Wish We Could Turn Back Time m.c

Chapter 24

"I'M HOME!" I announced upon bursting through my own front door for the first time in a week. My taxi from the airport just dropped me off and my flight from Florida landed earlier than expected so I thought I would surprise my mum who was originally supposed to come pick me up.

"Lacey!" Wendy ran to the door to hug me. I wrapped the twelve year old in my arms, happy to see her again. Happy to hear another Australian accent again.

"Darren, you get over here too!" My fourteen year old brother, no one for hugs, begrudgingly joined his two sisters, forming a group hug. My mum made an 'aww' sound when she finally came to greet me in the foyer, causing Darren to promptly let go and Wendy and I to laugh.

"How's my girl?" My mum said when she hugged me after Wendy had let go. "I missed you!"

"I missed you too mum. America was so fun! I should've called more," I side glanced at my younger siblings. I really wanted to ask how the financial and job situation was going, but it looked like I'd have to save it for tomorrow when Wendy was off at swim practice and Darren was at football practice after school like they normally were. That's when mum and I usually talk anyways.

After telling my many many stories of Rachel, Jasmine, and I's shenanigans (leaving out the fact that most of the time at least one of us was drunk), I excused myself and retreated upstairs to my room. Flopping on my bed, I realized how much I missed this little room. I'm not a party girl! I needed my solitude back.

Due to the softness of the bed, I found myself drifting off to sleep as soon as I laid down, forgetting to even change into my pajamas. Oh well, I deserved some sleep anyway after my hell of a week.

.

.

.

This may sound a bit conceited (okay, a lot conceited), but at school the next morning, it was kind of weird to have everyone ignoring me again. I walked down the halls, and I was just Lacey again. Not the cool, exotic Australian girl with the long legs and the hot dress like I was in America, just Lacey. I guess everyone in America is just super nice, or at least everyone in Miami.

Another thing that had me a little off kilter that morning was that Al didn't join me on the walk to school. I mean, we had only been on spring break for a week, could he really have forgotten within a week when we had been doing the same thing every morning for the entirety of the school year? My guess was no. In addition to that troubling information, Al hadn't been to my locker all morning to say hi or to just chat. He doesn't do it every day, but he does a lot, so I was starting to think he had dropped off the face of the Earth or something. I knew for a fact we crossed paths to walk to class at least twice so maybe he had seen me in the hallway and just didn't wave or say hi? He didn't even text me or anything this morning to tell me he was going to be absent. All very troubling.

My answer to it all came at lunch time, and I was the farthest from happy about what I saw. Heading outside to sit in the courtyard as always, I stole a glance over at Charlotte's table. I have no earthly idea what possessed me to do so, but I'm sorry I did. What I saw left me in tears for the rest of the day.

At the table sat all of Charlotte's usual people, except in the place where Lance usually sits, there was a different, shorter, blonder boy with his arm around Charlotte. As I walked, I told myself 'it couldn't be, it couldn't be, it couldn't be,' but when I got closer, there was no denying that those warm brown eyes were my friend Alexander's.

As I passed them to get to my usual table, I was unable to pull my gaze away from Al's face. He kept his arm around Charlotte while he stared back at me, with something I couldn't read in his expression. Well, either I couldn't read it or I just couldn't see anything because all the tears made my vision blurry. I'd bet on the latter.

When I sat down to eat lunch, I saw a girl heading across the courtyard getting ready to pass by my table. I got her attention as she was walking by.

"Excuse me, are Charlotte and Alexander dating now?" She would know, anyone would with Charlotte basically being the queen of the school.

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes at me and kept on walking as if I should have already known that. Figures, I knew Al and I had been growing apart, but I didn't know our friendship had gone this bad.

Where did I go wrong?
.
.
.
Finally after what seemed like three years, I got the books out of my locker that I needed for that nights homework and got ready to exit the building. That day had probably been the worst school day of my life.

Just as I slammed my locker shit and turned around, I was almost knocked over by someone rushing past me in the other direction. A paper fluttered to the ground in their wake and I bent down to pick it up.

"Uh, you dropped this," I said, not knowing who I was speaking to until I finally got a good look at the back of her head. Full of long raven curls. Uh oh.

"Oh than-" she stopped her thanks when she turned around and saw who I was. While she was walking back towards me (she'd put a lot of distance between us in her rush), I studied the paper she'd dropped. It was a picture of  a girl looking in through a window and crying. I didn't know Charlotte could draw.

"Give me that!" She snatched it out of my hand when she saw I was looking at it so closely.

"What's it for?" I asked in a neutral tone, different from the defensive tone I usually take when interacting with Charlotte. At this point, I really had nothing to fight for anyway.

"None of your business," she turned on her heel and stalked off, not even the fact that she was dating Al now. Usually Charlotte's the floating type.

Maybe she wanted to get out of there just as fast as I did that day.
.
.
.
End of part 24.

Yay summer is almost here! I'm so excited, get ready for some daily updates guys. Love y'all! <3

Song of the day: Get Me Out by Falling in Reverse

-SJ