A/N: For those of you who aren't into this story yet, I decided to rewrite the first chapter. And yes, I know that this is a high school fic and I know it's the worse kind. But mine actually works, I think. It's not just a corny love story in my opinion, it's more than that. It's been a popular story for over three years now, so please just give it a chance. I hope you like it and will read through the rest of the story. Whatever you do, please leave a review!
Disclaimer: They're mine, they're mine... no. Not yet.
Warning: I'm not a native English speaker, I'm Dutch. (Seriously.)


The Young Troubled

Chapter 1 - Abby Wyczenski

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------ Biological class - 10:00

With no doubt, I am the richest boy at school. I'm popular because I direct in the school theatre and because of the house I live in. Lots of girls want my attention, but the majority is simple and naïve and just hope to be invited to my house. So, at school I had nothing to worry about. But at home, everything had changed since last year. Bobby, my older brother, had died from leukemia. It screwed up the relationship of my parents, and money won't be able to fix it. Dad disappeared to England for business, and mom had turned into a cold stone. When Bobby died, the school was in shock, but after a month or two, things were getting back to normal. But not at home. I'd been avoiding home more and more and would visit Gamma as often as I could.

I avert my gaze from the window to Watkins, my biology teacher, and try to pay attention for what he's saying.

"Where's Abby people? I haven't seen her in class for the last four days. Does anyone know if there's something going on?"

"She's sick," tells one of the girls behind me.

"For four days?"

"She has the flu. I called her yesterday."

"Okay, but she does need a partner for the upcoming project. Carter, what about your partner?"

"A partner…?" I asked confused. What partner?

"A partner for the upcoming project. A presentation about DNA and RNA, that's your subject, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, ah… No, I haven't found a partner yet."

"Good, than you go with Abby Wyczenski. As you might have missed during your day dream, she is sick, so you might give her a call to arrange things. Your presentation is in two weeks."

"Okay," I nod and write her name, as far as I know how to spell it correctly, down on a piece of paper.

"And you might give her the excercises for Friday as well."

"I don't know where she lives…" I mumble and turn around to face Jackie, the girl who called her four days ago.

"I'll do it," she says and smiles at me.

"I think John is the right person to do it, they need to talk about their presentation anyway," Mr. Watkins answers and at me.

I sigh and get up to get the stencils from Watkins's desk. Who is this girl?

------ Abby's place - 15:00

I keep trying to remember Abby Wyczenski, but I really don't know who she is... Maybe it's that girl who's never in class, that's the only one I can think of. This should be it...

I'm standing in front of a not too big, not too small house. A little nervous I ring the doorbell and play with the stencils in my hand.

No one answers. Not wanting to be rude, I wait. Still nothing.

I ring again and suddenly think to see the face of a girl behind the window on the left, but it's gone before I even can look.
So she's home, but not planning to open the door? Nice...
A little pissed I turn around and head to their mailbox, but for some reason it's closed with duck tape.

"I'll take it," I suddenly hear the voice of a young boy behind me, playing with a basketball.

"You live here?" I ask him.

"Yeah, I'm Eric. My sister is inside."

"Is Abby your sister?"

"Yeah. Aren't you a Carter?"

"I'm sorry, yes, I'm John Carter."

"Nice tie," he smirks and observes my clothing.

"Yeah, well, will you give this to her? It's for school."

"Why don't you give it to her?"

"Because she doesn't open the door for me." I smile uncomfortable and look at the house.

He laughs and throws the basketball to me. Due to the stencils in my hand I miss it.

"Nice," he smirks.

"Sorry," I mumble and take another look at the mailbox. "So why is this thing taped?"

He shrugs and looks to the ground. "My mother did that..."

His mother? "Oh..." I answer.

"So, you're rich right?" Eric asks when he runs after the ball.

"My grandparents have some money, yes."

"I heard that you guys are millionaires."

Millionaires? If that's the gossip than I'll be okay. Good that they don't know how much it actually is.

He throws the ball again and this time I catch, and with a triumphantic look on my face I score in the net on the wall behind him.

"Yeah yeah, guess you can do everything."

"Is eh, Abby sick?"

"Why?"

"She hasn't been in class for a while, Jackie told me that she's sick."

"Then she's sick." It looks like he wants to avoid any other questions.

"I guess..."


God, I hope he won't ask anything else. Eric always manages to screw things up. I need to get him inside, I don't want that Carter to know what's going on here. Luckily they both didn't notice that I opened the frontdoor a little so I'm now able to see and hear what they're doing. What stencils are that anyway?

"But will you give this to Abby?" Carter asks him.

"Why? She's standing right there," Eric smirks and points at me.

Oh fuck. Screw you Eric! I show him my middlefinger but realize that it's too late.

"Abby...?" I see Carter taking some steps towards me. He still can't see anything else than my eyes.

"Yeah Abby, open up!" Eric shouts nagging and throws the ball against the door what makes it fly open. Great, here I am.


Stunned I look at the fragile girl in the doorway. Her brown eyes give Eric a furious look but as soon as I look at her she stares away. So that's Abby...
Long brown hair, loose around her shoulders. Big black sweater and light blue jeans. She doesn't look really sick to me. She's actually quite pretty.

"Hi," I start and walk up to her.

"Hi," she answers and pulls her hair behind her ear.

"I'm John Carter, we're in Biology class together."

