This chapter's more of a filler chapter than anything else, because I obviously have to set up the story before the main part can begin. I'll be getting to the good stuff soon though, I promise. I'm hoping to update a chapter every day, though it might be quite hard sometimes, because of the huge amount of coursework I have at the moment, but I'll try.
Anyway, I hope you like it and please review :)
I'm going to do something about this, thought Lauren, I'll show Josh I'm not a complete fat pig with no control.
Suddenly, the bell for next lesson went, startling Lauren. She didn't realise she'd been in there for that long. She quickly buttoned up her shirt, threw her tie around her neck, and hastily put her jumper back on, then grabbed her bag and hurried out into the busy corridor, making her way to Mr Clarkson's English class. Mr Clarkson was just about to shut the door when she got there.
"Quickly, sit down, Lauren," he said, before closing the door.
Lauren hurried to her seat next to Sam.
"Now today we are going to be exploring the wonderful world of Romeo and Juliet," said Mr Clarkson, inducing a groan from the year ten class.
"You okay?" whispered Sam to Lauren.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Lauren whispered back, giving Sam a big fake smile.
"You know, 'coz of what Finn and Josh were saying."
"Girls," said Mr Clarkson, giving them a stern look. "Now, Lauren, since you're obviously so eager to start our essay preparation for the exploration of the tension throughout the play, you can hand these out," he said, handing Lauren a pile of worksheets.
Lauren stood up and started walking round the classroom, giving a sheet to everyone she passed. As she reached Josh and Finn, Josh slipped her a folded scrap of paper, she waited until she was finished handing out the sheets and was sat back down before she unfolded the note.
Written on the slightly torn scrap of paper was the word 'Sorry' written in Josh's scrawl of handwriting, with a smiley face drawn next to it.
Lauren sighed. She didn't want to forgive Josh, what he had said had hurt her. She didn't really mind when Finn said it, she knew that he had only said it to try to get a reaction, he didn't mean it, and even if he did, it didn't matter to Lauren what Finn thought. It mattered immensely to her what Josh thought. But she'd show him, she'd lose the extra weight and then maybe, just maybe, he might be interested in her. Lauren knew that she had to forgive Josh, or at least pretend to, he already thought she was a fat cow, she didn't want him thinking she was a fat moody cow.
In her neat, italic writing, Lauren wrote 'It's fine Josh, it doesn't matter.', dotted her i's with hearts and drawing a cute little smiley face at the side, like Josh had done.
Lauren stuck her hand in the air, and Mr Clarkson stopped in the middle of his explanation of powerful adjectives and sighed.
"Yes, Lauren?"
"Can I go to the loo please, Sir?"
"Honestly, Lauren, what is up with you today?" sighed Mr Clarkson.
Lauren carried on looking up at him, knowing that he'd let her go eventually.
"Be quick then," he said, giving in.
"Thanks, Sir," Lauren said, standing up and walking across the room, dropping her reply note on Josh's desk as she passed.
Admittedly, Lauren did say she needed the toilet as an excuse to get the note to Josh, but she did actually go to the girls' toilets, which were unsurprisingly empty, seen as everyone was in lessons.
Lauren looked in the mirror, which was only useful for seeing her face, in fact, it was the mirror that Lauren and most of the other girls often fought over in order to look in it to fix their hair and make-up. She poked at her face, her fat, fat face. She hated her chubby cheeks, and her double chin, she couldn't even see structure of her face under all that fat.
Sighing, Lauren walked into a cubicle and locked the door, she wondered how on earth she had let herself get this fat, so out of control. Why hadn't she noticed it sooner? Josh was obviously repulsed by her. Tears began to well up in Lauren's eyes, and one slowly slid down her cheek. She began to sob, silently, wishing she could just be thin and beautiful, like all the other girls.
