A Twist in my Story

The rest of the week passed swiftly, although, there were a few bumps on the way. My art teacher, Misses Burrows, has given me strict orders to never work in her class again; instead, I sit in a seat and wait until Misses Burrows hands me the documents of the day, then I have to march up to the office hand them over to the secretary and wait for a note back, it isn’t until then that I can return to class, although, there really isn’t a point for my return.
I haven’t seen Damien since the time in the halls and Izzy and Zeke have returned to ignoring me, although I can feel their glares on my back when I’m looking in the opposite direction, I can also hear their hushed whispers when they think I’m not listening, and truthfully, it’s growing irritating.
At the moment I sat on the couch in between Rose and Xander as we watched The Dark Knight, this movie was a movie I was rather fond of.
It was only nine on a Saturday morning and Rose insisted that we should have a movie day until her parents came home. This afternoon was something I was not looking forward to, but Rose on the other hand was bouncing on her seat, excited to see her parents while Xander didn’t seem to care.
I really did want to meet their parents, but I didn’t want them to be disgusted by me. I didn’t want them to be disappointed in Rose and Xander for finding such a horrible person to become friends with. I really didn’t, and I had informed Rose and Xander on this but Rose just waved her hand dismissively and told me that they already knew the basics of my background story and that they were thrilled that Rosie had her first friend since grade three.
Rosie had had her first friend in grade three and after two months of knowing each other the girl had moved away to somewhere in Europe and Rosie had lost track of her. She had forgotten her last name and remembered that her first name started with an ‘L’, but even Rosie knew that that wasn’t very helpful, so instead of focusing on finding a new best friend she decided to pay more attention to her school work and now, now she was an A student.
“Caleb! Guess what, guess what!” I suddenly heard Rosie squeal in excitement.
“What?” I asked, snapping out of my thoughts to look over at my strawberry blonde friend.
“Alex is getting snakebites today,” Rose answered, bouncing in her seat as her eyes darted to the empty spot next to me. I looked beside me, shocked that Xander no longer sat there. Blinking several times I looked around the room to locate him, but I couldn’t find him. I heard Rosie giggle as she watched me, making me glance back over to her in confusion. “He’s already left. He left while you were spacing out. I also think he might be getting his hair redyed as well.”
“What are snakebites?” I asked, looking at her curiously.
“Snakebites is when you get both sides of your bottom lip pierced,” Rose said, nodding to herself as the movie played on behind our conversation.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh, I bet he is going to look so sexy to you,” Rosie giggled with a wink as my eyes narrowed on her figure.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“Oh, you know, uh, you see, when someone likes someone else very much, they find the other person rather, how do I place this? Um, attractive, yeah, attractive. So you see, since you already find Alex attractive, with him getting snakebites you will find him more attractive because apparently snakebites have that effect.”
“And if they don’t?” I wondered audibly.
“Well, I’m sure Alex would happily remove his snakebites for you,” Rose said with a smirk making a blush rise up onto my pale cheeks.
“Shut up,” I muttered, looking down at my hands that were pulling at the end of my pale blue shirt.
I wore no jumper today because I no longer saw a point in wearing my jumper at Rose and Xander’s house in Summer, well, now Autumn. They knew my story, they’ve seen most of my scars and they didn’t judge me, so if they were really going to stare, stop being my friend or kick me out of their house they would’ve done it by now, but instead, they accepted me as me and understood that there was nothing they could do, or anyone could do to change it.
“Aw, don’t be a hater,” Rosie mumbled.
“A hater? Nevah!”
“Yeah, sure,” Rose muttered, rolling her eyes as I heard the front door open.
My eyes flickered towards the lounge room entrance as I remained frozen, listening as I heard the sound of wheels against the floorboards and the sound of light murmuring. I could hear the faint sound of tapping feet, the sound growing louder as they advanced towards the lounge room, but before I could jump up run away Rose bounced up from her seat and threw herself through the doorway.
“Ma! Pa!” I heard her squeal in delight as a chuckle was heard in response.
“Hello beautiful, how was your month?” a male voiced asked.
“It was amazing, I met a friend, he’s in the lounge room, he’s nervous. I can’t believe you’re early, this is so great!” Rosie babbled on.
“Calm down Rose and lead the way,” a woman voice responded as Rosie, with no doubt, beamed at her.
I could hear the sound of multiple amounts of feet hitting the wooden floor as Rosie and two older people entered the room, their eyes automatically landing on me. The first thing they noticed must’ve been my posture, mainly because my hands clutched at the seat of the couch as I must’ve looked like I was about to bolt, and I knew that the next thing they noticed was my scars. After the shock that was displayed on their faces, they changed to happy, welcoming faces and the older guy was the first to speak.
The man was completely bald and had a greying moustache covering his upper lip. His lips were thin and his eyes were a bright blue, the same blue as Xander’s. The man was a bit over weight, but nowhere near chubby as he had a dark tan covering his arms and face. The man wore a white polo shirt along with a pair of black slacks and a pair of polished black leather formal shoes.
“Hello there, my name is Rupert but please call me Bert,” the man said as his moved towards me and stuck out a hand when he was a reasonable distance away.
I stood up, as straight as I could and stared into his eyes before flashing him a shy smile.
“N-nice to meet you, I-I’m Caleb,” I answered, biting my bottom lip nervously.
“No need to be nervous my boy, we ain’t gonna hurt cha,” he answered winking at me as Rosie’s mother stepped forwards.
Rosie’s mother was a kind looking woman that looked similar to Rose, except a bit older. The woman had strawberry blonde hair that must have been dyed to cover the greys, but it also looked natural, in a way. The mother’s eyes were a paler blue, a blue that matched Rose’s eyes as she also had a small amount of freckles covering her face. The woman was also pale but her skin tone was much darker compared to Rose’s, she also stood several inches shorter than Rose, I height I thought impossible to someone that wasn’t a dwarf.
“Hello dearie, I’m Michelle. Could I please ask you something?” the woman, Michelle, asked.
“S-sure,” I stuttered, looking over her wearily.
“Are you Australian? Because I love Australians!” she squealed, reminding me of Rose when I first met her.
I smiled at her before nodded in response making her squeal increase in delight as Rose placed a calming hand onto her shoulder, informing her to calm down.
“But—”
“No but’s, I know he’s Australian and I was just as excited as you, but you need to calm down before you make a fool of yourself,” Rose interrupted.
“Right, you are right,” Michelle replied, nodding her head as she straightened up her white blouse that went well with the black slacks and black heels that she was wearing.
“It’s nice to meet you Caleb and we would love to chat more, but we have to unpack,” Bert said before he turned on his heel and left the room, Michelle trailing behind him.
“Welcome to the family,” Rosie spoke before collapsing on the couch beside me as we continued to watch the rest of the movie.