"I'm eh, Abby," she stutters and shakes my hand loosely.

"I heard that you're sick, and Mr. Watkins decided that we're eh, partners for the presentations."

"Presentations?" Two big shocked eyes look at me.

"Well, yeah... About eh, DNA and RNA. Watkins gave us that subject."

"Right...," she mutters and takes the stencils out of my hand.

"That's for Friday," I tell her and look at her while she observes the excersises. She really is beautiful, different than the other girls at school.

"Okay," is all she says and looks at Eric. "I'm sorry that he bothered you... He's young."

"No, it's okay." I smile and try to see the inside of the house, knowing that she won't let me in. "So, will you be at school Friday?"

"I'm not sure, I'm not feeling eh... I'm not feeling so well," she answers shyly and coughs a very fake cough.

"Oh, that sounds pretty bad," I try to sound serious but she smiles.

"I'm not really sick, I just need to... get some things straight," she blushes and scratches her head.

"Oh, that's fine too."

"Just don't tell anyone." She sounds nervous, scared almost.

"I won't."

"Okay, bye then," and then she almost closes the door.

"Wait! Don't we need to set a date to prepare the presentation?!" I ask but I'm already too late. I look around the neighbourhood but Eric is gone as well.
Never mind, I'm going home.


I peek through the window and see him walking away. That wasn't so nice of me, but I just don't want anyone in here. I turn around to the living room. It's a mess. I put the stencils down on the table and start cleaning up, thinking about how I'm going to handle it this time. Because it used to be a combination that worked. I had friends at school, but never took them home. But after a year or two, my friends began to ask questions. Boys wanted to bring me home, girls wanted to see my room, and so on. At the time things were going horribly wrong with my mother. She was off her medication and tried to kill herself more often than not. I started to skip school to take care of Eric and slowly began to lose my friends. I didn't care.

Eric is my little brother. His friends neither visit our house. I always tell them to go to the park or play on the streets. He always does, because he knows that his mother wouldn't be able to handle it. Actually, our 'mother' wasn't able to handle anything. She'd been bipolar since I can remember and that was the reason for nothing to work out the way it should at home.

If she gets off her medication, and she is more often off it than taking it, she'll do all kinds of screwed up stuff. She'll get drunk, try to kill herself, yell at us or chase ut with knives… It's pretty messed up. One day she tried to burn the house down but a neighbour was able to prevent it. And if things are really getting out of control, she just disappears. Sometimes with a guy, sometimes without, I don't know, and to be honest, I stopped caring. When she's gone, it's just me and Eric. And it's like that most of the time.

------ John's place - 19:00

"So, why did you come home late after school?" Mom asks as soon I sit down at the dinner table.

"I had to bring stencils to a girl from biology class," I answer without looking at her and pour in a glass of water.

"Really? What's her name?"

"Abby..." I reply. "Abby Wyczenski."

"Wyczenski?" Mom asks surprised and gives me a shocked look.

"Yes mom, why?" I answer irritated.

"Nothing, nothing," She shakes her head and puts her serviette on her lap.

"Come on mom," I say. "Are they what, not rich enough?"

"I'm not saying that. Is she Maggie Wyczenski's daughter?"

"Don't know, could be."

"Was her mother home?"

"No," I answer impatient. It's always like this when I meet someone new.

"Was there anything...strange?" The look in her eyes has changed from shocked to worried.

"Well, the mailbox was taped, but it looked old. Broken maybe, I don't know," I mumble.

"Unbelievable, I need to call Miranda." Oh God, of course. Miranda lives in our street and plays tennis with my mom. They discuss everything together and when Miranda's around, they always gossip.

"So you can gossip about her mother?" I ask annoyed.

"We don't gossip, we discuss the neighbourhood."

"Whatever," I mumble and put some potatoes on my plate.

"John, they arrested her because she was making such a scene out there, truly unbelievable; screaming and scratching the security because she had no money to pay her wodka, never seen something so impertinent."

Here we go. "How do you know that's Abby's mother?" I ask reluctantly and move on to the vegetables. "That's how gossips start around here. You just keep making things bigger and bigger until it becomes a whole new story."

"John, I'm pretty sure it was her. That family… Well, it's not good for you." She looks disgusted really.

"Mom! PLEASE! Come on! Abby didn't do anything wrong. Watkins asked me to work with her, so what that her mother got arrested. It wasn't Abby. Can we just please have dinner now?" I'm starting to get really agitated.

Mom's quiet for a moment. "John, I'm just trying to protect you."

"I don't NEED your protection!" I suddenly burst out and get up. I hate it when she does this.

"Sit down John."

I sigh. "Mom. Stop this. Stop this OK?"

Mom just stares at her plate and waits for me to sit down. Reluctantly I do and begin to eat in silence. Well, as long as mom around, we won't be able to prepare our presentation in here, I think. And honestly, what mom just told me does scare me a little bit. If that's really Abby's mother, would she be in jail? Would that be the reason that Abby wasn't at school? I tell myself not to worry about that too much. We have plenty of time to prepare and I'm not even sure that woman is Abby's mother. And if she's still not at school by the end of the week, I'll go there again.


Thanks for reading.

(Preview for next chapter: The end of the week approaches and Abby is still 'sick,' what will happen when our dearest Carter is polite enough to go there again?)

Please let me know what you think, I really appreciate it. Thank you.