Not mine :(
My alarm clock woke me up at 6:30 sharp the next morning. I rolled over and tried my hardest to get out of bed. I barely got any sleep the previous night; the bags under my eyes were evidence. I groaned and decided to take my shower before anything else, hoping it would wake me up. I stripped my clothes and turned on the shower, stepping in after I got the right temperature. After I shaved and washed my hair and body, I stepped out and dried off. I put on new clothes for the day and blow dried my hair then straightened it. I brushed my teeth, skipping breakfast, as I found myself doing recently, and went into Megan's bedroom.
I squatted down on the floor beside her bed and whispered to her sleeping figure. "Meg, you've got to get up. It's 7:15. You need to get around." She shot right up and smiled big at me.
"Good morning, sis!" She wrapped her little arms around my neck and I hugged her back.
"Morning," I smiled. She was definitely a morning person.
I left her to the bathroom to get around and went downstairs and made pancakes for Megan. I heard creaking coming from the staircase and saw my dad walking toward the kitchen and straight to the fridge for a beer. "Hi Dad," I spoke.
Without a greeting, he replied, "Did you make anything for me?"
"Um, no, actually I only made one pancake, for Megan." I never made breakfast for him because he usually wasn't up this early, and on the rare occasions that he was, usually a beer was enough for him.
"Dammit, Bella! What the hell?" he exclaimed angrily. I flinched, preparing for it.
He hit me hard on my exposed shoulder since I was wearing a tank top. It was sore. I reluctantly handed over the freshly made pancake to my father who ate it without question as to what Megan would eat.
I scrambled around trying to find more breakfast food before she came back downstairs since I didn't want to be late for school waiting on her to eat. I finally found a box of cereal stuffed in the back of one of the cupboards, and there was just enough left for a bowl of cereal.
"Hey Daddy!" she yelled running down the steps with newly brushed hair and teeth and day clothes on. He waved back lightly, almost ignoring her. She didn't think anything of this as she sat on the stool at the island and ate the cereal I left out for her. "So Bella. Are you excited about today?" she asked happily.
"Sure, I guess. What's so thrilling going on today that I should be excited for?" I inquired.
"It's the beginning of the week, silly!" she laughed. Everything was exciting and interesting to Megan. Even a full week of school. She loved school. She had lots of friends and no one ever picked on her. I, however, hated school, and had only two good friends, Alice and Jane. And people did pick on me, especially one person: Edward Cullen. He and his stupid friends had always been jerks to me, throwing random shit at me for no reason, or calling me names. One day, in seventh grade, I came home early crying because Edward wouldn't stop making fun of me. My dad yelled at me for skipping the rest of the school day and for putting up with it. Then, as expected, he slapped me across the face because I wouldn't stop crying and "grow up" about it.
"Yay… the beginning of the week…" I said with fake enthusiasm that her young mind didn't catch.
I grabbed a hoodie and threw it on, expecting to wear it the rest of the day to hide the developing bruise on my shoulder. No one except for Alice knew about what my home life was like. I would have told Jane, but she had a big mouth and more friends than me, and I didn't want her to let something slip to them.
I grabbed my keys before waving goodbye to my dad, who didn't acknowledge me, and walked out the door.
I unlocked the car and got into the driver's seat while Megan slid into the back since I drove Alice to school too. I looked at Megan in the rearview mirror and she looked back. My eyebrows were raised, silently instructing her to put her seatbelt on. She looked back at me, pretending not to know what I wanted her to do, but failing. "Megan," I said authoritatively.
She sighed and stretched her seatbelt over her petite body. Finally satisfied, I put the keys into the ignition, turned on the air conditioner, and slid an old Saves the Day album into the stereo. I pulled out of the driveway and drove the four blocks to Alice's house. I stopped in front of her house and made two short, sharp chirps of the horn to let her know I was here.
Alice came running out the front door, with her bag sloppily slung over her shoulder and she slammed the door shut. She opened the passenger door and got inside and greeted Megan and I with a smile.
"Hey Alice!" Megan exclaimed happily. She loved Alice; she thought she was so cool and wanted to be just like her. Megan was so impressionable.
"Megan!" Alice smiled, turning her body slightly to give my sister a high-five.
"You two are idiots," I laughed. I drove down the road towards the elementary school for Megan. I drove through the front drop off and she got out and was greeted by her numerous friends, and Alice and I both waved at her through the window as we sped off towards Dulaney High.
We were about a mile away from the high school when a car in the left lane slowed down next to us, but didn't stop. Both the windows on the right side rolled down, and Zack Merrick's face was revealed from the passenger seat, and Emmett McCarty's head popped out the back right window. I could see Edward in the driver's seat beyond Zack's head, and he was laughing as Emmett and Zack flipped me off and smiled evilly. They all cracked up, then rolled the windows back up and sped off.
"God, why are they such assholes? I haven't done a single thing to any of them!" I cried angrily.
