Through Thick and Thin

“Quinny Wake uppp!!” I groaned putting my pillow over my head as small hands shook my shoulder trying to wake me up.

“Jace, I’m trying to sleep can you please go away for a little bit?” I asked, voice muffled by the pillow.

“Can’t! Momma said it’s time for school. She told me to wake you up, unless you want her to do it?”

Huffing I tossed the pillow aside and sat up rubbing at my face, my little brother who was only six was grinning up at me, overcome with giggles.

“Quinny, your eyes look funny!”

“What’cha talkin’ about runt?” I asked confused gently pushing him aside as I got out of bed stalking towards my mirror. I had fallen asleep with my make up on again and I currently had raccoon eyes.

“Shit.” I mumbled under my breath grabbing a tissue to wipe the make-up off with. “Jace, go tell your Mom I’m up, I’ll be ready in a few minutes okay?”

“Kay Quinny!” The little boy skipped out of my room, calling loudly for his mother to relay my message.

I rolled my eyes, if anything good came from my father re-marrying it was my little brother. Jason was cute and innocent, but he had a wicked streak in him and he looked up to me, something that pissed his mother off to no end. But then again, anything involving me tended to piss her off.

I moved about the small bedroom I had at my dad’s house, the walls were painted teal. I had a bed tucked away into the corner, a dresser with a huge mirror, the necessities; which included a closet full of clothes I never really wore.

Grabbing an outfit out of the hamper I headed towards the bathroom across the hall, washing my face and changing into the clean clothes. I was hurrying to pull on my black hoodie over my tight gray ¾ sleeved baseball T-shirt, when I heard my step-mother. “Quinn Leigh, I’m leaving in five minutes to bring Jason to school, if you don’t hurry up you’re going to have to walk.”

I rolled my eyes again as I picked my backpack up off of the floor, grabbing my brush off of my dresser and tossing my make-up bag into the backpack. “I’m coming Trish”, she hated when I called her that, almost as much as I hated to be called Quinn Leigh. It was either Patrisha, or Trisha, not Trish. “Jace just woke me up. I’m moving as fast as I can.”

She was cradling their newest spawn in her arms, my baby half-sister Alyssa Rae, she was only one and two months, she was the spitting image of her mother with blonde hair and dark blue eyes, but she had freckles across her nose, and pale skin, similar to our father. Jace was different than either Alyssa or me; he had dad’s dark brown hair, and brown eyes and his mother’s tanner complexion.

The woman scoffed as she took in my appearance. My hair was pulled back into a messy bun, I had on ratty old converse and tight fitted black jeans, with my baseball shirt and black hoodie. “Why can’t you wear any of the clothes I buy you?”

I looked over at the closet with a visible wince. “I’ve told you. I don’t like pink, maybe if you stopped buying me pink clothes I’d wear something. Hey Jace! C’mon bud let’s get in the car, we’ve got to get to school!” I walked past my step-mother, closing my bedroom door behind me as I headed out to the main room, smiling at Jace who was in black shorts and a blue shirt with a skull on it.

“Lookin’ very nice little man. C’mon we don’t wanna be late.”

“Kay Quinny!” He picked up his backpack which was probably bigger and heavier than he was and followed me outside. I helped him into his car seat and buckled him up, which caused him to laugh claiming he was old enough to be able to do it on his own.

“Hush you, Just let me help will ya?”

He over exaggerated a sigh and plopped his hands down to his sides allowing me to fasten him into the seat correctly with a huge grin on my face, this little boy certainly did pick up a lot of things from me.
Trisha came out of the house looking prim and proper with her blonde hair pulled back into a sleek pony tail, wearing a white polo shirt and beige walking shorts. Poor Alyssa was in all pink, her blonde hair pulled back into two curly pigtails. She buckled Alyssa in right as I climbed into the passenger seat.
We drove in silence to the elementary school where Jace attended Pre-School, it was about a block from the high school. “Thanks Trish.” I said as I hopped out of the car, at the same time Jace did. “I’ll walk the rest of the way to school.”

Jace waited on the sidewalk; whenever I’d “walk the rest of the way to school” I always walked him up to his first.

“Quinn Leigh! Are you going to be home for dinner tonight?”

I exhaled sharply and turned around. “No, I’m going to Mom’s tonight. I’ll call dad when I get home. Bye!” I waved watching as the woman huffed and drove away.

“C’mon Jace, we’ve got to hurry up or you’re gonna make me late for school.” I took the little boys hand and rushed up the steps to the front of the school, he hugged me around the waist before he went inside.

Shouldering my backpack correctly I looked down at my watch and cursed, jogging down the steps before hauling ass towards the high school.

I got to the front doors just as the final bell rang and cursed again, picking up my speed as I headed down the hall to my classroom, skidding to a stop in front of the door, keeping my head down as I made my way to my seat and sat down quickly.

“Ms. O’Conner, how nice of you to join us. Why are you late?”

The class snickered and I sighed, looking up from my backpack. “Sorry Miss.” I sighed. “I had to take my little brother to school this morning.”

“She doesn’t even have a little brother.” One of the girls in the back crooned. “Why would her parents want another freak like her anyway?” The second sentence was said softer than the first, so that the teacher wouldn’t hear.

