Rocket To The Moon.

“You don’t tell anyone about this” he muttered, still hugging me “Not even Gracie”

“Not even Gracie” I agreed.

The next day, I signed onto Skype and immediately received a video call from Gracie.

I was sitting on my bed with the laptop, as Rocket had instructed me not to get up, and had carried me back into bed when I tried. When Gracie became visible to me, I saw that she looked angry.

“Hero! It’s been days since you last came online! Are you forgetting about me already? And…HOLY SHIT, what happened to your head!?” Gracie’s eyes went wide as she stared at me through the screen. I couldn't help but feel slightly self-conscious with her gawking at me like that.

“You would not believe the weekend I’ve had” I gave a sarcastic laugh.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she asked.

“Well, first of all, I was almost raped last night. How crazy is that?” I rolled my eyes.

“WHAT!?” shescreeched.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it though” I said, shrugging my shoulders wearily.

“You are going to talk about it!” she insisted.

“Okay. Fine. But you have to let me explain everything else first, so you don’t get mad at me for not being online” I said.

“Okay, okay. Go”

I started to explain everything from the date with Luke, to the art lesson with Sean and Adam, to the beach party, to Adam’s surf contest, to the concert, to getting dragged off by Tony Ellerby. The only stuff I didn’t mention, was everything that had happened with Rocket.

“So, as you can probably tell…I’ve been quite busy” I finished off.

“Clearly” Gracie agreed. Thankfully, she had cooled down now “So that’s why your head is all bandaged up?”

“Unfortunately, yes” I said.

“But, can you tell me something?” she asked.

“Sure”

“Is your new boyfriend hot?”

I laughed. Typical Gracie.

“I’ll introduce Luke to you at some point, so you can judge for yourself” I smirked “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised”

She let out a long, frustrated sigh “Why can’t I move to California? It sounds so much better than here!”

“Come visit. You never know, maybe Madison and Trevor will adopt you too” I grinned.

She giggled “Oh, I wish”

“But seriously, you need to visit. I miss you like crazy”

“I miss you too, Hero. Listen, in two weeks I get a weekend off work. I’ll save up all the money that I make for gas and then I’ll drive to California. Put some blankets and cushions on your sofa please” her infamous cheeky grin surfaced, and I couldn't help but tense up in excitement.

“Yes! I’d hug you but that’s kinda impossible right now!” I shrieked happily.

She giggled, then glanced at the clock on the wall behind her. Her cheeky smile had been replaced by a very disappointed expression.

“I need to go, I’m supposed to be going out for dinner with my parents. Wish me luck” she rolled her eyes. Gracie’s parents were both serious alcoholics, and often became violent when they were under the influence. It was something she had often experienced problems with in the past, and on countless occasions she had run all the way to our house when her Mom or Dad had decided to take their drunken anger out on her. That didn’t happen frequently, but once or twice she had been forced to spend the night at our house. Luckily, my four parents were more than happy to put her up for the night. She was almost like a second daughter to them.

“Good luck” I said pitifully.

“Bye, Hero! Miss you”

“Bye!” I disconnected. I hoped I hadn’t told her too much…but Rocket had told me specifically not to tell her anything about him, so I hadn’t.

About half an hour later, my cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Hero, it’s Sean”

“Oh. Hi, Sean”

“Luke’s here with me”

“HI HERO!” I heard Luke shout in the background.

I giggled “Tell him I said hi”

“She says hi” Sean said. I could tell he had turned away from the receiver to say this because his voice was suddenly quieter.

“I wanna talk to her!” I heard Luke say, then I heard a lot of those weird fumbling and clicking sounds you always hear when someone is handling the phone.

“That’s my phone!” Sean protested. His voice was muffled.

“Hi, Hero!” Luke said, his voice much clearer now “What in the world happened to you on Saturday?”

“I left early, I was getting kinda tired” I lied.

“But you didn’t even stay until the end of our set” Luke sounded disappointed and slightly confused.

“Well, my Mom really doesn’t like me staying out after dark…and it was getting pretty dark…”

“Okay…” he didn’t believe me “So are you okay?”

“Of course I am”

“You want us to come over?” he asked.

If they came over they would see the bandages on my head, and start asking more questions.

“No!” I said, a little too quickly “I mean…it’s not that I don’t want you to…I just…have a real bad cold, and I don’t want to pass it on to you guys”

I had a feeling that he didn’t believe that either.

“I don’t mind, honestly, Hero. I just really wanna see you” he said.

“Come on, dude. You’ll get to see me in a couple of days” I reassured him.

“A couple of days? Why not tomorrow? Are you not coming to school?”

“Really bad cold” I repeated.

“You know, you don’t sound sick” he muttered.

I coughed tragically just to reinforce my point.

“I am really sick” I insisted.

“Alright…I guess I’ll see you whenever then…” he said quietly.

“Sure. I guess…” I said, even more quietly.

“Umm…bye…”

“Bye…”

Just before he hung up, I heard Sean’s anxious voice in the background.

“Don’t hang up, I wanna say goodb…!”

He hung up.