"They're just jerks. Just ignore it," Alice said, trying to make me feel better. She didn't understand how mean they could actually be sometimes, though, because no one ever picked on her. Alice was the kind of person who was friends with everybody, and nobody disliked her. She could hang out with anybody, and not be forever associated to that clique. Friends of hers ranged from everybody from the cheerleaders to the geeks to the jocks to the burnouts.
I sighed. "But you like Jasper! You don't think he's a jerk!"
"Hey! He wasn't the one who just flipped you off! And you have to admit, he's the nicest of all of Edward's friends," she defended. "And he's so sweet and so cute…" she trailed off into a daydream.
When we got to the school, I parked in my usual spot under the tree in the shade so my car didn't get overheated from the excessive sunlight. I turned off the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition and we both got out. I locked it with the automatic button on my keys and we went inside.
When Alice and I got inside, we noticed that most of the students looked annoyed about something. We walked through the crowd of angry teenagers towards the hall of lockers. That's where we found out what they were bothered about. Each locker now had a piece of paper taped to the front of it with names of students on them. The teachers had been complaining that students were wasting too much time in the hallway talking to their friends, and were subsequently always late to class, so they assigned the lockers randomly instead of letting us chose. I sighed, and waved at Alice as she went towards a set of lockers and found her locker that read "Brandon, Alice".
I kept walking until I found mine. "Swan, Bella" was written on it in black ink. I looked to see who had locker assignments next to mine. On my left was Kayla Fisher, and I could at least tolerate her. To my right, however, was a name I wasn't so happy about. Edward Cullen. Great. Now he could torture me between classes too!
I angrily shoved my bag in my locker and grabbed my calculus book for first period. I was shutting my locker, about to walk away when I felt a hand grab my shoulder from behind. My bruised shoulder. "Ow!" I yelped and ripped off the hand that was resting on my shoulder.
Edward looked at me and dropped his hand. "Jeez, I barely touched you. Wimp." I rolled my eyes. If he only knew. I turned away and he stepped in front of me. "Wait! I have to welcome you to this neighborhood of lockers. Welcome! I just know we'll have lots of fun together, neighbor!" he mocked.
"Yeah. Fun. Bye." I walked off, finally escaping him, and entered calculus with Mrs. Sandoval.
"Ah! Ms. Swan!" the teacher smiled. "Seats have been assigned like the lockers, so you'll be sitting over here from now on." She pointed to the last seat in the front row by the window. I gave a fake smile and sat down as ordered.
Just as I sat down, a familiar face appeared and sat to my right. "Bella!" Edward smiled. "I get to see you again! Wow, you know what? We have three more classes together! I'll get to sit next to you all day!" he laughed. This was all a joke to him. He liked being an asshole.
I sighed and opened my calculus book, hoping to finish up some of the homework before Mrs. Sandoval asked that we turn them in. I had about three minutes until the late bell rang, so I could get at least some of it done. Lately I had been finding myself either turning in homework late, not finishing it completely, or not doing it at all. Not because I was lazy, but because I was so busy being Megan's mom and dad when I got home that I didn't have time for anything else. Plus, I was also having a role reversal with my Dad, who I watched over and cooked for as well. I never had any time to get anything done. I understood everything completely fine, and if they only gave out tests instead of homework, I'd have A+ 's in every class. Instead, I was failing calculus since she assigned so much homework, and only passing every other class by the skin of my teeth.
I finished the fourth question out of twenty when the late bell rang, meaning we had to turn in our homework and get into our seats before the teacher walked in. I sighed and turned in my homework to the tray on Mrs. Sandoval's desk. At least I'd get partial credit for answering some of the questions.
Edward turned in his blank sheet of paper into the homework tray before me and stopped abruptly and moved out the way, then he stuck his foot out in front of me, tripping me. I fell face-first onto the floor and everyone laughed hysterically. I could feel my face get red-hot from embarrassment, and I pulled myself up and sat down. I slouched in my seat, not wanting to be seen, which was hard, since I was now in the front row.
The bell finally rang, signifying that I was done enduring my torture next to Edward so I went to my new locker and exchanged books for history. Mrs. Sandoval had asked Edward to stay after class to talk to her, so I silently thanked her in my mind as I got five minutes of peace without Edward in History.
I scrambled around, trying to finish my history homework. I actually got half of it done when Edward walked in as the bell rang. I handed in my incomplete assignment and sat next to Edward, who continually cracked jokes about me throughout the class, making sure all the students could hear him and laugh at me when the teacher wasn't looking.
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I made to fifth period: lunch. I might actually be able to avoid Edward! I thought. Apparently, I thought wrong. As soon as I sat down at my table next to Jane and Alice, Jasper walked over, food tray in hand, and stood beside Alice, making her smile wide. "Hey Alice!" he smiled. It was obvious he liked her as much as she liked him, but neither of them had ever done anything about it. But this was a step, at least, because he never approached her outside of class before.
"Hi Jasper!" Alice blushed. He then sat his tray down next to her, and pulled out a seat. I didn't mind Jasper because he was always really nice, but it was his friends that were always mean to me. I was worried that they would sit with us since Jasper sat with us today.
