Status: dedicated to my favourite gal pal
Hardly Worth Your Time
prologue;
Northbrook wasn’t a complicated place to live or to work out, you kept your opinions to yourself, went to church on a Sunday and above all else, kept your private life and problems behind closed door. As long as your private life didn’t intersect with your public life then there was no problem, it was your duty and responsibility as a citizen of the town to keep up the facade that everything was all well and good. Everybody knew everything about everyone and the people who resided in the small town were happy with the way things were. They weren’t open to change.
Even when things went wrong, people just pretended that they didn’t and soon enough they just went away; because nobody wanted to talk about them and no one wanted to hear about the reasons why, so they just fizzled out into a vague memory of what used to be. It could be a really depressing and infuriating place to grow up and to live if you didn’t like or accept the way things were in Northbrook, Connecticut.
There were only two types of people in Northbrook; the ones too dumb to leave and the ones too stuck to move.
One of the only good things about Northbrook was the high school soccer team; the wizards. The team was the pride and joy of Northbrook and the current line up had taken the team to national victory for the past three years, making them pretty much like royalty in Northbrook. The starting line up consisted of 5 boys who were about to start their senior year at Northbrook High; Rory McGuiness, Luke Hemmings, Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin, and Michael Clifford . Every person in town idolised Captain Michael Clifford, he had his pick of every girl in Northbrook and the surrounding counties and everybody loved him.
Well almost everyone, for some reason, old man Raven had always had something against Michael and nobody knew why, except for Raven. Yet he gave Michael a part time job at his diner, nobody knew what went on in that old man’s mind and nobody cared to ask, that was just the way it was in Northbrook. If someone had a problem with someone else, they either settled it behind closed doors or they didn’t settle it all, that was just the way it was; conflict and Northbrook County just didn’t mix well.
It didn’t look like things would ever change either, Northbrook had been stuck in this rut for as long as anybody could remember, with nobody to pull the town from it. That is, until somebody that no one saw coming, happen to blow into town on a dusty Tuesday afternoon.
Her.
Jade Raven showed up one day off the 782 bus and headed straight for the diner, with only a battered pair of converse on her feet and a backpack slung over her shoulder; she had every person in town in a spin over who this mysterious new girl was and why she was here.
By the time Supper had settled in the Clifford house, the whole town had discovered her name and that she was old man Raven's niece from New York. As was always rife in Northbrook, a myriad of rumours surrounded the ginger haired girl with her ripped jeans and battered converse; each sounding more and more ridiculous to Michael as he listened to his sister prattle on about how Northbrook didn’t need any new girl coming in and screwing everything up. Michael had been cleaning the tables when she came in and didn’t understand Marley’s point; Jade seemed sweet and polite, even if she was a little guarded and anti-social, she was nothing if not innocent though.
But if only they knew the whirlwind this girl would cause.
Even when things went wrong, people just pretended that they didn’t and soon enough they just went away; because nobody wanted to talk about them and no one wanted to hear about the reasons why, so they just fizzled out into a vague memory of what used to be. It could be a really depressing and infuriating place to grow up and to live if you didn’t like or accept the way things were in Northbrook, Connecticut.
There were only two types of people in Northbrook; the ones too dumb to leave and the ones too stuck to move.
One of the only good things about Northbrook was the high school soccer team; the wizards. The team was the pride and joy of Northbrook and the current line up had taken the team to national victory for the past three years, making them pretty much like royalty in Northbrook. The starting line up consisted of 5 boys who were about to start their senior year at Northbrook High; Rory McGuiness, Luke Hemmings, Calum Hood, Ashton Irwin, and Michael Clifford . Every person in town idolised Captain Michael Clifford, he had his pick of every girl in Northbrook and the surrounding counties and everybody loved him.
Well almost everyone, for some reason, old man Raven had always had something against Michael and nobody knew why, except for Raven. Yet he gave Michael a part time job at his diner, nobody knew what went on in that old man’s mind and nobody cared to ask, that was just the way it was in Northbrook. If someone had a problem with someone else, they either settled it behind closed doors or they didn’t settle it all, that was just the way it was; conflict and Northbrook County just didn’t mix well.
It didn’t look like things would ever change either, Northbrook had been stuck in this rut for as long as anybody could remember, with nobody to pull the town from it. That is, until somebody that no one saw coming, happen to blow into town on a dusty Tuesday afternoon.
Her.
Jade Raven showed up one day off the 782 bus and headed straight for the diner, with only a battered pair of converse on her feet and a backpack slung over her shoulder; she had every person in town in a spin over who this mysterious new girl was and why she was here.
By the time Supper had settled in the Clifford house, the whole town had discovered her name and that she was old man Raven's niece from New York. As was always rife in Northbrook, a myriad of rumours surrounded the ginger haired girl with her ripped jeans and battered converse; each sounding more and more ridiculous to Michael as he listened to his sister prattle on about how Northbrook didn’t need any new girl coming in and screwing everything up. Michael had been cleaning the tables when she came in and didn’t understand Marley’s point; Jade seemed sweet and polite, even if she was a little guarded and anti-social, she was nothing if not innocent though.
But if only they knew the whirlwind this girl would cause.