quickly covered my ears with the palms of my hands. I was going to kill the idiot who was blasting The Killers really loudly on my radio! When I looked around the room, I saw Tristan casually leaning against the doorframe, a satisfied smirk on his face.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?" I yelled loudly, jumping out of my bed to turn down my radio.
"James told me to wake you," he shrugged it off, looking really smug with himself. "Nice pyjamas there, bunny," he said, chuckling loudly while his eyes went over my body.
I looked down to see that I was wearing my pink bunny pyjamas and blushed furiously. Of course I had to wear this when he came to wake me this once. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have this giant smirk on his face.
"Get the hell out of my room!" I yelled crossly and closed the door in his face. I couldn't believe the nerve of this guy! Grumpily, I took a hot shower and tried to relax again, still feeling embarrassed about what had happened.
"Ready to go, bunny?" Tristan spoke up when I stepped into the kitchen, making me scowl.
Deciding that it would be best to just ignore him, I stepped further into the kitchen and grabbed an apple.
"Is that the only thing you're going to eat?" James asked me suspiciously, eyeing the apple I was holding.
"Yeah, I'm not that hungry," I shrugged it off and started looking for my schoolbag.
"You have to eat something more, sis. Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day," James lectured me as if I was a small child, making me stick my tongue out at his back. Yeah, I'm that mature, so sue me.
"Can't you see that she's already eaten enough?" Tristan suddenly spoke up, obviously referring to my weight.
So what if I didn't look like a twig? Yeah, I had a few extra pounds, but I never considered myself fat. At least that was before Tristan had started pointing it out to me. He started with his fat jokes a few weeks ago and hadn't stopped since.
"Yo, that's enough," James told his friend firmly, giving him a serious look and demonstrating that he was not at all amused by Tristan's comment.
Tristan held up his hands in surrender, a playful smile plastered on his face. "I was just joking, man. There's nothing wrong with being a healthy eater," he said seriously. The twinkle in his eyes betrayed his amusement though. When he passed me to go outside, he patted me on the stomach, making me feel even worse than before.
Why the hell was my brother friends with an asshole like Tristan?
I guess I would never find out.
A/N: Hey everyone! I wrote this a while ago, but I never put it online because I wanted to finish Sick Cycle Carousel first. Because I haven't written anything in weeks, I changed my mind and decided to put this up. Reviews would be very much appreciated!
This chapter is dedicated to Linda and Louisa for proofreading it and to Alayne for supporting me!
Special thanks to angels and effects for editing it.
I hope you guys like it. To everyone who is reading Sick Cycle Carousel: I'm currently working on the new chapter. I know it's been ages ago since I've last updated, but I'm working on it. I have no idea when it will be done though.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to leave a review!
Xxx Lien