“That’s enough Ms. Davis.” The older woman snapped, before looking down at me. Thankfully she knew I did in fact have a little brother.

“Ms. O’Conner, it’s very nice of you to have brought Jace to school this morning, but please try to be on time if you do it again.”

“Yes Ms.” I hung my head scooting down in my chair some. The older woman smiled slightly in my direction before she returned to the front of the room to begin today’s lesson.

“She-Devil drive you to school again?” Someone whispered from my left, I just nodded my head, pulling my folder from my bag, before letting it drop with a dull thud on the floor beside my desk.

“Of course, had Jace wake me up five minutes before she was ready to freakin’ leave.” I growled out, un-capping my pen to write down today’s assignments.

“What is up with her, does she have a stick up her ass or something?”

“Mr. Sullivan!” I smirked slightly as Jimmy sat up straight in his seat, smiling devilishly at the teacher.

“Yes Mrs. Jones?”

“I’d appreciate it, if when you’re trying to talk to Ms. O’Conner during my class; you’d be a tad bit stealthier and not use such foul language. It happens again, and you will be spending the afternoon in detention!”

“Yes Ms. I’m sorry.” He hung his head in mock shame; I could see the massive grin on his face though as I shot a look at him out of the corner of my eye, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully understand him.
Mrs. Jones huffed, turning around to write the rest of the math problems on the board along with the refresher page from the book. I then remembered I didn’t have time to stop at my locker, where my math book still was.

Silently I stood up, moving to the back of the classroom, where a few older editions of the book were, ones we were allowed to use on such occasions of forgetting out books.

Everyone seemed to be working on the problems, but I knew better; half the class was doodling or writing notes, or in Howard James’ case, sleeping with his head propped in his hand.

“Oh the freak doesn’t have her book, how sad. Probably used the pages for fire to keep her warm at night.” One of Monica Davis’ cronies Brooke cooed, as she looked down at her nails.

I chose to ignore her as I grabbed one of the books from the shelf, turning to go back to my seat. Only Monica stuck her foot out tripping me and causing me to fall flat on my face in the middle of the aisle with a resonating thump as the text book I had been carrying slammed to the floor, quickly followed by my body.

“Ms. O’Conner! What on earth are you doing on the floor?” Mrs. Jones asked, as Monica and her crew grinned, trying to suppress their laughter, pretending to pay attention to their work.

“My shoe must have been untied.” I called out weakly, using the now awake Howard’s desk to aid myself in getting up. “I tripped. Sorry.”

Mrs. Jones shot me a warning look. “Today must not be your day Ms. O’Conner, Please tie your shoe so
that you don’t trip again, and do try not to disrupt my class room again?”

“Yes Ms.” I growled, bending to pick up the book I had dropped while pretending to tie my shoes.

“Ow! Ms! Quinn just pinched me!” Monica whined rubbing at her leg.

“I did not!” I snapped, standing up, glaring at the blonde. “Ms. I swear, I didn’t touch her.”

“Yes she did!” Brooke piped up from across the aisle. “I saw her, when she went to tie her shoe.”

I growled gnawing on my bottom lip. “I didn’t touch her.”

“Quinn, I’m sorry but with two people saying the same thing I have no choice but to give you detention.”

I gawked at the teacher, “You’re believing them? Monica just wants me to get into trouble!” I demanded pointing to the blonde. “Ms. I didn’t touch her! I can’t have detention! There’s practice this afternoon!”

“Practice for what? The freak club?” Brooke said between her bought of laughter.

“For softball you twit.” I growled out beneath my breath.

“Ms. O’Conner, if you take your seat and there are no further incidences during class. I will move it to
Lunch detention where you will report to my class room and help me clean some stuff up.”

With a sigh, I nodded my head. “Yes Ms., Thank you.” I chose to walk behind Howard’s desk and take the long route to my own, slumping down into my seat and flipping the book open to work on the problems.

“Tough break.” Jimmy whispered, tapping his pencil against his desk. “Want me to do something about it?” He questioned inclining his head towards the “popular” girls in the back of the room.

I shook my head subtly. “Nah, I can handle them. Don’t get into trouble.” I focused on my work then, smirking slightly as Jimmy scoffed.

“Puh-lease, trouble is my middle name. Like anything those bitches could do would hurt me.”

“Mr. Sullivan! Congratulations you will be joining Ms. O’Conner in detention!”

Jimmy flushed slightly and hung his head, much to the amusement of the rest of the classroom. “Right. Sorry Ms.”

“Way to go slick.” I snickered, nibbling on my bottom lip as I tried to work out a particular math problem without looking into the book.

“Thought you’d need some company. Now how the hell do you do this shit?”

“Page 149, look it up.” I laughed, sitting up straighter and shooting an innocent smile to one of my best friend’s as he grumbled beneath his breath flipping his book to the appropriate page.

“Thanks for the help Quinn.” He drawled sarcastically.

“No a problem Jim!” I grinned back, only to snap my mouth shut and duck my head from Mrs. Jones who was giving me a look.
“Ms. O’Conner?”

“Sorry Ms…” I sighed. “Jimmy doesn’t have his glasses, he was asking for the page number.”
The woman nodded her head, and shook her head laughing slightly. She could be a hard ass, but, for the most part, she was on our side.

“Nice save.”

“Shut up Jack ass, before you get us in more trouble.”