I'm in love with Noah Foster's character so this story was born! I hope you guys like it!
I didn't know who my father was until I was twelve years old and didn't meet him until I moved in with him when I was sixteen. I would've been content never meeting the man who walked out before I was born, but fate had a different idea. Mom was coming home from a girls' weekend in Aspen when her car hit black ice and collided with a tree head on, dying before she got to the hospital.
After the funeral, I was shipped out to Lakewood, California to live with my father and his new family. I guess he could have one with another woman –mom and I just weren't good enough. I'm sure he loved that I was coming to live with him, the mistake he wished he could forget coming into his new, perfect life. He couldn't hide that we were related now, he was the only relative I had left and the only option I had to avoid foster care for the next two years.
Lakewood, California was a small town where everyone knew each other for their entire lives. It was suburbia, with the exception of a couple sporadic mansion-sized houses. My father happened to be one of the people that owned a mansion, a shock to me because I had no idea he had that kind of money. I guess that's what happens when a man is a mystery for most of your life. Mom didn't try to get child support from him, she always said it was too difficult and I didn't push the subject.
My room was on the second floor across from his other daughter's. She was fourteen and the cliché, spoiled girl from every movie I've ever seen. She had everything she ever wanted and more, but that was nothing compared to his sixteen year old son. He was the biggest asshole I've ever met, the true definition of fuckboy. I've been here two days and already seen him sneak three different girls out of the house. The two of them completely ignored my existence constantly.
My dad tried to talk to me a couple times, but I kept all my answers short and to the point. I was never rude to anyone, I was just less than welcoming. They were as upset with my presence as I was with theirs, I'm sure. I was the daughter tarnishing their sparkling reputation. The quicker I got out of their hair, the better for everyone involved.
School was an interesting ordeal for me. I'd been with the same kids my entire life so jumping into a new pool was weird. These kids grew up together and I was the weird new kid trying to find my place among them. I guess it was helpful that I wasn't the only transfer kid, Kieran Wilcox was a lot more mysterious than me so most of the attention was on him.
Unfortunately, the first day I walked in, all eyes were on me and it was terrifying. Then Kieran walked in and they moved to him and stayed there, making the iron grip around my lungs loosen. My locker was beside a girl named Audrey Jensen's and she and I became fast friends. Along with her best friend Noah Foster, I actually had people to sit with at lunch and walk to class with.
The three of us fell into an awkward but compatible friendship that I was more than grateful for. The last thing I wanted was to be the weird outcast girl without friends. I was already the pariah of my house, I'd hate to be the one at school too. Noah even voluntarily came to pick me up for school every morning because he lived a few blocks away.
I came downstairs Tuesday morning and saw the family sitting down for breakfast. They didn't wait for me to come down to start and figured they didn't want me to join. I quietly went to the door and waited on the step for Noah's Nissan to pull into the driveway. The second he did, I jogged to the passenger side and shut the door behind me.
"Morning going that good?" he asked, smirking at my dramatics as he backed out.
"There's was a family breakfast like I was on an episode of Full House," I groaned, sitting my backpack by my feet in the floorboard and putting on my seatbelt. "Needless to say, I wasn't invited."
I expected him to start rambling about me thinking too much about things, but he didn't. Instead of taking the turn to school, he kept going straight and pulled into the McDonald's drive thru. What was this kid doing?
"Foster, what are you doing?" I asked, looking at him with pursed lips.
"Getting us breakfast…duh!" he replied like it was obvious. "Can't send you to school hungry, wouldn't be humane."
I fussed with him about it, but he just shushed me and ordered two sausage McMuffins for us with hashbrowns. I huffed and focused on my phone. I got on Facebook and saw a link reappearing all over my timeline, clicking on it and waiting. Imagine my surprise when Audrey popped up on the screen making out with some random girl in a car. It didn't look like she was aware she was being filmed and my stomach started knotting up, this wasn't going to end well.
