Breaking Hope (Finding Sky edit)

Chapter 18

It turns out teenager's do indeed gossip. Now, we all know that's true, don't we? Teenager's gossip. How many times have you walked into your place of education and you are confronted by the gossip of the weekend that you probably missed out on? Too many. You walk in and within the first five minutes of Monday morning, before your first lesson has even started, you've been filled in by the massive gossip the entire tutor – or maybe even year – was discussing before then. I cannot tell you the amount of times I've walked into tutor to a parade of sweaty, tired teenagers shouting gossip at each other (never me) about how Lisa Sedu, "you know, the Lisa who sits by herself in English class?" got drunk and made out with three of the lads at some cute girls party. Two things I never thought could happen evolved around this form of gossip. I never thought the whole year could be talking about an event that happened a few mere hours again, and I never thought I would be the person in the gossip.

The next morning, I walked into tutor alone slightly late. I had woken up late and my hair took about seven years longer to do than normal due to the sheer amount of hairspray from the night before, so I told Lauren not to worry about picking me up, and this meant I was late to tutor. Nothing seemed overly different about school, the school grounds were perilously quiet, the parking lot full of cars that were all now empty. I noticed as I walked along the grounds, the sky had turned to an iron-grey colour with a hint of pink, and the temperature was dropping dramatically. I wasn't too sure if it was meant to snow in mid-October, but it definitely felt like it could. When listening to the radio in the shower this morning, it was reported snow had fell in some of the higher areas of Colorado, and even the slopes this side of town, but the town was still yet to have its first major snowfall. I was trying to drag my feet for as long as I could, but I still had to go in, and that dread in my gut wasn't enough to make me run away. Reluctantly I headed into pupil reception to sign in late, and ran up the stairs to my tutor room.

Okay, I can do this. Hardly anyone knew what had happened last night – everyone was upstairs and we were milling around down right? No one could possibly know. I was so, so wrong. The second I even opened the door, everyone looked at me and continued their gossip. They looked between me, and their friendship groups, and I heard my name thrown around the room several times. My self esteem couldn't handle this. The whole day dragged through like this, with kids from even the years below staring at me longer than needed. Even teachers had given me guilty stares, and gave me coded messages about not wanting to go further than I wanted to go, and not to be ashamed to ask for help. I couldn't help but get annoyed with these labels people had put on the Williams' family. This was not fair on them, any of them. Sure, I've only met a few of them but I've gotten to know Ella and Oscar and the side of them I knew was not the side of the that was viciously shared around school. I still don't think it's fair.

That evening, I sat alone in my bedroom desk, handwriting an essay for English based on the Jacobean play "The White Devil". Despite reading it in class, I realised I didn't pay attention and was effectively writing this essay without even knowing the characters names (please note: the character is called Flamineo, not Flamingo,) or the story line. My parents weren't at home when I returned after school, and they left a note on the side saying they were called into work early and that dinner was in the fridge, and they'll be home by nine.

Hope? Are you feeling okay? Oscar whispered into my head, and I focused on that. Immediately I looked out the window expecting to see either him or his sister outside my house, but the road was empty.

Oscar, how are you doing that? Where are you?

I'm still at home; do you want to come over? He said, and I considered it for a second. I knew that there was something more between Oscar and me, as, you know, speaking to each other's brains wasn't something normal people could do. I had started to believe that I was indeed a Savant, and the Williams family was as well but I still didn't know what was laying on the relationship. Did I want to go over though? I thought about it carefully. I didn't want to stay here alone, not with the man still on the loose who randomly appears and finds me but do I want to go over and brave the entire family at the same time? Hmm...