Never Forget [Katy Perry Fan Fiction]

The Beginning

"Fifteen years old. Prime of your life. No real responsibilities or worries in the world, just the obligation of having to attend school five days a week and further study at home for the remaining two. Or at least, that's what my parents assumed. Academics wasn't my thing. Never has been; most likely never will be. Music and creative writing, on the other hand, you could say is my forte. I didn't want to be a geography teacher, a nurse or a psychiatrist, I wanted to be a singer. I remember my parents' friends asking me where I saw myself in ten years time, and when I replied on a stage in front of thousands of people, they would just look at me with an amused look and say, 'aw, that's nice.' I could see them thinking in their minds how the future I had planned out was unrealistic and pathetic; that I needed an ambition - a goal - in life that was actually achievable. Young Katheryn Hudson from Santa Barbara being a pop star? Not a chance on this Earth. There weren't many people that believed in me the way he did. Or saw me in the way that he did.
It was the Fourth of July of Freshman year. New classrooms, new teachers, new students. My parents were ministers so they travelled an awful lot, but I'd been assured that Santa Barbara is where we would now be staying for a good while. It was my favourite place to return back to, so when they said it was going to be our home again, I was over the moon. I had friends there, and it was familiarity. I had my little places where I would sit with my notebook and write down the song ideas I had in my head. Santa Barbara was home. There wasn't a place in the world like it. Not to me, anyway.
I was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a white Stone Roses T shirt. I always remembered because it was the first Fourth of July where I hadn't worn my Stars and Stripes t shirt. It was one of the hottest days of the year and I had just finished first period - math, I think it was. Everybody was queuing to fill up their water bottles at the water fountains because it was just that hot outside and me being me, was the only person without the common sense to bring some water to school with me. I headed out of math and decided I'd take the risk of being late to next lesson and took a detour to the school cafeteria. Between eleven and twelve was always the busiest time of the day, especially in the cafeteria, and so every single table was full. I decided to just get a drink from the vending machine and make my way back up to class - Laura would probably have been waiting for me anyway.
I was using the hair band around my wrist to tie my black hair up into a bun as I walked. Black wasn't the best colour when it was sunny and the absorption of the heat was making my neck drip with sweat. I was tying it back as I walked through the cafeteria towards the vending machine, when I felt my foot slip on something wet on the laminated flooring. I didn't have any time to react, and my hands were too busy to break my fall. All I saw was the blinding light of the sun disappear as my face smashed against the hard wood of the floor, so hard that I didn't understand how I managed to remain conscious. As dizzy and light headed as I was, I still managed to hear the entire room erupt into laughter as I laid there in the middle of the floor, on my own, helpless, and the most embarrassed I had ever been in my life.
I reopened my eyes, expecting to see the colour of laminate of which my face was pressed against, but instead I saw a pool of red surrounding me and the skin on my face became warm with the mixture.
I felt my bottom lip begin to quiver but I refused to cry. I wasn't putting on anymore of a show than what I already had done, that was for sure. I expected the laughter to die down once people saw that I was actually hurt and bleeding, but they only got louder. I felt the tears form in my eyes, and when I thought they were about to fall, despite me trying my best to not allow them to, I felt someone lift me back to my feet and push my head into their chest. I couldn't see his face or who it was, but by the masculinity of the person, I knew it was a boy.
He kept an arm tightly around my now shaking body, and my head buried deep away from the view of anybody else. I was so surprised when he stood there and looked at all the people in the cafeteria and said, "that's right, you all just laugh and leave her bleeding on the floor." I guess nobody had ever stuck up for me like that before, and it warmed my heart that he sounded almost, annoyed, that they had done that to me.
I heard him mutter something under his breath, calling them some sort of name under the sun, before he took me with him out of the cafeteria and to the medical room. I had been holding my white t shirt sleeve to my nose to absorb the blood, and when I looked down, my entire sleeve, up to my elbow, was completely dyed red with blood.
I could feel myself shaking, and my face burned with pain. I wasn't sure whether it was actually pain or whether it was just the embarrassment, but I could feel the sick in the pit of my stomach.
The boy, my saviour, whoever he was at the time, carefully let me loose out of his grip. That was the very first time that I laid my eyes on him. When I pulled my head from his chest and looked up into the most beautiful pair of eyes I had ever seen in my life, and saw the smile on his face so incredible that every single ounce of pain I felt seemed to just disappear into thin air. He was holding onto my arm for support, and I was stood so close to him that I could smell the natural scent of his skin - and I loved it.
Then came the sound of his voice when he said, 'are you okay? I can't believe they just left you there like that. We'll get you sorted, don't worry.' It was a raspy whisper, and it melted my heart into a million pieces. I didn't know what it was about him, but there was something that made him so inevitable to me. The way he looked so deep into my eyes, like he was searching my entire soul at the same time. Or the way his heart was so kind and so pure. I couldn't quite figure it out in the beginning.
He sat me down on a chair in the medical room whilst we waited for the school nurse to come and see me. I looked up at him from my chair, wondering why he was the one out of all those people that came to help me. I could tell straight away that his soul was as beautiful as his face, and I fell in love with it. All it took was him sitting there beside me, his hand placed carefully on my back and his eyes watching over me, for me to slowly begin to fall in love with him. I didn't even know him. I didn't know who he was, but he suddenly became someone that I couldn't get out of my mind no matter how hard I god damn tried. And that was the very beginning, that was where everything started."
She looked at me with pretty little tear filled eyes. Her head was placed in her hand, where it had been for the past twenty minutes as she listened carefully to me. She flicked her curly brown hair over her shoulder. "And what was his name?" Shannon Woodward finally spoke.
I smiled to myself as I thought about him, and for the first time in a long time I spoke his name. "Oliver James."