"Noah!" I exclaimed, hitting his shoulder and almost causing him to spill orange juice all over the guy in the window. "Holy shit! Have you seen this?!"
"What? Me almost giving that guy a bath in vitamin c?" he exclaimed, sitting the juice down before pulling out of the drive thru. "I bought you breakfast and you almost get me beat up? That's not a very good thank you."
Instead of zinging him back, I held the phone out in front of his face. He took my wrist in his hand and moved it back until he could see the video on the screen. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened –I guess he hadn't seen the video either. By the look of things, he also didn't know Audrey was into girls...that made two of us.
"We don't say anything unless she brings it up. Agreed?" he asked, locking eyes with me after he paused the video.
I nodded my head and locked my phone. "Agreed."
We were talking about the Hitchcock marathon on TV last night when the hallway went silent. I glanced over at the main doors and saw Audrey standing there. A look of sheer panic crossed her face before it was immediately covered with her cool and collected mask.
She leisurely walked over to us, trying to look as normal as possible. The people staring immediately dissolved into whispers and I knew they'd all seen the video. I couldn't imagine what Audrey felt right now, the whole world knew her secret. A secret Noah didn't even know and he was her absolute best friend.
"Ah, the lady of the hour," Noah announced, making me slap the back of his head.
"Today is going to suck exceptionally hard," she replied, wincing at all the whispers.
"Why? It's taco Tuesday," I said, trying to keep up the façade of we hadn't seen the video. "You LOVE taco Tuesday."
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Come on, the two of you suck at playing coy. Let it out."
"Seriously? The socially awkward catholic school film geek is your lesbian lover, and I have to find out on YouTube?" Noah asked. Then he wrapped her arm around my shoulders and added, "That's how we have to find out?"
So that was the girl Audrey was making out with! I'd heard random tidbits about Rachel Murray around school but never from Audrey herself. The girl was apparently really weird and awkward with no friends…but I didn't know her.
"I call best friend foul," she replied, holding up her hands in a surrender motion. "I didn't make the video."
I knew I wasn't entitled to know everything about her life, I've only been here this year. I don't know how long she and Noah have been friends just that it's a lot longer than us. Noah's arm was still around my shoulders, but I didn't say anything about it –despite the butterflies fluttering around.
Noah was actually really cute, when you got around his weird obsession with serial killers. He would do stuff like buy me breakfast or listen to me complain about my family problems on the phone at two am. I guess to him it was just what friends did for each other, but I've never had friends like that before. It was pretty safe to say I'd developed a little crush on him…but I hadn't breathed a word of it to anyone.
Noah laughed and squeezed my shoulder before dropping his arm. "Yeah, lack of production value made that pretty clear to us."
"Yeah, way too shaky for an Audrey Jensen film," I added, winking at her playfully.
"But if we could just move right on back to the whole lesbian thing…" Noah asked, waggling his eyebrows before leaning back against the lockers with me.
Audrey's hands flew up in a stopping motion and quickly said, "Okay, not a lesbian, not discussing it!"
The lull in our conversation let the outside into our little circle. People were still whispering about Audrey like she wasn't here to hear it. I couldn't believe people were being so rude, even if we were in high school. It was ridiculously immature. Someone even pointed out where she was standing to make it more obvious they were talking about her.
"And that's your choice, but can we do anything to help you?" I asked, reaching out and giving her hand a reassuring squeeze before letting it drop when someone snickered.
"Can you get the video taken down?" she asked hopefully –mostly looking at Noah, resident tech wizard.
"Well, it's already been yanked, probably flagged for content or something," he replied. "I tried tracing it when Gwen and I got to school but the email from the link is just a dummy account."
"Thanks for trying," she said, wrapping an arm around each of our necks and hugging us close.
"Screw everybody and there stupid opinions," I replied. "I still think you're rad, even if you might like girls that are super artsy and catholic."
"You're such a doofus," she said, pushing my shoulder playfullly.
