Breaking Free

Slamming the door shut behind me, I run down the street in the direction of my school. I have chosen to play a game of let's pretend instead of suffering through day at home. My mother has a client over, the one with the ratty boxers, and my brother has taken a 'personal day off', meaning his friends are coming over to smoke pot. That's the thing I never understood about Jack, he disagrees with everything my mother says and does, yet, at 18 years old, he copies her every move.

My school isn't far from my house, which makes it all that harder to keep up the façade of living a normal teenage life. Almost three times a week, someone asks whether they can come over or if I can help with their homework and I have to make up some excuse about a dentist appointment or basketball game.

"Cate, wait up!"

I turn to see Holly, a girl from my school, running up behind me.

"Hi…" I say confused because, to the best of my knowledge, she lives an hour away and catches the bus to school. "What are you doing here?"

"I moved in to a house up the street over the weekend. Cool, huh? Now we can visit each other's houses all the time!"

"Yeah, cool."

I cringe, remembering the for sale sign I saw up a few weeks ago. I should have paid more attention to the family moving in, now I have to come up with a plan to keep her from finding out about my life. Truth is the life I tell the people at school of, is one I could only ever dream of; full of big smiles, happy families and true friends. None of which I'll ever have, not for real anyway.

When we stride up to the school gates, Holly and I are greeted by a heard of people who think they're my friends. To be honest, I only picked them because they are the least likely to ask questions about me and my family. We are ambushed with a bunch of questions about what we did on the weekend and our thoughts on Taylor Lautner's new movie, I struggle to keep up. As usual, I watched T.V. and went to the beach, thought the movie was good and to avoid further inquiries, excuse myself to use the bathroom.
I splash my face with water and look at myself in the mirror. My cheeks are red and my mascara is running. Trust me to mix up my waterproof makeup with my mum's cheap shit. I rip a length of hand towel off the roll and exit the room, checking both ways to make sure I don't run into anyone I know. Unfortunately, I realise a little too late that it's stranger's I have to look out for. Not five seconds after leaving the bathroom, I collide with a tall year twelve girl whom I have never seen before.

"What is your problem?" she yells at me.

I am taken aback by her tone, as I was guessing, from the way she looks, she would have been the nicest person on Earth. I mean, who wouldn't? She has on a knee-length plaid skirt and pink cardigan- with every button done up properly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should watch where you're going!"

She glares at me one last time before storming off down the corridor. I ignore the girl's outburst and continue on my way. Hopefully, I make it to class without anyone noticing the black mess that is now my face. If they ask what happened, I would have to answer and I don't really feel like talking. Ever.

I stumble into English five minutes after the bell and to my absolute delight, someone has left their bag in the doorway. I trip and take a massive dive onto the floor. My classroom erupts with laughter; everyone except for a boy in the back row whom I think I've seen somewhere before. He rushes over to my side and assists me in picking myself back up.

"Are you okay?" he asks in a voice so smooth I can almost taste the ice-cream on my tongue.

"I'm fine, thank you."

It isn't until this moment, when I glance up at him, that I realise we haven't met before; but we have mutual friend. Avoiding his gaze, I stand up and turn towards the class. Unfortunately the only seat available is the one next to him. As we take our seats, he begins to make small talk and I realise with disappointment that I'm going to have to make a new friend. I'm starting to wish I had classes with the evil twin, the one I ran into in the hall.