CHAPTER 2

THIRTEEN YEARS OLD

PATCH

"Patch! Wait up!" I heard my favorite voice in the world shout at me. I was just putting my books in my locker when she came running down the hall. I saw her glance at the stack of folded notes in my hand.

"How many today?" She asked.

"I don't know, I haven't counted them yet." I lied knowing she would call me out on it.

"Liar." Yep, I was right. Nora was normally quiet but under it all she had a strength that people over looked. If push came to shove she would be the person to have on your side and she was honest, thoughtful and the best friend a kid could have. She didn't make many friends though, she kept mainly to herself and her girl friend Vee who did most of the talking for her. Vee was loud and hard to miss and we had an uneasy acquaintance.

"Who are they from?"

I smirked. "Four." I gave her the number of the different girls the stack of notes all folded into fancy shapes was from instead of the names like she asked for.

"That's not what I asked, Patch." Her eyes flashed.

"I know." I loved seeing her get all fired up. What can I say? Girls had discovered me and I discovered that it paid to be a 'bad boy'. I wasn't interested in my best friend any more than she was interested in me which was not at all, least not in the more than friends way, but that didn't mean we were used to each other being noticed in that way.

"You know we always walk home together so what are you so excited about that your yelling at me down the hall?" I tried to distract her.

"Scott asked me out." Her words came out in a tumble.

"What did you say?" I asked her coolly. There was no love loss between Scott and me. It was no secret that I didn't like him.

"I said yes." She looked nervous. Nora had been trying to win her dad's approval up until this year when she finally realized that she was never going to get it, now it's just my approval she cares about and honestly, I didn't approve of Scott but Nora liked him for some unknown reason.

"Nora, you don't need my approval. Do what you want, I don't care who you go out with." So long as they don't hurt you or come between us I added to myself. I had no doubts that Scott would do at least one of those and it made my stomach lurch and my fist clench.

"I know you don't like him but.." I cut her off.

"It's not that I don't like him, I don't TRUST him, not with you." I shook my head.

"Then trust me. You'll see, I like him Patch."

"I do trust you, you know that." I sighed and slammed my locker door shut ready to be done with this conversation. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah. Hey did you hear we're getting a new student tomorrow?" Nora fell into step with me. She wasn't short but she wasn't tall either like Vee was so I had to slow my pace for her to keep up. Vee was tall for a girl, not as tall as me, definitely taller than Nora.

"Yeah, fresh meat." I smirked and elbowed her. Nora laughed. I needed somebody knew to pick on. There was no guys in our school worth hanging out with but since I was popular with the girls they thought I was worth it. At one point or other I had done something to every one of them so it didn't make any sense to me that they thought I was their buddy all of a sudden. The only friend I had was Nora and that was enough for me.

"You're still grounded from skipping class last week. You can't even call those desperate girls writing you love letters." She teased me.

"Dorothea loves me, plus, what she doesn't know won't hurt her." I winked.

"You mean it won't hurt you." She rolled her eyes.

"That too." I grinned. "Are you coming over?"

"I don't know. I have homework to do and I promised to call Scott before my dad get's home."

I tried to shake off the dark cloud that rolled through me at the mention of Scott's name. He was already invading my time with Nora. She must have sensed it because she quickly glanced at me and started talking again.

"You know that if I don't get my homework done my dad is going to freak out and school pictures are this week, I don't want my face or arms bruised. Besides, you're just going to be on the phone with all those pathetic girls drawing hearts around your name on their notebooks." She wrinkled up her nose.

"Careful Nora, I might think you're jealous that girls like me. You're the one who wants to call Scott the dumb jock." I teased her while pretending to gag. Deep inside I knew that it was me that was jealous even though I had no reason to be. I was just used to her wanting to spend all of her time with me.

Nora stopped walking and turned to face me with narrowed eyes. "Should I be jealous?" She looked like she was searching my face and my eyes for an answer she was never going to get from them. I was awesome at reading people but no one could read me, not even Nora. Even at twelve years old I wore a perfect mask that never gave away what I was thinking and I was good at saying things that weren't lies but evaded answering questions. Her question caught me by surprise though which was hard for her to do since she was so easy to read.

"What do you mean?" I asked. We were friends nothing more so why would she ask if she should be jealous?

"Are you going to replace me with one of those drooling girls? They're just like Marcie all backstabbing gossipers." She huffed and I could see the storm clouds pass through her eyes at the mention of her sister's name before the steel set in a show of indifference that I could see right through.

"I'm not going to replace you, Nora, you're my Angel. You'll always be my number one." I put my arm around her and turned us, guiding her down the street again.

