Welcome to Rydale High! The new school year is beginning and everything changes. New kid and resident bad boy Christian is stirring things up, Sammy's still in denial dating Abigail, Kat's not so sure about this whole popularity thing and poor Tara, all she wants is a friend. This year she'll get more than she ever bargained for, but is she ready to learn how to fly?
He always said she was as good as gold.
And he can see no reason
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?
Tell me why?
I don't like Mondays.
I Don't Like Mondays – The Boomtown Rats
It was the Monday to end all Mondays. The Boomtown Rats couldn't have voiced her objection to Mondays more explicitly; she really didn't like Mondays, not one bit. This particular Monday didn't go as planned either.
It actually started off quite like any other school day. Except perhaps, for the fact that it was the first day of the last year of the Hell she called liked to call school, and that her stepbrother Sammy, had only alerted her to her tardy predicament when he woke her up by unapologetically slamming the large wooden door of their huge stone mansion behind him on his dash to school.
Needless to say that the banana she scoffed for breakfast on the run did nothing to help her mood which plummeted further when she glanced at the reflection of an office building and noticed her thick auburn locks trailing in the wind behind her while she ran. Thanking her lucky stars she had an elastic wrapped around her wrist, she tried to pull her hair into a semi-respectable pony tail as per school decorum when her elastic snapped. A loud expletive could be heard from three blocks away and she reddened in embarrassment from her slip of the tongue, thankful nobody was around to hear it.
Tara rarely used swearwords these days if she could help it. Her step-father abhorred the use of such words from a 'young ladies uncivilised mouth' he would say, and so Tara tried to keep it to a minimum. For the last year and a half she had come up with creative words in the place of her more unsavoury ones, but she found it was extremely hard to kick the habit completely.
Her Dad had a particular profanity to letting a great big gigantic swear word rip, and she could quite clearly remember the time she dropped her Dad's hand crafted barre on her foot while practising ballet in the back shed. She had let out a stream of words that would have easily made a sailors cheeks turn a gorgeous shade of pink and heard a tremendous deep rumbling of a laugh behind her. She realised her Dad had heard the whole thing! Expecting him to berate and ground her, he instead wore a large beaming smile and clapped her on the back before retreating out of the shed with a "That's my girl!" thrown over his shoulder. She supposed it was this memory of him among others that always made her feel better when she let out an aggressive stream of profanities.
Shaking her father from her thoughts and the tears that threatened to fall if she didn't stop reminiscing, Tara slung her hair back with the navy blue ribbon that was meant to adorn her head at all times while at school. The blue of the ribbon matched the blue and white checked dress and navy blazer that told the world she went to Rydale Secondary College perfectly. The uniform was topped with a wide brimmed sun hat which reminded her of the old cowboy ones she constantly wore back at the farm and was completed with white knee high socks and black closed toe sandals which severely impacted on her sprinting ability in the race against the bell.
She was just rounding the last corner, the school coming into sight and a quick glance at her watch told her she had a few minutes to spare before the first warning bell would sound.
It all happened in slow motion.
Years down the track Tara would look back at this moment as the catalyst for the best, and worst things in her life to come. Years later she would wonder if she ever had the opportunity would she take it all back, the moment that set off a change of events so full of pain, emotions and heartache. But she knew she never could, not when despite all of the hurt it had brought her true happiness, true friendships and the kind of love she always dreamt about.
Present Tara had no such perspective, and so when a blurred mess of black and blue hurled into her at top speed sending her sprawled along the ground, legs splayed, head looking dazed up at the sky and the contents of her book bag strewn around her she had no trouble letting off a small groan of "For fucks sake" out from her mouth.
If the assailant had heard her they didn't show it. "Geez, watch where you're going will you!" a low male voice spoke.
The sound reverberated around Tara's head making it sound like the boy was shouting directly through her ear canal.
"Keep it down" she sighed, wincing as she brought herself into an upright sitting position, her legs in front and left hand supporting from behind. "I'm fairly sure you should be the one apologising for bowling over a poor schoolgirl" she exclaimed "And now I'm definitely going to be late! Jerk!"
Stretching her legs and wiggling her toes, a skateboard rolled up and tapped at her leg, alerting her to the fact that this must have been the weapon that was causing her ankle to throb. No doubt she would have a suspiciously skateboard shaped bruise on her ankle in the morning.
The sun was blaring hard into her eyes from her angle on the ground and she was finding it difficult to see the offending person in her current state of dizziness. Tara felt for the back of her head with her free arm and immediately flinched. This one was going to hurt. Relief flooded through her at the fact that nothing else had been injured. Ms Raine would've had kittens if she turned up for class this afternoon on crutches, she didn't fancy having to perform her exam on Wednesday with an ankle in a brace or a shoulder in a sling, nor would it have done any favours for the school play auditions to be held on Friday.