*Rocket’s POV*

I listened through the door as Hero talked on the phone to that manwhore boyfriend of hers. What was his name? Liam? Lucas? Whatever, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was a total asshole.
First of all, he’s a complete pervert. I saw the way he was staring at her butt as he walked behind her, and how he was trying so hard to resist touching her boobs when they were kissing. And he has so many girls hanging off of him at school, I’m surprised Hero hasn’t noticed. He so doesn’t deserve a girl like her. And what makes me the most angry, is the fact that she is totally oblivious to everything.
She doesn’t have a clue. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he was cheating on her right now. I mean, he practically is, the way he flirts with so many other girls. If I got the chance, I’d punch him right in the face. Hard.

I can’t believe that an intelligent, level-headed girl like Hero hasn’t noticed that this boy has more than half of the female population of our school worshipping the ground he walks on. I have a good mind to tell her about this, but this time, for some weird reason, I don’t want to hurt her.
I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. I don’t have any idea why, and it’s messing with my head, but I know that telling her about this son of a bitch she calls her boyfriend will upset her, and I just feel like that’s the wrong thing to do. But this is confusing me, because nothing has ever stopped me from intentionally hurting her in the past.
I’ve said all kinds of fucked up stuff to the little bitch and never thought anything of it. But now, I’m starting to regret all that. Maybe I’m going soft, who knows? Or maybe she really is growing on me. That’s a scary thought…but it’s looking very likely.
I couldn’t help feeling a very small pang of jealousy when his lips met hers…is was very discreet, but it was definitely there. Oh God…what the fuck is happening to me? I need to pull myself together, man. This is crazy…

-5 Years Previously-

(No-one’s POV)

“How was your first day back at school?” Maria Turner asked her son as he entered the house.

“It was booooring!” a twelve year old Rocket whined as he threw his bag down on the floor and started walking towards the kitchen.

“Don’t leave that there, son. Someone might trip on it” Philip Turner , the boy’s father said. Rocket raised his eyes to the ceiling, before going back on himself to retrieve his bag and take it into the kitchen with him. Their house was quite open planned, therefore the living room was connected to the dining room by a large archway in the wall. Rocket’s parents could see him at all times when he was in the kitchen.

“Hey, kid, I was thinking about taking you camping this weekend” Philip called to his son from the living room.

“Oh, really? That would be awesome!” Rocket said enthusiastically as he searched the cupboards for something to eat.

"We could go back down to the lake, like we did last year. Would you like that?" Philip questioned hopefully.

"Can we make a campfire?" Rocket asked.

"Sure thing" his Father replied.

"Great! You're the best, Dad!" Rocket exclaimed, still rooting through the cupboards looking for food.

“There’s some strawberries in the fridge” Maria said. The young boy grinned and dived towards the refrigerator.

“Aren’t you gonna share those with me?” Philip asked, stealing a strawberry.

“No!” Rocket giggled, snatching the box of strawberries away from his father.

“No fair!” Philip joked, trying to grab the box back. Rocket teasingly popped a strawberry into his mouth, before getting up and backing away from his Dad, who took another swipe at the strawberries. With the both of them laughing, Philip chased his son around the house.

“Boys” Maria sighed, rolling her eyes.

Eventually, Philip gave up. Panting and out of breath, he flopped down on the sofa next to his wife.

“Alright, you win, boy” he panted “The strawberries are yours”

Rocket punched the air with victory and consumed another strawberry.

“You tried, honey” Maria giggled and kissed her husband on the nose. He smiled warmly and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, before planting another kiss on her lips.

“Eww! Don’t kiss in front of me! That’s gross!” Rocket whined, shielding his eyes with his hands.

“We’ll stop kissing if you give me another strawberry” Philip smirked.

“Leave him alone, Phil” Maria laughed “At least he’s eating fruit, and not pizza”

“Okay, okay, you can have one” Rocket gave in and presented the box to his Father.

“It’s about time!” Philip laughed.

“You want one too, Mom?” Rocket asked.

“No thanks” she shook her head.Rocket got up from his chair and positioned himself between both of his parents after wriggling into the small gap that was between them. His Father ruffled his hair and his Mother kissed his cheek, and he smiled. He was happy. He was a normal kid. He attended grade school, and got above average grades. He had lots of friends - his closest friend in particular was a boy named Tom. He lived in a regular suburban house with his parents, and though he was an only child, his life was never boring. He always found ways to amuse himself, whether it was playing video games, watching cartoons, playing sports, or even undertaking activities that nurtured his natural talent for drawing, which was something he adored. His entire room was covered in pictures that he had drawn, painted, sketched and everything else. He’d even sold a couple of his pictures for quite a good price, but it was a talent that he preferred not to flaunt, and he preferred to keep it fairly secret. His relationship with his parents was more than healthy. They were both role models to him and he admired them both with so much benevolence and love that they made up an tremendously important part of his life, and they felt the same way about him. They considered him to be a very good boy, very friendly, wouldn’t hurt a fly. He could be a bit cheeky sometimes, but it was usually all in good fun, and they would do anything just to see that adorable smile on his face. They really were the perfect family. And Rocket, at twelve years old, was the happiest he possibly could have been.

However, just three months later, Rocket lost what was most important to him.

-End Flashback-