Class let out and I saw Noah's lanky body weaving through the crowd in the hallway to get to me. We had English with Audrey next and usually met up to walk there together. He smiled when he saw me and my stomach did strange things, but I pushed that down.
We walked into the classroom together and sat in our usual seats. Audrey was already in hers with a couple people staring like she was an art exhibit. I rolled my eyes, lesbians were a normal part of life –but by all means let's stare holes into the poor girl.
"Cavemen made fires. Those fires cast shadows and those shadows created fear," Mr. Branson said, drawing everyone's attention to him in the front of the classroom. "Men have been obsessed with scaring each other ever since."
"Brooke, would you please tell us which genre originated with The Castle of Oranto?" he asked, noting that she was talking to Jake Fitzgerald instead of listening to his lecture.
She looked up at him leisurely and smiled, "The castle genre?"
Noah snorted before he replied, "The Gothic genre."
"Thank you, Noah," Mr. Branson said, smirking at Brooke before going back to addressing the whole class. "Guys, look, I get it. Nobody wants to sit around reading 500 dusty pages about monks and curses, but nobody's forcing you to watch The Walking Dead."
"Is The Walking Dead on the midterm?" Jake asked, his eyes shining with hope and making me role mine yet again.
"Zombies aren't literature, Jake," Riley laughed, making Noah's eyebrows raise and his body lean forward to get closer to her.
Oh, did I not mention that he's totally in love with Riley Marra? The smartest girl at George Washington High that also happened to be gorgeous and more popular than anyone had a right to be. It wasn't even fair because the girl was actually kind of nice, especially compared to Nina and Brooke –resident dragon ladies.
"Why not?" the new kid, Kieran, asked. "George Romero, Horace Walpole, it's all the same bones."
"Or rotting flesh," Noah added with a smile.
"Kieran's right, Gothic genre is all over television right now," Mr. Branson replied. "You have American Horror Story, you have Bates Motel, Hannibal."
"What about Texas Chainsaw or Halloween?" Riley asked.
"Those are actually slasher movies," I replied, making people look at me curiously. "You can't exactly make a slasher movie into a TV series…"
"Gwen's right, it wouldn't be logical. You know the girl and her friends arrive at the dance, the camp, the deserted town, whatever; killer takes them out one by one," Noah said, taking up where I trailed off. "90 minutes later, the sun comes up as survivor girl's sitting in the back of the ambulance watching her friends' bodies being wheeled past covered in sheets on stretchers."
"Slasher movies burn too bright and too fast to ever be stretched out into a successful TV show," I finished, returning Noah's smile when he flashed it at me.
"You know, by the time the first body's found, it's only a matter of time before the bloodbath commences."
Before anyone could reply to Noah's macabre statement, the PA system crackled to life. "Students, I'm sure most of you have received news of the recent death of Nina Patterson. Classes are dismissed, everyone is to line up in the lobby for their turn with the grief counselors."
Nina Patterson was dead?! I mean, I didn't like the girl, but she didn't deserve to die! I looked over at her group of friends and didn't really see any devastation. I saw some confusion, but that was it. That kind of made sense, I was in shock when the state trooper told me about my mom. Then I had a total meltdown at the funeral and broke four vases and a podium, but that's not the point. Grief wasn't everyone's automatic emotion when something tragic happened, sometime it took a while.
"Well, class, do as Principal Showalter says," Mr. Branson said, stepping back behind his desk and allowing us to leave the classroom. "I'm here if anyone needs to talk about anything, I'll see you all tomorrow."
I felt a hand touching mine and glanced down to see Noah's fingers sliding into the spaces between mine. I glanced up and saw him looking around for Audrey. He just grabbed my hand without thinking, it was just a friendly gesture and nothing more. Don't think too much into it, Gwen, it never ends well.
"So the wicked witch is finally dead?" Audrey asked, falling into step with us on my other side. "Is it time for the munchfolk to rejoice?"