After crying for a good ten minutes Lauren realised, crying wasn't going to make her any thinner, she needed to stop feeling sorry for herself, get off her fat arse and actually do something about it. Today had been a wake-up call for Lauren, Josh's words had shocked her into realising that she must have been blind to her body her entire life, but she needed to pick herself up and be thankful that she had realised her faults now, so she could do something about them.
Lauren sniffed, wiped her eyes and unlocked the cubicle door, walking out towards the mirror again. She now looked even worse than she did when she came in, her eyes all red and puffy, and her so-called waterproof mascara smudged all over her face. Lauren splashed her face with cold water, and grabbed some toilet roll from one of the cubicles, gently wiping her eyes and rubbing the mascara smudges away. When she decided that she looked as good as she was going to get, Lauren chucked the wet, black smudged wad of toilet roll in the bin and started to walk back to her classroom.
Lauren opened the door to Mr Clarkson's classroom, only to be met with a glare from her English teacher.
"Where have you been, Lauren?" Mr Clarkson said.
Lauren looked at the floor, not wanting anyone to notice she'd been crying.
"Well?" Mr Clarkson demanded.
"The toilet, Sir," said Lauren, still looking down.
A few kids in the class sniggered.
"Oh, come on, Lauren. You've been gone almost twenty minutes, you can't expect me to believe that you've been at the toilet all this time."
Lauren looked up, she couldn't think of anything else to say.
Mr Clarkson saw Lauren's tear-stained face and gave in. "Go on," he said, sighing, indicating towards her seat.
"Lauren, what's up?" Sam whispered to her, giving her hand a quick squeeze under the table.
"Nothing," said Lauren, giving a weak smile.
"Oh come on, Lauren, I can tell you've crying. What's up, eh?"
"Nothing, my mascara's just been bugging me."
The remaining fifteen minutes of the lesson dragged on, and Josh spent the whole of it giving Lauren apologetic, worried glances. He didn't say what he said to hurt her, he said it because Finn had said it, and he knew that he probably shouldn't have, but he didn't think that Lauren would get that upset about it. He didn't think she was fat anyway, he thought she was gorgeous, but he guessed that throwing insults at her was easier than confessing how he really felt about her, because he knew that she'd never feel the same way, especially after this.
Josh wanted to check if Lauren was alright, she'd obviously been crying and he felt horrible that he'd caused her to get that upset. He should have learnt his lesson from last time.
When the bell rang Josh waited by the classroom door, wanting to talk to Lauren.
"Lauren," he said when she walked past him, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," said Lauren, giving him a weak smile.
"Look, Lauren… I'm sorry.""It's fine, Josh. Just leave it, yeah?" said Lauren, walking away to catch up with Sam.
Lauren chatted to Sam non-stop on the way home, as to avoid further suspicion, she wanted to keep her feelings quiet. The girls talked loudly as they were walking with their arms linked, Sam often burst into laughter, though Lauren had to force herself to laugh with her, but she was thinking of more important things.
How many calories do I usually eat in a day, wondered Lauren. She reckoned it was round about two thousand. After some thinking, she remembered from health class that there were 3500 calories in a pound. Lauren wanted to work out how much she would have to cut out of her diet to lose a couple of pounds a week, but she wasn't much good at maths and after the day she'd had she didn't really feel like doing sums anyway.
She decided that she would cut her calorie intake in half, so she was eating one thousand per day, she would lose the weight she needed to and she didn't have to completely starve herself, just watch what she eats. And I'll go running every day, that's sure to burn a load of calories, thought Lauren. To her, it seemed like the perfect plan.
"Lauren?" said Sam, waving her hand in front of Lauren's face, distracting her from her thoughts.
"Oh, sorry," she said, realising that they had reached the point where Sam walked down her street and Lauren carried on the main road towards hers.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Sam asked her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Lauren replied. "Bye," she said, pulling Sam into a hug.
"See you tomorrow," said Sam, pulling out of Lauren's embrace and walking away.
Lauren was then left alone to carry on daydreaming about her new diet plan.
And by the way, thank you to the person who reviewed my first chapter, your review made my day :)