Saving Nicole

1.6 - the family dinner

On Monday morning, the first day of school after the conference that Sage, Elise and I went to on the weekend, it was raining.

Rain dripped down the windows of my homeroom classroom, my hair was damp and frizzy in first class English with year sevens, and by second class I had given up trying to stay dry. Melbourne weather, have it your way. I don't care anymore.

Third class I had unit three creative writing, the class Nicole was in. 
Everyone was working on the stories they'd started the other day, and it was dead silent. A lot of them listened to music as they worked, so there wasn't a lot of talking. I was grading essays that my year eights had written in English, but my mind wasn't really on it. 

I encourage you to ask if they're alright, and really listen to their answer.

And, parts of the lecture kept ringing around in my head. That story about Jack kind of creeped me out.

It might save a life.

How many students had been written off as trouble makers just because they didn't know how to ask for help? Hundreds? Thousands?
I hadn't realised that I was absentmindedly staring at Nicole until she looked up for a second, seen me staring, and raised an eyebrow. I quickly looked away, embarrassed.

School was the one place where Jack didn't have to be in charge, where he didn't have to be a grown up and in charge.

"Miss Riley? Hello?" I snapped out of it, and saw Callie standing next to my desk. "You okay? You were kind of out of it."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks. What's up?"

"I really don't know what to do with this." Callie held up her work book, and I could see pages and pages of messy scrawl. 

"Well, pull up a chair." She did, and then sat down. "What's your story about?"

"A boy named Elliot who has a major crush on this girl, Anna, who works in a cafe next to his school. One day, she disappears and then he goes on this crazy long adventure to try find her. He ends up in India, because the manager of the cafe says she went there, and that's kind of as far as I've gotten with the plan."

"Well, it certainly has potential. Where are you up to?"

"She's just disappeared," Callie said as she handed me her book. I quickly read through the last two paragraphs. It was written well, but it had a lot grammar mistakes, simple ones too, and that always annoyed me. 

"Okay. And what are you stuck with?"

"Well, I'm not really sure, I suppose. I feel like there's a lot of plot holes."

"Alright. What you could do is write a chapter breakdown of sorts, where you just do a sentence or two about whats going to happen in each chapter. It makes it easy to see all the different sub-plots and to add things in or take out irrelevant pieces. The when you start a new chapter, refer back to the breakdown and see what you had planned for that chapter. That always helps me." 

Callie nodded slowly, considering it. "Yeah, okay. Thanks Miss!"

"No problem, Callie."

As I drove to my mothers house that night for dinner, I considered how I was going to tell mum about Sean and I breaking up. She'd been especially excited about the wedding, and had loved Sean since I'd started dating him. God, she'd probably loved Sean more than I did; he was like the son she'd never had.

"Gracie!" Mum wrapped her arms around me in a big hug. "Where's that wonderful fiance of yours?" We had planned this dinner ages ago, long before Sean got cold feet or whatever. His name made me feel sick, and I made a humphing noise. Mum gave me a strange look.

"Yeah, about that mum. Look, sit down." She did so quietly, and waited for me to tell her whatever I was going to tell her. "Sean broke up with me." I had decided that it was better to tell her quickly, like ripping off a band-aid.

"Gracie! That's awful!" She hugged me again, and I could feel her tiny frame shake as she cried. Mum was even smaller than I was.

"Don't cry, mum," I said, but I felt like a hypocrite because I was crying again too. I hadn't worn mascara on purpose because I figured this might happen.

After mum stopped crying, I helped her finish the salad and we sat down to eat the steak and garden salad she'd made. Mum thankfully picked up on the fact that I kind of wanted to avoid talking about Sean, so she told me about the book that her book club had started reading. She was always good like that, knowing when to just avoid a subject completely.

And I definitely wanted to just forget all about Sean.

Authors note:

Hey!

First things first. I changed the title from Saving Grace to Saving Nicole, ahaha. I always felt that Saving Grace was a bit backwards. Also I made a new cover!

Ah, I know this chapter is short. Sorry, the next one will hopefully be longer.
What did you think of this chapter? I'd love some feedback and I'm totally open to criticism (as long as it's helpful and not just bashing. Lol.)

Much love,
Ella x