She Told Me Lies | The Joanne McKinley Diaries 1

She Told Me I Grew Up Gorgeous

First day of year nine. I adjust my new blue and white striped school shirt. Year nine came with a new shirt, harder classes and the year for GCSE choices. Last year was a dark one but, with it came another best friend and a boyfriend that I have been with for four months now. First days annoyed me but I liked them. See your friends again but also be reminded of last year's drama. New teachers, harder courses. But I was up for it, last year made me tougher and stronger. Basically nothing phased me anymore.

I brushed out my hair (still butt length) and scraped it into a bun with a dark blue bow and out on my glasses (still covering my entire face). Unlike last year, I started to have a figure. Like instead of indenting at the wrong places, I curved where I was supposed to. But I still thought of myself as ugly. Then my phone starts to buzz. Phone call from Mai. She's outside. I grab my backpack and other things then run downstairs to open the door. Instead if seeing Mai there, I see all three of them. I run up to Mason and he bear hugs me and lift me up while I kiss him. I hadn't seen him for three weeks since he went on holiday to Spain. He looked sexy with a tan.

"You look sexy with a tan," I tell him.

"Why thank you. You grew up gorgeous," he returns. I blush slightly.

"Yo, he isn't the only one here you know. Show some love to your best friends!" Mai screams and I grab Alisha and Mai in a group hug.

"I missed all of you. I swear down I was the only one who didn't go on holiday," I moan. I invite them in and we sit at the dining table for breakfast.

"What time do we need to be at school this year?" Alisha asks as Abel serves out the Nutella pancakes. 

"Nine. We've got half an hour until we leave," I answer.

We end up talking about complete and utter crap during breakfast but I don't care, it's really fun. And that's what we end up doing for the entire half hour.

When it's time to leave, we hop into mums car and drive to school. The car ride is like breakfast, only crap being uttered. It's actually pretty funny. Memes and vines. While Alisha's on her phone, she realised that I've hit 4k followers on Instagram. I didn't even realise. Everyone holds a mini party and I laugh. We had gotten all our timetables and we were in the same set:9A and same form (9D). And we didn't have the same shirty form tutor, we had two new ones called Mr Henshaw and Mrs Hall. Mrs Hall was nice since I had her for IT but Mr Henshaw creeped me out. He was a girly boy. Or womanly man? Oh well, better than Mr Phill. I give Mason a kiss. You could say I was all touch felt today but I missed him. Three weeks without him or anyone but Netflix.

We got to school and got out of the car and on the school grounds. Back in this place for a year. Hopefully minimal drama. My mum gives me a final once over. You'd think she would stop doing this since my 14th birthday was only eight months away. Yeah, a long time but oh well.

"She grew up gorgeous, didn't she?" Mason says, grabbing my waist.

"Yeah, you grew up gorgeous, Joanne. Your really did."