Take My Hand, Let's Get Famous

I couldn't get Taylor out of my mind all night. I distractedly finished cooking my parents fancy meal and had it served in the dining room just before six o'clock when the guests were supposed to be arriving. I left desert, chocolate moose, in the fridge for my parents to find. I wasn't to be noticeable whilst the guests were in the house and so I quickly ate my own dinner and went quietly into my bedroom.

My room was smaller than my parent's bathroom. It consisted of a mattress on the floor and a small set of drawers that I kept my few articles of clothing and other worldly possessions in. My room was always tidy, but I was sure it was only because I had nothing to mess it up with. To fill the time until the guests left at around eleven and I would have to wash their dishes I decided to read one of my school text books.

My parents wanted me to do well in school. Not so that I could someday get a job and move out of home but so that they would not have to be visiting the school all the time because I was "struggling". I'm not very smart, but I do my best and have average grades. My favourite subject is art - I wasn't very good at it but I liked the freedom it allowed me.

After eleven o'clock my mother called upstairs to me. "Come down here, NOW!"

I would have run through the house so that I could reachmy mother faster but one thing my father would beat me for was running in the house. So, I walked quickly down the stairs and into the dining room.

"What took you so long?" My mother asked angrily and slapped me across the face.

I winced and felt her left cheek begin to redden and sting. "Sorry." I said and looked at the floor.

"Clean away these dishes." My mother said and yawned. "I'm going to bed." My mother walked out of the room and I heard her slowly ascending the stairs to her room.

I piled the plates and cutlery up and then carried them carefully out into the kitchen. I'd broken a plate once before and gotten a terrible beating for it. My father was a naturally angry and unhappy man and on the day I had broken that plate he had had a very bad day at work. He had accidentally punched me in the eye and the bruise had remained with me for almost a week. My father had been anxious, until the bruise faded, that someone at my school would inquire about it and that he would be charged for child abuse or something like that. This made him even more irritable and he had beaten me twice as much. Since then I had been sure to never break another plate.

The next morning my father drove me to school. I got out of the car without a good bye and he drove quickly off. I walked quietly through the school's corridors to my locker. When the bell rang for classes to begin I was already sitting in my first class. It was my first day back after the summer had ended and I was entering my final year of high school. I stared out of a window and prepared myself for another day of almost pointless schooling. I wasn't sure what I would do once I had finished school. I expected that my parents would make me stay at the house and continue to clean it and be their slave until the day they were both dead.

Someone spoke beside me, but I ignored the voice. No one ever spoke to me at school and the only timesI needed to listen were when teachers were talking.

"Helloooo? Anybody home?" A hand waved in front of my eyes, I blinked a few times and then turned to were the owner of the arm was sitting.

In the desk next to mesat Taylor Lautner, the boy who had knocked on my door just yesterday. I was shocked to see him there, and even more shocked that he was talking to me. I had never payed much attention to school gossip but I knew that Taylor must be one of those jocks whom girls were always falling for and throwing themselves at.

"Hello." I said simply, trying to hide my shock.

"Where were you?" He asked with a laugh.

"Ummm. Right here." I replied, not completely understanding the question.

Taylor just laughed at me. "Well, I guess I have the answer to my question then." He said conversationally.

"Yes." I said, still confused.

"I mean the question I asked you yesterday. What school do you go to?" He smiled at me, shaking his head slightly and then turned to the front of the room as the teacher entered the room.

The class sat in silence as the teacher wrote notes for them on the board. They started off as general notes about how it was their final year and how they needed to put a lot of effort in, then slowly they transitioned into notes on WWI - they're first history topic to be covered.

For the entire class I only used 25% of my brain, I only needed to take notes after all. The other 75% was immersed in thought about Taylor. Why was he talking to me? How long had he been going to my school and never noticed me before? Or maybe he had seen me before but just thought I was a weirdo. If that was the case, then why would he talk to me now? The thoughts ran circles through my head.

When the bell went I stood from my seat and swept from the room as I usually would. I was thinking so much about Taylor that I had forgotten he had been sitting right next to me.