Title: Change Of Heart
Rating: PG, at some points it may get to be PG-13. For stuff like Mild Language and Sexual Comments, but nothing too extreme.
Category: Romance/Drama
Summary: After her mothers death, Rachel Pearson moves to Tusla, Oklahoma to live with her Aunt and Uncle and falls in love with a person who nobody expects, but does he love her back? I can NOT write summaries so you're just going to have to read it!!
Disclaimer: Hey, guess what?? I do NOT own the Outsiders!!! (Surprised?)…Yeah, so anyway I don't own anybody from the Outsiders, I own everyone else besides the Outsiders characters…
Author's Note: This is my very first Outsiders fic, so please be nice and don't flame me. I'd appreciate constructive criticism though, and you can drop hints here and there about what I could change or, if it's to boring or kind of fake at times I'll be happy to change it around to make everything sound better. And I'm sorry if this story sucks…I know that I suck at writing and I'm really sorry…but I enjoy writing and do it anyway. I hope I get somebody who likes this story…gosh I hope so…Anyways…please, Please, PLEASE R&R!!!!!
Change Of Heart
Chapter 1
"Rachel. Rachel!"
I groaned as I was being shaken from my sleep. I looked up to see my mother standing beside my bed.
"Come on Rachel. Get up or you'll be late for school." She stooped over to pick up some of my dirty laundry.
"Honestly, Rachel, how do you find anything in this mess?" she asked, gathering my clothes in a pile and stuffed them in my clothes hamper.
"I don't." I replied as I forced myself to get out of my bed.
I sleepily made my way over to my dresser and pulled out my school uniform; a white blouse and black skirt. I hate school uniforms, they're all ugly, plain and boring. Our principal said that its good to have uniforms, 'cause then people won't make fun of you or single you out because of your clothes. I just find that all to be a bunch of bull. She just wants to make everyone at our school miserable by making us all look like clones. Mom grabbed my dirty clothes hamper and walked out of my room, down the stairs.
"You'd better hurry up if you want to eat breakfast." She called from downstairs.
I sighed and pulled on my uniform. It's not the best thing in the world, but it beats taking half an hour trying to figure out what to put on every morning. I grabbed a brush from the top of my dresser and raked it through my long brown hair, pulling it in a ponytail. I threw the brush back down, and quickly pulled on my socks. Then I grabbed my shoes and hurriedly shoved my feet into them and tied the laces. I grabbed my backpack from the floor and walked downstairs. I found my mother sitting at the kitchen/dining room table reading the newspaper and drinking her morning coffee.
"That was fast." She said as I entered the kitchen. I let my backpack fall to the floor by the table. I opened the refrigerator door and peered inside.
"We got anything to eat?" I asked as I moved the mustard to the side of the shelf, seeing what all we had.
"There's toast." She replied, taking another sip of coffee, not glancing up from the paper.
"Great." I said, shutting the refrigerator door. I grabbed the bread from the counter and shoved two pieces into the toaster. I took the peanut butter down from the cabinet and set it on the counter, alongside the plate I had gotten down.
A loud honk from outside told me that my ride was here.
"There's my bus." I said to my mother. I grabbed an apple from a bowl sitting on the table and stuffed it in my backpack.
"What about your toast?" She asked me, as I rushed out the door.
"You can have it!" I called back as I ran out the door towards the bus.
***************
I took my seat next to Amanda, my best friend since I could remember.
"Guess what." She said to me as the bus pulled away from my house.
"What?" I said trying to act interested. Most of what Amanda talks about is guys. So I highly doubt this conversation is going to be anything but that.
"Well," She said, drawing it out.
"Let me guess. Some guy called you." I said
"Not just any guy. Bobby Fisher! Do you know what this means?"
I rolled my eyes. Amanda has had a crush on Bobby since the fourth grade, and has been desperately trying to get him to notice her ever since.
