My Sweet Fracture.
One;
Like a deer in headlights I won't know what hit me.
(Running From Lions-All Time Low)
Sixteen year old Craig Manning stomped his way down the stairs with the cordless phone in hand. His girlfriend, Ashley Kerwin was supposed to call at seven a.m. Toronto time. However, it's almost nine thirty and it's been radio silent. Much like Ashley has been since she left for England four days ago. He rounded the corner and sat the phone down on the nearest table. When he wasn't writing music for Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh, or waiting for Ashley to call, he found new friendship in Ellie Nash. She was Ashley's best friend and his current rock while Ashley was away. But he couldn't rely on her forever.
He sat the phone down on the closest table and looked into the kitchen. For a brief moment, he could've sworn the red headed girl standing at the sink was Ellie until she turned around with a cup in her hand. She was taller and had lighter red hair as opposed to Ellie. His step sister, Angie was laughing as she paraded around the kitchen and there was no sign of Joey. Which means, this was the new babysitter for Angie.
She seemed surprised, she raised her eyebrows and sat the cup down on the counter, "Uh, hi. Um, I'm Veronica and you must be Craig. Joey mentioned you,"
"That was cool of him."
She walked over to the counter and picked up a ticket and handed it to Craig, "A girl came by this morning. She said she didn't have time to call and to give this to you when I seen you and that she's sorry," Veronica watched him carefully as he eyed the ticket she just handed him. "I didn't know if you were awake or even here so..."
To be fair, Craig felt disappointed that Ellie had bailed on the local show. Maybe something came up, maybe he was starting to cling to her too much.
"Angie, go upstairs and get dressed for dance. I'll take you for lunch after and your dad should be home by then," Veronica instructed her, she could barely finish what she was saying before Angie started to race to her room.
"I can come along if you'd like," Craig offered, his day was clearly not going as planned anyway, "I mean, I have the next few days off."
Veronica smiled, "Sure, I could definitely use the company, some of those moms are intimidating."
Angie made her way downstairs, "I'm ready!"
The three made their way to the door, Angie made sure to tell Craig how excited she was that he was coming. Once settled into Veronica's black Audi S4, she handed Craig a big CD case and told him to look through it and put in one that stuck out to him. Veronica turned on the car, pulled away from the curb and headed towards the dance studio.
Craig liked what he found in the CD case, there was mostly mixed CDs with big girly writing scribbled all over with flowers, hearts, etc, but also had works from the likes of Green Day, Nirvana, Blink-182, Taking Back Sunday, and Brand New. He closed his eyes and selected one of the mixed CDs by random, excited by what he would hear.
A Sum 41 song was the first to play, Craig found himself smiling as she drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel. Angie chatted about her dance teacher and her friends she would see, mostly trying to catch Craig up on what he's missed while he was working.
"Alright, Ang, I'll get you checked in and I'll be sitting in the same place as Wednesday," Veronica said as she pulled into the parking lot. She quickly found a space, put it in park, and shut off the car before rushing Angie and Craig into the dance studio. Once inside, Angie hurried into her class while Veronica and Craig checked her in at the front desk. The front desk lady gave them the okay and pointed them towards the viewing area which was just a room with a few vending machines and two sets of small bleachers that faced a window that looked into Angie's classroom.
"Thanks for keeping me company," Veronica lightly nudged him, "at least I will have one familiar face once school starts up."
Craig chuckled, "Yeah, Degrassi can definitely be...interesting, but you can count on me."
They chose to sit at the top of the first set of bleachers, it wasn't as full as the others.
She raised her eyebrows at him, "Seriously?"
"Yeah, you're not too bad," he poked her side.
He felt completely at ease with her, granted they had only met an hour and a half ago, it seemed right. He wasn't upset that Ellie bailed, he no longer cared that Ashley had forgotten his existence while in England, he felt at home for the first time in weeks. He didn't want that feeling to go away.
Veronica laughed, "I don't know if I should be offended or not."
He smiled, "So, since I have that extra ticket now, would you want to go to the concert with me?It starts at eight so..."
Veronica smiled and nodded, "I'd love that."