I just shrugged as Noah sat in one of the chairs in the lobby. Audrey eyed our hands with raised brows, but she didn't ask any questions. I perched on the table on his left while she sat on the one on his right. Noah's hand was still holding mine loosely like he didn't realize he was doing it. Then Riley and the other popular kids sat down in the free chairs and he dropped it like a hot potato. Damn, that kind of hurt a little.
"This Wi-Fi sucks," Jake complained like he didn't even notice we were sitting here too. "The cops aren't saying much either."
"Her mom found the body," Brooke supplied, not even bothering to keep her voice hushed. "Apparently the victim of foul play."
"That's not enough, I need gory details," Jake said, making Brooke scoff and slap his chest with the back of her hand.
One of the office assistants walked by and Noah asked, "Excuse me, ma'am, why am I here?"
"That's the "mandatory" part of mandatory grief counseling," she replied sassily.
"No, but seriously, I feel shock, mild interest, but not grief," he replied pointlessly.
Jake spoke again, loud enough for us all to hear. "One of Nina's neighbors tweeted that her throat was sliced ear to ear. The press is all over this, they're playing the whole "Brandon James is back" angle."
"Brandon James is dead," Riley said dismissively.
I raised my eyebrows curiously and asked, "Who's Brandon James?"
"He killed a bunch of kids 20 years ago, cut up some others," Noah explained, then showed me his phone. "This is him."
"Emma's dad got stabbed," Jake said, still lacking the ability to be subtle in the slightest. "He almost died."
Emma and Will weren't with the others, I figured they were off "comforting" each other somewhere else. I've only been here part of a semester and knew they were going to get married. They were totally the "it" couple, the one that was too strong to be broken.
"Brandon had proteus syndrome, like the elephant man," Noah continued like he hadn't been interrupted. "People say he was born a monster, but I think he was bullied and beaten into one."
"And you know all this why…?" Brooke asked, looking down her nose at Noah.
"I don't know; some people like sports, I like serial killers," he shrugged, no embarrassment in his tone. "And Brandon James is my Dallas Cowboys.
"He was a classic case of the deformed kid who lived in the shed. Mom homeschooled him, dad was ashamed of him. His older brother, Troy, was the only one who cared about him. Whenever he went out, he wore a post-op surgical mask," Noah continued. "They tried to fix his face a few times, never really worked."
"What made him start killing people?" Riley asked curiously.
"Rumor is he fell in love, his brother said Brandon was obsessed. Wrote her anonymous love letters, made her little carvings," Noah explained. "Brandon found her at the Halloween dance and got up the nerve to talk to her. Then a bunch of drunk jocks jumped him, they thought they were saving her from a monster. After a lifetime of taking it, something in Brandon snapped, killed five students by the time he was done.
"The manhunt ended at Wren Lake, the girl agreed to meet him. Nobody ever knew who she was."
"The wicked witch of the east is throwing a vigil party for the wicked witch of the west and I got an invite," Audrey said, flopping down on the couch by me as Noah placed comic books on the shelves.
"Brooke's throwing a rager and her friend just died? That's evil, even for her," I remarked, placing my feet on the table in front of me. "Isn't it supposed to be a prayer thing for Nina's "friends"?"
"Are you honestly surprised? Those hyenas would do anything to get drunk and dry hump each other in slightly dark corners of Brooke's living room," Audrey replied, placing her feet like mine.
"The real question is how do you know about the party?" Noah asked, coming up and leaning on the couch behind us.
"I actually got an invite from the social circle itself," she replied coolly, but I pushed her foot with mine and she told the whole truth. "Emma felt sorry for me because of my softcore porn debut and invited me."
"Are you going to go?" I asked, pulling out my trigonometry book and starting on my homework.
"Not a snowball's chance in hell," she said, slapping palms with me before getting her own trig book and working on the same homework.
"Hey, guys, don't jump to conclusions. It's not every day we get invited to the cool kids' parties," Noah argued, rushing back over to us. "Don't make too hasty a decision…"
If you liked this, maybe drop a review and tell me what you think.