clouds ; l.h/c.h

CHAPTER ONE

"Kat... Kat? KAT! Are you even listening?"

My eyes lazily drifted towards my best friend, Darla, looking exasperated as usual. "Mm," was all that could leave my lips. I hadn't been paying attention for the past ten minutes.

"Ugh, Kaaaaat," she groaned, shaking me by my shoulder. "this is important! Do you want to fail this class?"

"Yes."

She sighed.

I pushed her hand off me. "I'm sorry-" (I wasn't) "-but he's just so beautiful."

Darla didn't even have to turn around to find who I was talking about. "Luke. Robert. Hemmings," she seethed through gritted teeth. "I mean really?? You need to get a grip, girl."

Darla was nothing if not the president of the I Hate Luke club. Ever since seventh grade when he forgot to give her back her mechanical pencil, she seemed to make it her personal mission to hate his guts. It didn't help, of course, that I was head over Converse in love with him.

Standing at six foot two, Luke Hemmings, quarterback of the football team and Professional Ultimate Sexy Hunky Guy was pretty much the only dude I've had my eyes on since seventh grade. I didn't like him because he's on the football team, or because he had an impeccable set of washboard abs (those points all helped, of course), but because of his love for music. He was a guitar player on top of all the rest, and there's nothing that matters more to me in this world then music. I mean, maybe pizza, but that's a different rant all together.

I just felt like really really connected on a different level with our musical interests, but Darla, my dear beautiful friend, would rather ram a fork through her eye then give him the time of day.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes, a look I was all too familiar with. "He's never going to notice you, Kat. Just give it a rest already."

I thrust my hand over my heart. "Oh goodness," I gasped. "Such supportive words... maybe the kindest I've ever heard."

A wave of pain shot through my arm as she smacked me with her textbook. "I'm serious! You need to cut it out with these delusions, Kit-Kat. It's not healthy. It's not rational."

"You think I'm ever rational?"

Another groan. This bitch groans a lot by the way, so strap in. "Fine," she muttered. "can we please just focus on the questions?"

I complied, turning my attention to our Modern History textbook, before promptly sticking my fingers down the throat. This was my most hated class of the day, and staring at Luke, front and centre in the front of class was the only thing that made it bearable. Lord knows Darla didn't.

* * *

Lunchtime. My favourite time of the day. As I navigated my way through the heardes of pubescent teens, I caught an earful of a conversation around the Semi-Popular Table. They were the kids who would step in for the populars if some atomic bomb happened to blow them all to smithereens.

"I heard he fucked her."
"No!"
"Yes. And on her desk, too."
"Ugh, I knew there was something off about Mrs Higgs. She always seemed like the type to fondle her students."
"S'pose he was always the type to fuck his teachers for extra credit, too."
"He's so hot though... shame it was wasted on that wrinkly old bitch."
"Tell me about it. If that had been me-"

"Kacey! Macey!" I chimed in. The tea was getting too hot for me not to stick my nose in and get the full scoop. "Who are we walking about."

"Kittyyyyyyy," Macey cooed. I'd tried to get her to stop calling me that since we were 14. "Ohmigosh come sit, come sit, we need to tell you all of it." She patted a space next to her and Kacey, her clone of a best friend. Kacey and Macey had always been nice enough girls to me; utterly ruthless bitches in general, of course, but mine and Macey's dads and Kacey's mum all work at the same law firm so we'd all bumped into each other for years. We were as good as awkward cousins.