"Do you promise? Promise you won't let those girls come between us." Her voice held a trace of the anxiety I could tell she had. Her dad had cheated on her mom when she was pregnant with her and he had knocked his mistress up too. He told Nora's mom about his affair and that the other lady was pregnant, which was ironic since the reason he'd had the affair was that he was pissed off Nora's mom was pregnant. He was head over heels in love with her mom but he hadn't wanted to share her with any kids so in anger he had acted out and slept with his secretary and that's how Marcie came to be. Like I said, ironic. When he told Nora's mom she lost her mind, literally, and they put her in a mental hospital where she still lives. To save face her dad kept Nora and later married the secretary who was just as money hungry as he was and looking to climb the pathetic social ladder of the "upper crest". He blamed Nora for what happened to her mom instead of his actions and he never failed to tell her that. Her step-mom hated her because she looked just like her mom and was a waste of space and money that could go towards her and Marcie in her opinion. I was the only person Nora had, the only family she had and I wasn't ever going to turn my back on her or let anyone come between us. No matter what happened, Nora would be my number one priority.

"Of course I promise. I can't remember a day you weren't my best friend nothing is going to change that or take me away from you." I reassured her before trying to lighten the mood with a joke. "I can't help that I'm so full of charm that all the girls want me." I flashed her the grin I used when I was flirting, hoping to make her crack up.

"You're more harm then charm, Patch." She laughed.

"Mom and dad will be home for dinner you should come and eat with us. You know they love and miss you. It's been a week since they last got to see you." I added hoping that she wouldn't spend the whole night on the phone with Scott.

"I'll see what I can do." She smiled and I knew I had won her over. She loved my parents as much as I did and that was with everything in me. There wasn't anything not to love about my parents. They were as loving as they were successful and they were amazingly successful. I couldn't have better parents. Sure they worked a lot, too much even, but when they were home they showered me with love and attention. They knew that Nora had it rough at home, they didn't know exactly how rough, they didn't know about her frequent middle of the night sleep overs even after all these years but Nora was like the daughter they'd never been able to have. They'd tried for a long time to have a girl, a sister for me, but that just wasn't in the cards so Nora was a sort of surrogate daughter to them who just happened to need and love them as much as they needed and loved her.

...

NORA

I slammed my math book shut and glanced at the clock. Almost six. My dad would be home soon and I didn't really want to see him. I had my homework done and had talked to Scott for two hours. Scott. I smiled thinking about him. Vee and I had been crushing on him for a while now but he asked me out first. Vee is a few pounds past curvy with minky blond hair and emerald green eyes. I had been worried it might ruin our friendship when I told her he had asked me out but she had squealed and got all excited about being able to finally talk boys with me, like we didn't already. Vee was more into them then I was though. She had already made it to first base but she wasn't a slut like my sister. The thought of Marcie threatened to ruin my good mood. When I got to school today I'd found maxi-pads and tampons glued all over my locker. I was mortified! Then I found out from Vee, who was in the bathroom hiding in a stall devouring one of her favorite doughnuts out of the site of anorexic girls like Marcie, when she over heard my sisters friends laughing about watching her do it. Scott had saved the day when he asked me out at lunch. Patch has a strong dislike for Scott. He says he reminds him of my dad and he HATES my dad with good cause. I don't see my dad in Scott, I mean Scott's tall like my dad and strong like my dad but I trust Scott and I don't trust my dad. I glanced at the clock again. Five after six, I could still make it to Patch's house for dinner.

When I was old enough to learn to ride a bike it was Patch's dad who taught me how. When I started bleeding at his house the first time and panicked it was Patch's mom that explained my menstrual cycle to me. As far as I was concerned his parents were my parents. I probably would have ended up eating with Patch anyhow but when he said his parents would be home I knew for sure I would be there. Even though it had only been a week I missed them like it had been a year.

It's finally Friday and I have my first date ever with Scott. Vee is coming over to help me get ready even though I know it must be hard on her to see us together. When we were younger I didn't like Scott he was mean to me always picking on me but now that we're older things are different. I'm excited and nervous about the date, we're going to the movies together. I tried to talk to Patch about my anxiety after dinner two nights ago, the day Scott had asked me out but his parents had found out that day that he switched the R key on the teachers computer with the A key so that everything she. typed came out wrong. It had taken her the whole day to figure out what was wrong and about five seconds to blame Patch. I could tell his parents found it as funny as I had by the twinkle in their eyes but they still had parental duty so Patch got his cell phone taken away which left him in a bad mood and when I brought up my date with Scott...well let's just say his mood was even worse when I left. The next day though that new kid, Rixon, came to class and for reason's beyond me they hit it off. It's not that I don't like him having other friends it's just that Rixon makes me uncomfortable, he gives me these weird looks when Patch and Vee aren't looking and he thinks I'm not paying attention. I see them out of the corner of my eyes and it kinda creeps me out. Vee thinks he's the greatest thing since sweets were invented. Maybe it's just his accent, he's from Ireland. Whatever it is I hope he likes her as much as she likes him and he stops giving me those creepy looks.

...