The Bad in Each Other

Being The Best Friend And The Girlfriend

"You'll never get a boyfriend! Ha ha ha ha ha! You'll go your whole life single cuz no one wants a girl with a criminal dad and drunk mum! You'll be single for ever!" Bruce Daley was a bully and everyone was too scared to stand up to him. He was awful to everyone, and he judged people on their weight, height, athletic ability, their physical appearance and their family.
I still remember one girl who was overweight. Jacinta Aleirgo. Bruce nagged her and harassed her and picked on her about her size. He made her cry. On the last day of school he pushed it too far.
The next year, when school started again, Bruce was still a cock head to innocent kids, but Jacinta was nothing like she was the previous year.
She came to school on the first day of year 8 frail and bony and unrecognisable.
She had starved herself.
And it was all because of Bruce.

I snapped back to reality when Tristan called out to me.
"You coming babe?"
"Yeah" I replied giving him a cute smile.
I hurried over to him and we walked to English class.
Tristan and I had been officially dating for a 2 weeks now, and I couldn't be more happier. I loved everything about him. And above all, I loved the way he made me feel.
Brianna, also in the space of 2 weeks, became my best friend, and Ebony, Angelina and the other girls were just friends. I started talking to Ebony again, but I can't look at her knowing that she ditched Bree. Of course, I haven't told Ebony that I know about that yet though.
When the bell rang for class to end, I walked back to my locker with Tristan and met up with Brianna. (Bree is her nickname). We had planned to go shopping so I said goodbye to Ebony and Angelina and walked over to Tristan. He embraced me and held me to this chest before kissing me on the head. I stood up on my tippy-toes and planted a sweet kiss on his plump lips before wishing him luck for his soccer game that night. "Thanks Nina" the same sparkle in his eye glimmered as it always did when we were together.
Bree and I walked out to her Mercedes Convertible and climbed in, before flicking the switch and allowing the roof to fold into the boot. We took off, leaving the school behind.
Once at the shopping mall, Brianna and I began our spree. We wandered around the centre top to bottom, but I had to keep in mind that I had a budget. I couldn't tell Bree that though.
Like I said before, money doesn't come in handfuls around my family.
At 5:30pm, Bree and I had spent a total of $213 between the two of us, and more than 75% of that was hers. I told her that nothing really caught my eye. Not that I was low on cash.
Brianna dropped me off back at my place and I mentally thanked god that I remembered to clear the driveway of weeds. It really made me wonder if I was the more mature one in this household. I did the cooking, cleaning, gardening, working and the scolding. (I had recently started babysitting the neighbours son for some extra cash) My mum was like the child. Always caught red-handed, doing stupid things and getting into trouble with the law.
I thanked Brianna and trudged up the driveway to my house, fumbled for the key in my bag and finally unlocked the door. I walked in, threw my purchases on the floor and called Tristan.
We talked for hours. I was on the phone to him when I was making dinner, when I was putting clothes and shoes away for both me and my mother, and when I was preparing myself for bed.
At 9:22pm I told him I was tired and needed some sleep. We wished each other a good night before I turned out the light and crawled under the covers.

The next day I awoke to the smell of smoke.
I leapt out of bed and ran to the source of the stench, the kitchen. Unsure of what I'd find, I brought my phone in my hand. I knew this place didn't have fire alarms.
I must admit, I was very startled when I saw my mum in the kitchen furiously trying to fan the smoke away. She looked up and saw me and smiled.
"Hey love, want some breakfast?"
I glanced over at the 'food' in the sink. It was scorched black and it didn't surprise me that my mum was the cause of that. She couldn't cook to save her life.
"I think I'll just have cereal" I told her.
What was she doing up? She usually gets home at about 1am, sleeps till 12pm, goes to work at 12:30pm, gets home at 5pm and then goes out drinking, restarting the cycle. Shit. I hated how I knew her schedule.
I slumped down into a chair and stared down at the gooey slop in the bowl in front of me.
Some things never change.

I arrived at school on time, excited to see Bree and Tristan and the other girls. Because Bree and Ebony don't like each other, I make sure they don't sit near each other at lunch, just to keep peace.
Apart from my mum, my life was slowly starting to get on track.
I was planning to see my dad again tonight, as it had been a little while since last time and I had been busy with my friends and boyfriend.
When school was over, I hazily went home and found my mum sitting on the couch watching TV. I was astonished, to say the least. "Hi honey" she said nicely.
"Hey" I felt like that it was a raise-your-eyebrow kind of moment.
"How was school?" This was new.
"Pretty good, thanks" I was looking for the catch. "I'm going to see dad now" I told her. She stopped smiling.
"Okay" she said quietly.
"Do you want to come?"
"Um I-I think I'll stay home," she finally said. I thought that seeing dad could help her.
"Okay, well bye then." I said, closing the front door behind me.

3 weeks later and my life was somewhat improving. My mum was around every 1 in 4 nights, I was getting closer to Bree, I was drifting further and further apart from Ebony and Angelina, and Tristan and I were almost inseparable.
Tonight we planned on going to our favourite place, the rooftop where I kissed him.
We had been dating for over a month now, but it felt like more because I knew him so well.
I was less stressed about people at Ambrosine High finding out my secrets, as I thought I was doing pretty well at hiding the actual truth.
Tristan picked me up at 7pm like we planned, and we headed for our special romantic hideaway. As we did last time, we snuck around the side, through the back and took 10 flights of stairs to the roof.
We sat on the old air conditioner once again and I began smiling, giggling and whispering with him- those were the symptoms of his impact on me.
"Okay, I want you to tell me something about yourself that no one else knows" he smiled at me. Crap. Oh no. Shit. Shit. Shit.
"Like a secret?" I gulped.
"If you want" he did not know what he was actually asking me.
I fumbled for a response. I hated lying to him, because I know I'd hate it if he lied to me.
"I don't have any secrets" I quickly told him discreetly. 'Please believe me please believe me please believe me' my conscience repeated.
He seemed to have bought it, and oh my lord I was thankful for that.
"Tell me something about you that I don't already know then" I told him, suddenly very interested. "Tell me something that no one else knows".
He fidgeted with his fingers before looking up at me.
"I-I I umm I" he stuttered.
"Hey" I said catching him off guard. "You don't have to if you don't want to" I realised I'd hit a sensitive area.
"N-no, I want to" he told me trying to smile. I waited for him to continue. "When I was 12", he started, "My mum came down with a sickness. Everyone thought it was just a virus or a common cold going around, but it refused to go away. It got so bad that she couldn't eat and she told us it felt like her insides were rotting away." he swallowed hard, "Soon she was visiting the doctor regularly, and before anyone knew it, she was told she had cancer." He was looking down at the ground, clearly upset about his story. I took his hands and played with his fingers before staring into his gorgeous award winning eyes.
"I'm so sorry" I told him. And I was. It must have been awful for him. He obviously cares about her a lot, otherwise he wouldn't've been that close to tearing up.
He looked into my eyes and planted a soft lingering kiss onto my lips.
"I love you", he whispered.
"I love you too".