"It means he called you?" I said sarcastically.
She rolled her eyes at me. "No, you idiot. It means he likes me." She smiled and leaned back into the bus seat, sighing happily.
"So I take it the rest of the guys at our school all like you too? They call you don't they?" I smirked and ducked as she moved to take a swing at my head.
"This is different." She said to me. " Yeah I know about half of the guys at school call me and stuff-"
"About half?" I inquired. "It's more like over half."
"Okay, yeah it's over half. But still, I mean out of all the guys in the school he hasn't called me once. This is the first time he's ever noticed me." Her tone quickly turned from serious to happy. "Anyway, so he called me last night, right, and we talked for like four hours…" I ignored her jabbering and leaned back into my seat thinking to myself. I usually tune her out anyway, with her always talking about boys its gets annoying real fast.
I don't get it though. I'm as pretty as Amanda, right? At least that's what everyone else says. And so If that's true than how come she's always going out on a date with some guy every other night, and I'm stuck at home cleaning the house? I thought about this some more and then came to a reasonable conclusion. Maybe it's her attitude. Yeah, I bet its her attitude. Whenever I see her with guys she's always calm, cool and collected, I've never seen her blow it when she's around a guy. Me, on the other hand, Yeah I can hang out with guys in groups but when it comes to hanging out with a guy alone like on a date or something, I freak out and get all tongue tied and stuff.
It's not hard at all to hang out with guys in group's, there's always someone to help get the conversation going and you don't have to rack your brain trying to figure out what to say. Oh, yeah I've been on dates with a couple of really close guy friends, there the kind of guys I can hang out with alone. But if some guy at school comes up to me and out of the blue asks me if I'll go out with him, my brain goes completely numb and I can't think of what to say. Then to top it all off I stutter and stumble all over my words, which makes me, sound really retarded, and eventually scare's the guy off. I guess now that I really think about it, dating is kind of stupid. It's a big circle of drama, everybody wanting a boyfriend or girlfriend just because their best friend has one. Than when they do have one there always together and always suspecting that the other person might be cheating on the other if they don't hang out regularly, and then all of that can lead to fights and break ups. Than people go and shut themselves out from the rest of the world for days and sometimes-even weeks.
I was brought back reality when I felt something-hard jab into my ribs. It was Amanda, I almost forgot she was here.
She was staring at the roof of the bus still talking about Bobby.
"…so anyway I think he does, what do you think?" She looked at me waiting for my reply. I had no idea what she was talking about, So I decided to play along.
"Um…sure yeah, I think he does."
She smiled. "Really?" You think so?" I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what else to do, at the same time praying that I'm not going to regret what I just said. She let out a high pitched squeal.
"Are you so serious? You think he likes me? This is so cool." She let out a happy sigh, mixed with my groan. "I'm so excited. I'm going to call him tonight…"
I let out a frustrated sigh. I just knew I was going to regret this. I just knew it. I should of shut up. But nooooo I had to go and open my big mouth. I leaned back on my seat. I know now that I'll never hear the end of this. Thankfully the bus pulled up into the driveway of the school. I let out a long sigh of relief. "Thank you god." I mumbled quietly under my breath. I never thought I'd be so happy to see a school. But I was. As soon as the bus driver opened the door I basically sprinted out of the bus and hurried to my first class. Leaving Amanda to file out with the rest of the students still on the bus.
**************************
School went by pretty normally. Besides Amanda, with her non-stop chatter about Bobby and the fact that I forgot my lunch money, school went fine.
I rubbed my arms trying to warm myself. It was freezing outside and I forgot to bring a jacket. I had to walk home from school every single day and it is not fun, especially in cold weather. I rounded the street corner and came to my house. I walked up the driveway and stepped onto the porch. I groped for my house key in my backpack, and finally I found it. I unlocked the door and stepped into the house, shutting the door behind me.
