"Hey, Andi!" Imogen started "wait up! OK, so I was gonna ask you this before but your friends are very inquisitive" she stopped to catch her breath "do you want to hang out after school today?"
"Um, yeah, sure. Wait, I can't" I said, remembering what my mum had told me that morning.
"Well, whatever you have to do, maybe I could tag along?" She asked "oh my God, I just invited myself along with you." She muttered under her breath. "I am so sorry." She apologized.
"Oh! No, no! Don't apologise to me. I was just about to say that you could hang out at my house anyway" I said, giving her a reassuring shoulder punch. "Don't stress, that's my job. Ha." Imogen smiled at me. Her cute smile that forms little dimples on her tan cheeks.
OK so... it's raining. Thats just great" I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
"Its OK!" Imogen yelled, twirling around in the rain "come dance with me!"
"Um, Imogen!?" I asked, watching her glide around the car park.
"Yeah!" she answered, dancing to no music.
"I can't dance. Especially in the rain"
"Come on! I'll show you how." She walked over to me, grabbed my hand and spun me out into the cold. It sent a shock of coldness down my spine.
"Like this" she held both my hands, stood behind me and rested her chin gently on my shoulder.
"Just follow my lead and sway" she whispered in my ear. Once we started swaying a bit faster she quickly ran under cover to put on some music to dance to. It was some dumb poppy radio song but I didn't really care. Imogen twirled out, her long hair flicking water everywhere because of the rain. I pulled the ribbon keeping my hair up, out and let my temporarily straight hair get saturated. I stuck out my tongue and tasted the fresh water. Imogen took my hand and twirled me around, stopping when we were face-to-face. We leaned in towards each other, it was so spontaneous and I was afraid of messing it up. Even in the cold of the rain I could feel the warmth of her body against mine. She was a bit shorter than me so she had to go up on tiptoes. I could smell her delicious scent. She smelt like art, all beautiful and calming. She smelt like the canvases, like the brushes. I could hear the lightning in the distance frightening us, causing us to pull away.
Then we realised that we were standing in the rain. In the cold. In the dark.
"Come on, we'll catch pneumonia if we stay out here. This way!" I said smiling at Imogen's hand, which had made it's way inside mine. We ran down the street in the rain towards my house.
As we're walking down the road Imogen asked me a question. One that I have never had to answer before. She asked
"So... Andi. I just wanted to ask you, if you have ever had a girlfriend before me?"
Thats when I stopped walking. It also seemed the rain had lightened up. The winter sun shone through the leaves, bathing us in a warm glow.
"Before you? Does that mean you are my current, girlfriend?" I asked her, taking both of her small hands in mine.
"I think it does" she kissed me gently on my mouth, a big grin plastered across her face.
"Here's my house" I said, pointing at the small building with my free hand. The rain had really cleared up now, the sun was shining down on the large puddles in the ground. We we're still saturated. Imogen's blue hair dripping, pulled up into a messy bun.
"Mum! I'm home!" I called out.
"I wonder where she is" I told Imogen "see, this morning my mum said that there was something she needed to tell me after school, that's why I had to come straight home." We turned a corner and saw my mum with a man I didn't know, aruguing.
"Mum?" My mother spun around. Her makeup smuged from angry tears. She took a deep, shaky breath;
"Andi, this. This is your father."
Authors note:
End of the first of three parts!
QOTD: How do you think Andi is going to react with her father around?
