Forget Me Not

Chapter One

Fey Ellens woke early that morning. She had forgotten to close her blinds last night, so the sun was shining right in her eyes when she opened them. Torture. She groaned and rubbed the sleep from her dark brown eyes, her mom had always said they looked like those of a cow. Her mom meant it as a compliment, of course, she simply adored Fey and would never say a word against her. Fey lay still for a few minutes trying to get the willpower to get up, Mondays were the worst. Finally the smell of toast and eggs got the better of her and she put on her glasses and dragged herself downstairs.

When she arrived in the kitchen, her mom was sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee and reading the news on the latest tablet. Her mom always had the best of everything. Her father was a one of the highest ranking business man in the province of Manitoba, he owned many grain elevators and had countless farmers working for him.

When Fey walked in, her mom looked up and smiled. She always smiled when she saw Fey. After trying for a child for close to eight years, she had almost given up when along came Fey. This made Fey's parents fair bit older than those of her friends.

"Morning sweetheart!" She said cheerfully.

"Mrng mum..." Mumbled Fey, who was not a morning person.

"Hello, darling!" Said Fey's father looking up from the stove where he was making scrambled eggs. Despite having left England in his youth to come to Canada, he always sounded distinctly British.

Fey sat down at the table and poured herself a bowl of cereal. She took a bite and gagged. "Yuck!" She yelped. "Seriously dad?! Plain cheerios! I thought we had agreed on honey nut."

"Sorry, Honey." He said unconcernedly, not even looking up from his cooking. "Must have forgotten. Anyway you can have some of my eggs, they're quite fresh you know. I picked them up from Miss Leyd just yesterday."

"Never mind, I'll just grab a granola bar for the drive, I said I'd give Bailey a ride to school anyway."

Fey went to her room upstairs and got ready for school. It was a surprisingly long process. First she had to choose what to wear. After awhile she settled on the usual skinny jeans and her favourite yellow t-shirt. Then she had to do her hair. This morning she was feeling lazy so she just scraped it into a high ponytail and left it at that. Then makeup, which consisted of mascara and eyeliner and nothing else. Finally she was done, so she picked up her jean backpack and made her way down the stairs. She stopped in the kitchen to grab the granola bar for breakfast and say goodbye to her mom. Her father had left while she was getting dressed. Being a great businessman tended to require you to be in the office early.

Fey grabbed her keys and her phone while getting her winter boots on in the front hall. She pulled on her coat but didn't bother with gloves. She texted Bailey on her way out the door, telling her she would pick her up in a few minutes. Climbing in the car she immediately regretted not having put on a hat, it was winter in Winnipeg and minus twenty seven degrees. She shivered and cranked the heat in her sky blue BMW. Her parents had gotten her the car of her choice for her 16th birthday this year. Luckily it came with heated seats.

Fey pulled cautiously out of the driveway. She always drove with care, especially when it was this icy.

A few minutes later she was pulling into Bailey's driveway and turning off the car. She had been best friends with Bailey since fifth grade. She rushed up the cement steps to Bailey's house, almost falling halfway up. She got her balance, stomping her feet on the old mat that said 'Welcome to the Clark Home' in big red letters. It was a standing joke in the family since Bailey's real last name was Smith, but her mom had got the mat at a garage sale for next to nothing, so from then on they were honorary Clarks.

Fey knocked.

"Hey!" Said Bailey opening the door, while fighting back Bentley her giant brown lab. Bailey's three sisters and two brother's rushed to the door and were now jockeying for attention.

"Fey! Fey! I lost a tooth!" Yelled Sam.

"I hit my head!" Piped in Addeline.

" Fey, watch this!" Shouted Piper doing an impressive somersault down the hall.

Bailey grabbed her shoulder bag, pushed back her crazy siblings and yelled goodbye to her parents. She squeezed out the door and shut it with finality.

"Whew..." She sighed.

Fey grinned, as much as Bailey complained about having so many brothers and sisters, Fey had always longed for a bigger family.

She and Bailey talked each other's ears off on the way to school. Even though they talked every evening and most mornings, it still felt like they would never run out of things to say to each other. When Fey pulled into one of the end parking spots at school she had been brought up to date on all the antics of the Smith family, and had told Bailey all the details of yesterday that she had forgotten to tell her, or hadn't had the time to during their nightly phone call.

She and Bailey got out of the car and began to run to the door the snow was pelting down and the wind was whipping them in the face.

"I don't know why you insist at parking at the far end of the lot even in this weather!" Yelled Bailey over the wind as they sprinted to get inside.

"Because I like my car! And the paint job! You know half these kids can't park!" Yelled back Fey, silently cursing Winnipeg weather.

The girls arrived at the front door and rushed inside just as the bell rang.

The morning pasted in a whirl of note taking and test preparations. It would be the Christmas holidays soon, and all the teachers were trying to get in some last minute teaching.

Fey and Bailey shared one class that morning just before lunch. Gym. Most kids hated gym asides from the jocks. When the girls walked into the gymnasium they immediately noticed the sticks in a bucket in the corner. Floor hockey. This would seem fine to most but at this school it basically meant if you weren't sporty you stood there and had pucks flung at you by the more athletic kids.

The coach started the lesson by having them run laps. Then he sorted them into teams and told them to go at it. Bailey's team was up first. Luckily for her, the other team didn't really seem to want to play and the game was pretty tame. Next Fey's team went up. This game was not nearly so calm. Fey was against some of the toughest kids in their grade. She stayed out of the way as much as possible, still there were a few times she was certain she was going to get hit, but the puck wizzed passed her. Then with only a minute left in the game she made the deadly mistake of trying to clean her glasses. While her head was down mark Miller gave an almighty wristshot and hit her right in the hands. She dropped her glasses and they fell almost as if in slow motion. CRACK! Fey leaned down and picked them up, she examined them. They were definitely broken. One of the lenses had cracked like a spider web, the other had fallen out and was nowhere to be found.

Fey was allowed to sit out the rest of gym, as she would have been pretty useless trying to play. The rest of the day seemed to go downhill from there. At lunch Bailey sat with her boyfriend, and while Fay was invited she found it way to awkward. She couldn't take notes in any of her classes, and Bailey had to drive her home, because she couldn't even see the road. No offense to Bailey but she wasn't a great driver, she was always breaking way to hard and jerking the wheel.  Overall it was turning out to be a pretty lousy day. But Fey had no idea it was about the get a whole lot worse.