"Mom! I'm home!" I yelled from the doorway, setting my backpack down on the floor. When I didn't hear an answer I wandered into the kitchen to see if she was in there. "Mom?" She wasn't in the kitchen either, instead I found a note attached to the refrigerator; it read:
Rachel,
Gone to the store. Be back soon.
Love, Mom
P.S. Do your homework
I smiled as I read the note. Mom was always on me about keeping up with school, and getting good grades. I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a Coke from one of the shelves. I then remembered I had a book report on 'The Grapes of Wrath' due in two days and I haven't even started on it. So I figured now was a good time as any to start on it. I grabbed my Coke from the counter, got the book from my backpack and sauntered into the living room and laid down on the couch and started reading.
I hadn't gotten farther than chapter two when the doorbell rang. 'Who could that be?' I thought. Then I figured it was mom, she probably had an armload of groceries and couldn't open the door. I smiled at the thought as I opened the door. My smile faded as I saw who was standing at the doorstep. It wasn't my mother. It was the police. The two uniformed police officers stood on the porch with grim expressions on their face. The Younger looking officer cleared his throat.
"I'm Officer Kelly." He said pulling out his badge to show me. "Are you Rachel Pearson, daughter of Linda Pearson?"
"Yes."
"We'd like to talk to you. It's about your mother. May we come in?"
Thoughts were swimming in my head, they were coming so fast I could hardly think strait. Is she all right? Is she in trouble? Is she hurt? Where is she? What happened?
"Ma'am. Ms. Pearson?" I jumped a little at the sound of the officer's voice. I looked up at the men.
I opened the door farther and stepped aside. "Uh…yeah, come on in." I said quietly, as the officers walked into the house. I shut the door behind them. My heart was pounding hard against my chest and was beating so loud I thought the officers could hear it.
I looked up at Officer Kelly. "Where's my mom?" I asked, my voice quivering slightly. "Is she okay?"
The Officer gestured towards a chair set against the wall "I think you'll want to sit down-"
"No!" I screamed. " I'm not going to sit down until you tell me where my mom is! Tell me! Where is she?" I was shaking badly and tears were streaming down my face as I tried to control myself. "Where is she?" I said more quietly, my voice cracking. "Tell me. Please?"
I let the Officer guide me towards the chair, and sat down. Officer Kelly looked down at me.
"Your mother," He began softly, clearing his throat, "Your mother was coming out of the parking lot and a car came around corner, the driver was drunk and was driving over the speed limit. Your mother pulled out of the parking lot and the two cars collided. The car crashed into the driver's side. There was nothing anyone could do. Your mom died instantly. I'm sorry."
Tears flooded into my eyes, blurring my vision. "No." I said as tears spilled down my cheeks. I stood up and glared angrily at the officers. "Your lying!" I screamed. "YOU'RE LYING! SHE'S NOT DEAD! SHE'S NOT DEAD!"I couldn't believe what they were saying. She can't be dead. She was alive. She was breathing. She can't be dead. They got the wrong Linda Pearson, the wrong person. She can't be dead. This is a dream, I thought. I'm going to wake up any second and it's all going to be a bad dream. It's all a bad dream. My breathing became shallower. "She's not dead." I mumbled as I tried to focus on something. I was getting dizzy, the room started to spin. I looked at officers, one said something but I couldn't make it out. It was jumbled together. It didn't make sense. None of it did. Nothing made sense. I was falling, backwards. I hit the ground and my head hit the floor, hard. Then my world went black.
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Okay Chapter 1 is over and done with. Sorry it's so boring, but I PROMISE I'll make it better and more exciting in the next chapter! And yeah I know there's nobody from the gang yet but I'm getting there so be patient.
I'm in the middle of writing chapter 2 right now, I don't know if I'll have it up this week but I'll try…I'm really swamped with schoolwork right now and I don't know when I'll find the time to write but I'll try to work on chapter 2 some more. And again, please R&R!!!
