"Hi," Jameson says when I open my front door. He smiles and then he opens his mouth to say something. I stand still and wait to hear what he has to say. I can imagine he has a lot to say about the picture. I don't want to hear what he has to say but I won't stop him. Jameson is a good guy and I know he won't say anything to hurt my feelings
And I can't be mad at him. He's not the one that turned me into a joke.
"Am I early?" He says and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"Yep," I say stepping aside to let him walk in.
"That's cool." He says as I close the door.
"This way," I say leading him to my mother's plant room.
"Wow!" He says his voice getting so loud. I look at him shocked at the emotion he just displayed. I sometimes forget how beautiful this place is because I live here. But every time someone new sees it I am reminded of its beauty. "Oliver told me about this place but my imagination coul
It's about 30 minutes after everyone and we're sitting comfortably on the floor in my mother's flower room. Since Oliver and I's he doesn't want to sit anywhere else but this floor. He loves it in here."So I thought we should go over the assignment together again," Kelly says looking at me encouragingly. We haven't spoken since I had my freakout in the school toilets earlier today. I'm a hundred per cent sure that she's dying to know how I'm doing. "I know we've made a lot of progress with the essay. I think we should give it another read and see if there's anything we want to change or if are we leaving everything as is and just add the conclusion and then we will be ready to submit." She says looking from Oliver to Jameson."Okay. That makes sense." Jameson says and Oliver nods in agreement. Kelly opens her laptop and she starts reading what we've written so far. "Our world in black and white," Kelly says reading the title
For the first time in months, I feel like myself. That incident with Marlene brought me back to reality. She reminded me of who I was before I started dating Oliver. She reminded me how much I loved the simple things. How much I loved going to work. How I loved being invisible. I love being in my own world. I loved that I didn't pretend to be someone else to be liked by others. As a matter of fact, I didn't care what other people thought of me. I had a solid idea of who I was. I didn't need people to clap for me, I didn't need anyone to tell me that I am beautiful. My father taught me that the opinions of other people don't matter. He taught me to stand tall and stand by what I say and what I do. He would remind me every day that the world would try to break me. All I had to do was be true to myself and I would survive. When Oliver and I started dating I got swept up by the whimsy of the moment. I forgot who I was. Suddenly I cared way too much what people that were looking at him
I walk into Ms Swan's class and everyone stares at me. I stand up tall and look at all of them with my chin up in the air. I'm not afraid of any of them. They can stare at me all they want. There's nothing they'll do or say that will hurt me any further. I walk to my seat and sit down. I can feel everyone's eyes on me. The room is deathly silent. I bet they were expecting me to cower, and hide myself. I won't be doing that anymore. Anyone that has something to say to me must face me head-on. They must confront me. I don't care. "Okay, class. Please settle down" Ms Swan says and everyone sits down. "I wanted to remind you that there are two days left before your due date for our assignment." She says and murmurs erupt in the class. "I don't want to hear it. You had enough time to prepare. You were working in groups. So whatever excuse you have. Save it!" She says her voice stern. "What if we need more time. You know to make sure that we..." "I don't want to hear anything about ex
At lunch break Kelly and I are sitting at our table. She hands me half of her sandwich and I give her half of my fruit bowl. We look at each other and smile."Do I get a share of the lunch?" Oliver says sitting at our table. He places his lunch box with a thud and I see his hand reaching for my half of Kelly's sandwich."What am I going to eat?" I ask as he takes a huge bite. He shrugs and then he hands me his lunch box."Well, there goes the tastiest sandwich you will never have," Kelly says laughing at me.How is that funny?" I ask opening the lunch box."What's that funny?" Jameson says sitting opposite Kelly"What you did in Ms Swan's class," Kelly says and we all stare at Jameson"What the hell was that?" I ask still shocked. He didn't tell us he was going to do that. We gave him our assignments to submit on the due date, not on a random Tuesday."We were done with the assignment. I didn
"Jameson. Here is your group's assignment. Graded that is." Ms Swan says as we walk into the class. I look at the paper and then at her. What does she mean it's graded? Today is the due date. She still has days to go before we grade it. "I got curious and read through it." She says in response to our shocked faces. "And I wasn't disappointed." She says when I sit down in my seat."Yo!" Jameson says excitedly when she sees the grade on the right-hand corner of the paper."What the hell?" Oliver says high high-fiving Jameson when he too sees the grade. He places the paper on my table and my jaw drops in shock at the number there. 98? I can't believe it, she gave us an amazing mark."I told you guys this thing was gold," Kelly says smiling at me."Very good indeed." ms Swan says when the rest of the class walks in. Marlene enters last. Everyone looks at her the room silent. She doesn't take English with us so I can understand th
3 Days Later"Can I ask you something?" Ryo asks looking up at me. We're lying on the grass in the school garden. She's on her back, her head on my lap. I look down at her and nod. "What would you rather not have, toilet paper or washing soap?" She asks her question randomly. I look at her trying to figure out what brought that on."I would rather..." I say and then I pause to think about it. I can't imagine a life without either but if I had to choose."Toilet paper." I say and she stares at me appalled."What?" She asks laughing. "You would rather go without wiping your butt?" She asks whispering the last three words."Yes. I can't imagine not having bath soap." I say she shakes her head at my comment."I could never walk around with remnants of my private activities. If you know what I mean" She says and I laugh."I didn't say I would walk around with poop in my but," I say and she makes a face. "I'd use
"What do you mean you missed the deadline, Marlene?" My mother screams looking at me like she doesn't know me. I knew she was going to freak out if I didn't do my school work but I didn't think it would be this bad. She's acting like I already failed. This is just one part of my English grade, I can make it up with other assignments.But that's not the reason she's mad at me, is it? She's mad because I broke a promise I made to her and Dad.After my breakup with Oliver, I fell into a terrible space. I wasn't interested in going to school, doing assignments or going outside really. All I wanted to do was hide. As a result, my schoolwork suffered. I almost failed my grade. My parents were not happy. They didn't understand why I let a boy take over my life. They didn't understand why "I would let a boy ruin my life?:"It took a while for me to back to myself but I did it eventually. I found the strength to get up, get my mind right and save
It's the morning after my mother went off on me. She decided I'm grounded and she's taking all of my privileges away. That means I don't have a credit card, no allowance and no car unless I have to go to school.I am fuming, how did I get back here? All of the loss and pain I felt when Oliver and I broke up came over me. I can't believe I let him mess me up like this again. I hate him so much. Why am I being punished for his decisions? My mother was so mad that she didn't want to hear any of my explanations.I drive into the school parking lot and already regret why I'm here. I don't think I can take being in this place anymore. The messed up part is that I can't skip classes because my parents are going to kill me. As soon as I go missing from any classes my father will know and there will be hell to pay.I bring my car to a stop and sigh. I know I can do this. All I have to do is get through eight hours of smiling and talking to p