The Book Thief 》Hemmings A.U

37.00

"COHEN, PLEASE JUST...please don't be mad at me." Luke says quietly, turning on his side so that he faces me, and so that only I can hear him.

"You said you were going to give it back days ago, Luke. We're nearly finished with your applications and I've barely started mine. I'm running out of time and you know that."

"I'm not doing it on purpose." He starts, whispering frantically as he props his head up on his arm. "What do you think, that I'm intentionally keeping it away from you?"

"Yeah, I think that's exactly what you're doing, but I don't know why. Do you just not want me to get into the school of my dreams, or something? To further my education at all?" I hiss, trying to keep my voice at a whisper so that Lucy and Calum don't hear me, but finding it hard to.

"I..." He starts, licking his lips and shaking his head, seeming frustrated. "No. No, it's wrong to do that, obviously. I just lost it, that's all. Just lost it." Luke repeats again, dropping his arm and lying on his backside again.

"Then for both of our sakes, I hope you find it." I say in a hard voice, pushing myself to a standing position and beginning to head towards the locked snack shack. Lucy is in the middle of a conversation with Calum, so neither of them question my sudden departure.

When I get close enough to where I have locked my parents, I lean closer, and try to catch a snippet of what I hope to be a positive conversation.

"There's no explanation, Jenna. I guess that I was just feeling empty and alone and she was there and you weren't and..." My dad stops speaking eventually, his sentence seeming to trail off as he realizes that it wasn't a very adequate excuse.

"But I was there. I was always there and you were distant and that was the problem. Just because someone else is there doesn't mean you have to act on whatever it is your feeling." My mother bites back, bitterness clear in every one of her words.

"I still love you."

"And like I told our daughter, sometimes love isn't always enough, no matter how much you wish it could be." She tells him, sounding frail and small.

"This is it, then?"

"This is it." She repeats, the conversation ending, and the area growing uncomfortably silent.

Pressing my lips together in frustration and knowing that I have failed, I kick the surfboard keeping the front door locked, hard, until it pops out and the door creeks open.

Before they can come outside and see me, I turn on my heel and begin running; away from Luke and Lucy and Calum and my parents and everything that was clouding my mind and slowly driving me towards insanity.

I run until I get to our house and with new found determination, I slide my key into the lock and amble up the stairs until I reach my bedroom.

My breathing is heavy and labored and as an attempt to ease my panic and get rid of at least one of the problems I was currently facing, I pull out my type writer, and begin to answer one of the many questions on the universal college applications.

This particular question addressed my upbringing and what had happened that had made me the person I am today, what made me the person that universities should accept.

I write about how my parents had still managed to make me feel wanted despite my grandmother's constant reminders that I was a mistake; that I was never meant to be born.

I write about how we struggled with money and how both of my parents had failed ambitions and that I didn't want to be another what if; I didn't want my dreams to perish like there's had.