Sighing with gratitude to whichever dance god had blessed her (most likely Aphrodite she thought playfully) she tuned back into the strangers voice. "...snobby schoolgirls, all the same."
"Excuse me?" Tara said, not sure if she heard right.
"I was just saying how sorry I was" the voice cut through with harsh sarcasm. "Your right, it's completely my fault and it had nothing to do with the fact that you weren't looking where you were going and had gotten in my way". The boy finished his speech and bent down next to her to pick up his skateboard.
"Yeah…well…you..." Tara stuttered. "You just bloody next time keep... arghh fruitcake!" Tara groaned, looking down at her watch while the boy held back laughter. "I'm seriously going to be late, Zach is going to have my head!" she grumbled. Without any grace, she jumped up and made quick work of gathering her books before she turned around to accost the stranger who had made her late on her first day of school.
Frustrated and angry she rose to her full height and her pointed finger collided with force on his chest. She secretly hoped he would be bruised tomorrow from it. Looking at where the offending finger was pointed, at a black zipped up hoodie she started on her famous Tara tirade.
"Well excuse me, but skateboards aren't allowed on the footpath anyway." she huffed haughtily, "I'm sure that's at least 10 violations you've crossed, maybe 11 if you include grievous bodily harm! Besides you're clearly not even that good if you can't dodge a...," she trailed off with a small hitch of her breath.
During her rant her eyes lifted towards the strangers own and startled. She felt trapped, like time had almost stood still. She'd read about moments like these in her romance novels she kept hidden under her mattress, dreamt about moments like these with Ethan and watched actress after actress become paralysed with the same level of romantic astonishment. But for her to have it played out, to feel like all the breath had been taken out of her lungs and to forget exactly what it was she was ranting about in the first place seemed too cliché even for her airheaded daydreams.
Those deep chocolate brown eyes entranced her, and she had to force her gaze to move on. A dark brown wisp of hair fluttered across his forehead while the rest of it was swept back and his lips were arranged into a condescending smirk. For one brief moment she had the strangest urge to lean forward the few centimetres they were separated by and taste those lips.
Shaking her head clear of such ridiculous thoughts and fantasies she felt another bout of dizziness pass through her which sent her legs staggering two uneasy steps to her right. Putting her hand out to what she hoped was a wall, the beautiful boys figure doubled in her vision as if mocking her. Too late to realise that her assumptions about a wall being in reaching distance were wrong, gravity took hold and closing her eyes she waited for the concrete sidewalk to take her for the second time that morning. One large arm closed around her waist and a hand slid behind her head to shield her from the oncoming meeting with Earth. She hit the ground and rolled over until she was lying on what felt like a slightly uncomfortable pillow. "I must be dead" she thought out loud.
"Well, I have to say this is a new record for me. Usually I've at least gotten a girl's name before I find her on top of me" an amused voice drawled.
Tara opened her eyes and looked down at her temporary respite from the sidewalk and flushed with embarrassment looking into his eyes and again noticing that infuriating smirk. Accompanied by her most indignant squeal she jumped off the young skater and checked herself over. Pulling her dress down and grabbing the ribbon that had obviously fallen out during her altercation. She pulled herself up with all the reassurance she could muster and stared levelly at him. He was slightly taller than her, though not by much and she lifted her head high in the air before grabbing her bag again.
Glowering at him she turned to go but not before leaving him with a brisk "You should be so lucky", turning away with all the dignity and grace she could muster from all her years of dancing. After five carefully measured and times strides she sprinted towards the school with her hair streaming out behind her and determined to put that unsavoury encounter to the back of her mind.
As Christian watched the girl in the Rydale High uniform sprint away with her hair sparkling red in the sunlight he couldn't help but murmur words which seemed to slip out unconsciously. The strange girl with the stubborn attitude and graceful composure - or not so graceful in hindsight - had sent a twinge of something he hadn't truly felt in a long time. Her smoky brown eyes had captivated him and he didn't understand why, it wasn't something he was familiar with and so he dismissed it, blaming it on feeling sorry for an obviously klutzy and ditzy girl. She was most likely a snob, a daddy's girl and a rich kid if the uniform had anything to go by. He must have just felt sorry for her is all. And he supposed he couldn't quite judge her on the uniform, he knew that better than anyone. And so as he walked towards his future, so unset, so uncertain, he removed his black hoodie, stored his skateboard in his bag and put on his crisp new navy blazer. It seemed he was going to be getting to see a lot more of this mysterious girl over the next year.
"I would be so lucky", he sighed.