And they did. Edward, Emmett and Zack all filled up the last empty seats at our table, and made dumb jokes the whole time, mostly about me, and the worst ones came from Edward. I tried to ignore it, and every time Jane or Alice tried to stick up for me, I kicked them under the table to shut them up. I didn't want them to say anything because I didn't want the boys to make a joke about me not being able to fight my own fights. Which I wasn't fighting back anyway, but having my friends fight for me would have been worse.
Finally, Jane couldn't keep her mouth shut, as usual. Her face showing how furious she was, she stood up and flipped her tray of food over and it landed in Edward's face. "You jerk! I don't know how you can be so mean to people! Have you no conscience? Grow some and grow up!" She grabbed my hand and stormed off, dragging me with her. Alice waved lightly and smiled apologetically at Jasper for leaving him, and she tagged along behind.
We went into the bathroom and I started crying and leaned up against the wall, then slid down to the floor with my head in my hands. They both sat on either side of me with their arms wrapped around my shoulder. "It's okay, don't let them get to you," Alice said softly.
"Yeah, they're so immature," Jane agreed. "And besides, Mrs. Sandoval is making Edward get a tutor because he's failing calculus!"
I looked up at her and glared. "I'm failing calculus, too."
"Well… That's only because you never do your homework, but you at least know the material. He's just stupid," she said, trying to comfort me about Edward's faults.
"You're not helping. Edward being unintelligent isn't some juicy gossip. Everyone knows that," I sniffled, putting my head back in my hands.
"Wanna skip the rest of the day?" Alice suggested.
I nodded my head.
We left the bathroom and headed out the back door of the school that led into the student parking lot. Alice and I got into my car and we followed Jane in her car to her house.
Jane pulled into her driveway and I parked behind her, cutting the engine and removing my keys from the ignition. The three of us went inside and I went straight for the bathroom so I could wash off my mascara-smeared face. I sighed at my looks in the mirror and went upstairs to Jane's bedroom where she and Alice were.
"Hey Bells, you okay?" Alice asked. She was sitting on the floor by the bed.
"Yeah…" I lied. I was just tired of Edward and his friends making fun of me at school, then having to go home to my sister, who was more like a daughter since I took care of her, and an unappreciative father who was more like a son since I took care of him. And on top of all that, Dad was always drunk, or in the process of getting drunk, and always hit me.
I plopped on her empty bed and sprawled across it. Jane turned around on her swivel computer chair and looked at me. "You can stay here tonight if you want."
"No, I can't. My dad won't be home tonight, so I have to take care of Megan until he gets home tomorrow," I lied. Alice looked at me suspiciously because she knew that wasn't true.
"Oh, okay. Well call if you need anything," Jane said. She turned back around in her chair and got online. Alice looked up at me from the floor and mouthed something silently, so I had to read her lips. "Really?" she mouthed. I shook my head no, and she understood. I just had to be home to cook dinner for Megan and make sure she was okay since she didn't know how to deal with Dad when he was drunk alone. But Jane didn't know any of that.
I looked at the clock. 2:50. Megan was dismissed from school at three. "I have to go pick up Megan. I'll see you guys tomorrow, I guess," I said. "Do you need a ride home, Alice?"
"No, I think I'm going to stay here tonight," she said. "See you tomorrow."
"And call us if you need anything or need to talk! Love ya," Jane smiled.
"Bye guys," I waved. I ran downstairs and headed for my car. I got inside and turned on the air conditioner and drove off towards the elementary.
I was about five minutes late and Megan was already waiting outside the front door for me. She waved and ran over to the car and opened the door and dropped her bag on the floor, putting her seatbelt on. "Hi Bella! How was your day?" she asked happily.
"Good!" I lied. "And yours?"
"Great! I love school." She proceeded to tell me more stories of what fun things they did in art class and so on. She was always so positive and happy about everything. She always put me into a better mood.
When I got inside, I was thankful that Dad had apparently drunken himself into a coma because he was passed out on the couch.
When he woke up a few hours later, he was fuming. "I'm starving! You better make me food right now!" he demanded. I gulped, and nodded my head.
I went into the kitchen and made spaghetti, what I'd learned was my Dad's favorite, just to make sure he'd be satisfied with the food. He ate it and saved a portion of it for Megan.
There was none left for me.
He began walking into the living room and I sat down at the island in the kitchen. When he saw me sit down, he immediately turned on his heel and slapped me across the face. "Why are you sitting down?! You know I need a beer to go with this! Go get it!" he shouted.
"Sorry," I whispered.
"Sorry doesn't cut it. Now you owe me two beers. Don't waste time!" He went back into the living room and I proceeded to be his slave and served him his bottles of alcohol and went straight upstairs to go to bed early.
Barely ten minutes passed and Megan walked in. "Bella?" she asked.
"Hmm?"
"Can I sleep in here tonight? I don't want to be alone. Daddy's been scaring me lately." I nodded my head and she shuffled in, eyes drooping, and I could tell she was about to fall asleep. I grabbed an extra pillow and blanket from my closet and set them up on the floor for her. She lay down on the makeshift bed on the floor and I turned off the light and got into my own bed.
"Night, Megan," I whispered, but she was already asleep.