Thursday 25th August
When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at a ceiling that didn't belong to my own bedroom and I didn't remember where I was, but when I saw Lemmy beside me, I knew that I was in Rosie's house. It was early in the morning and I felt like getting up and breathing the fresh air, but Lemmy was still sleeping and I didn't want to wake him up, so I just lay on top of the sheets, crossed my legs and waited.
After a while, the door was pushed open and Ruby walked into the room. She wandered over to the bed and licked Lemmy's face. I knew when he was awake when he exclaimed, "Oh, Ruby!" Then he beckoned for her to get up on the bed and she did. Ruby lay down squashed between us, so much in fact that Lemmy fell out of bed. After all, golden retrievers are quite big. We both laughed and between giggles, I asked, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah." he replied, kneeling up and stroking Ruby. "I don't think I should be too hard on her, this is her home as well."
The room was fairly stuffy, so I shuffled off the bed and opened the window. Cool, summer morning breezes were blowing through the gap and we decided to get dressed and have breakfast. Back at home, Iggy had decided that my closet was full to bursting with clothes, so half of my clothes were in Rosie's closet and strangely, the same thing happened to Lemmy and Wendy. We both picked out some clothes and went downstairs for breakfast.
Eventually, we heard Wendy coming down the stairs, her phone making typing sounds. I quite liked my breakfast, but it was quite unexpected. Rosie had prepared a cool, fruit salad soaked in pineapple juice. It tasted amazing but the sides of my tongue started to sting after many mouthfuls, so I put my fruit salad back in the fridge and me and Lemmy went upstairs to our room. It was kind of a waste of time during the morning because all I did was show Lemmy funny YTPs, but in the afternoon, I decided to go out and take a walk.
I was going to go quite a long way away, so I smuggled a packet of chocolate cookies in the pocket of my shorts just in case I got hungry. The sun beat down on my head and as time passed, I became really thirsty. However, it was a long way back to town at this point, so I ended up going without. The straight path I was walking on stretched out for about half a mile, but I wanted to get to my favourite place in Quinstone. It was basically a beautiful river with a few weeping willow trees surrounding it and to me, it was a nice, quiet place to be alone with my thoughts.
Often, I felt like I could fall asleep listening to the water splashing up the bank. It was the perfect place to go to in the summer because sometimes, people went swimming in it, but I decided not to do that since I didn't have extra underwear and what if someone were to come along and nick my clothes? Instead, I just sat by the river and watched the sky grow pale. After a while, I became really quite tired, so I leant back on the grass and closed my eyes.
I knew I couldn't fall asleep there because passers by would be really confused. Just then, something happened that was completely and utterly unexpected. All of a sudden, I was jolted out of a reverie when I heard a female voice behind me say, "Excuse me."
It made me jump. I sat up, turned around and looked up. Staring into my face was the most beautiful Koopa girl I had ever seen. She had dreamy brown eyes, mousy, bouncy, curly hair that came down to her shoulders and her clothes made her look like a supermodel.
"I just saw you here looking sad and I wondered what was wrong." she said.
I thought that she was expecting a reply, but instead I just stared back at her. I had been warned about talking to strangers, but now I didn't know what to do because she looked like an innocent girl and it seemed highly unlikely that she would casually pull out a knife and stab me or something.
"Don't worry, I don't bite. Sorry about this, I can't stand seeing people looking sad, even if it's a stranger."
"It's okay." I eventually said.
I suddenly worried about what she would think of my accent, but to my surprise, she didn't really seem at all bothered so I was encouraged to carry on. "I normally take walks by myself near rivers or quiet places because they're kind of like me to a point."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, sometimes it just gives you the opportunity to think about how much time you've spent with someone and all of a sudden, they're gone."
At this point, I was thinking, what are you doing? Don't tell her personal stuff! She doesn't even know you! But it was too late.
"You're not saying something like that happened to you are you?" she asked, her eyes growing wide.
"Um, yeah, I am." I replied sadly.
"If you don't mind me asking, what happened?"
I hesitated for a moment, then began. "My brother got put into prison yesterday for aggravated assault because I was getting abused by his ex-girlfriend and he was just trying to protect me, but what I don't get is that he only pinned her against the wall, and I think really, it should be his ex behind bars, but she lied about the whole thing and said it was my brother's fault, the people in court didn't believe him and…now he's in prison."
The girl stared at me in disbelief. "Woah. How long is your brother in jail for?"
"Two months."
"It seems like you really love him. I think that for you, it's going to be a long two months."
"I know." I nodded sadly and carried on talking about my life, even though I felt like I shouldn't be doing so. Eventually, I said, "Anyway, enough about me, how's your life?"
"Oh, mine's pretty good." the girl replied. "But, to tell you the truth, I'm actually kind of stressed out too."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, I'm starting at a new school in September."
"Really? Which one?"
"I think it's called…Quinstone High School?"
Instantly, my spirits rose. Oh my god. She was now officially in the same school as me. This was now one of the very rare times where I actually wanted to go back to school and I tried not to act too enthusiastic, but unfortunately, I couldn't hide my huge grin.
"Hey, I go there!" I exclaimed.
The girl smiled warmly. "Well, I guess I've made my first friend already then!" she said. "I'm Caitlin, by the way."
"Oh, that's a cool name, I'm Larry."
"Hey, you know, I'm picking up a little bit of an accent from you. Are you American?"
"Yeah. I moved here when I was four and I've gotten used to living in a place like this." I replied before sighing. "It's beautiful."
"I know."
There was an awkward silence where we both looked at each other, but luckily and unluckily at the same time, the silence was broken by my phone vibrating in my pocket. It was a text from Rosie saying that I had to come home now. Part of me felt disappointed, but I knew I would see Caitlin when I went back to school.
"Oh, I've got to go now." I said, standing up. "It was nice meeting you."
"Nice meeting you too." Caitlin replied as I started walking away. "See you around!"
Right now, it was as if all the blue had been taken out of my body (apart from my hair, of course) and the blue was being replaced with yellow, the colour of happiness.I felt really selfish, forgetting about Iggy so quickly, but every now and then, I tried to think of him. It was a long way back to Rosie's house and I was quite exhausted, but I managed it all the way home. Only just. The moment I entered the house, I took off my shoes, said a quick hello and made myself a drink.
I was quite shocked at my own thirstiness because I drank the whole glass of orange squash in one go, but to be fair, it had been at least a couple hours since I last drank anything. When it was time for bed, it didn't take me long to fall asleep, for it was such a long walk to the river and back, but now, it was time for me to rest peacefully until morning.
AN: In case you're wondering, the reason why I'm getting these chapters done so quickly is because last year, it took me about 10 months to write this fanfiction and it has about 260 pages' worth of writing on it so I'm basically just copying it and pasting it onto the web. Just thought I'd clarify, anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter :))