we're not angels

Chapter 1

Faith

'So you're going yeah?'

Harriet looked at me with pleading eyes. I sighed at her. Why was she so obsessed with me going out?

I looked down at my mug of hot chocolate, the heat kept my fingers warm. It was mid-winter, my favourite time of the year really. It was snowing outside now. I looked out of the window watching frantic woman doing last minute shopping for Christmas and depressed boyfriends tagging along. I smiled unknowing to myself that Harriet was still waiting for me to answer her.

'What's wrong with you Faith?! You haven't been on a night out in 4 months!'

I was surprised by the harshness in her voice. She was right though, the last time I was properly out with her and our friends was on my my fifteenth birthday when we went for dinner and to the disco in the sports club downtown. It was a pretty good night. All of my friends enjoyed the dinner. We went to my favourite Chinese restaurant 'The Great Wall' and none of them complained when the waitress forgot to bring over prawn crackers.

The food was great and they sang happy birthday when they brought out my cake (so embarrassing!) the disco was great too. My friends and I made sure that we never left the dance floor and requested songs whenever we had the chance. Even Harriet went for some karaoke, I joined her later on and we sang our hearts out! It was a good night.

But when Dad left us shortly afterwards I wasn't in the mood to go out anymore.

My recent panic attacks did not help with the situation either. Mum said it would get better, I did not know how she could stay so strong. She lost her husband and I lost a father, Toby took the news even worse, he didn't talk to my mum and I for weeks but he seemed to get over it just like that. One minute he was lying in bed in his room all day everyday, then the next he is going back to football practise and helping around the house which is something Toby never does!

But I knew where Harriet was coming from; she supported me when my Dad left but I never told her about my panic attacks. She had enough on her plate then for me to land this on her. Of course she wanted me to go out and enjoy myself. Every time she went out to a friend's party or a disco she called me on the hour every hour checking up on me and offering to come back and order a pizza but I always said no and told her to enjoy herself.

'Well?' said Harriet, her hands were squeezing her cup of coffee, her knuckles turning white.

'I don't even know the band Harriet,' I said quietly, 'how will I be able to engage with the songs?'

Harriet rolled her eyes at me and put her cup down.

'Look Faith, I'm only going to say this once,' she said her voice lowered and serious. I put my cup down and listened attentively, 'You've got to put this behind you, I know it was hard when your dad left but he would want you to live your life and be happy.'

I looked at her sternly, I thought we agreed not to talk about him! But she was right, if Dad saw me acting the way I was he would have told me to get up off my lazy ass and go have fun, but him not being there to say that was the problem.

'Alright!' I said, defeated. 'I'll go, when is it on?' Harriet squealed and I knew I made the right decision. 'Okay, it's on in Bakersfield Hall at nine.' Harriet reached into her bag and pulled out a crumpled up flyer. 'The concert is a fundraiser for the sports centre in Bishops Park, the company keeping it going is threatening to tear it down.' She pointed down at the flyer; there were five guys with beautiful white teeth, dreamy eyes and drop dead gorgeous faces. They were obviously the band playing there. Under their faces was the name of the band; Recruiting Workless.