Pattern

Chapter Two

Dad brought me home a little while later, and cooked a microwave meal for two. We sat at the table in silence, eating a bad chicken curry, when I eventually started a conversation. 

"How was work?" 

"It was fine," He replied, picking at his food.

"I was talking to Avery at the station." 

He looked up, a little more interested now. "Really?"

"He said you arrested him."

"I did," Dad nodded, looking back down at the meal. 

"What'd he do now?" I asked, then sipped from my drink.

"Vandalism," My dad half-sighed. "I've given that boy too many second chances, Prudence. He's just trouble, and I honestly think that's all he'll ever be."

I shrugged. He was probably right. Still, vandalism wasn't too bad, for Avery. It annoyed me that I still thought about him - he was like that annoying ex-friend that you couldn't quite shake off. He may have been a nice kid, but now he was a cocky teenager that was going nowhere in life but jail. 

 Madison rang me while I struggled with Maths homework and ranted on the phone for a full five minutes about how hot Daniel Smith (a senior football player, typically) was. I 'mm-hmm'ed when needed, but she noticed I wasn't fully participating so decided to interrogate me. 

"Soooo, is anyone looking very fine in Prudy's little mind right now?" 

I put my pencil down. "No, there is no-one." I replied, then added for drama "There never is!"

It wasn't a big lie - I had one boyfriend, last year, who had been tall and awkward and nice but there had been nothing special between us (not terribly important when you're fifteen, but still) so I had broke up with him after two months. He was a little heartbroken, but in the end, it really was just a crush. And now he was dating a sophomore named Bonnie who sometimes smiled at me with her braces in the hallways.

"Don't worry, Prudy, you're like.. you're like the big apple at the top of the tree."

"What?" I looked at the phone in confusion. "That makes me feel better how?"

"No, like, all the guys are climbing up to get you. The rest of us are in the tree, with the bad apples. But you're at the top, and all the boy apples are fighting to get you, and only the best will."

"Thanks, Madison. That really made my day," I muttered sarcastically, wondering what to make of that whole metaphor. "Got to go now, byeeeee!"

"Bye my favourite apple," Madison replied before I hung up. I rolled my eyes, gave up on the ridiculously long agelbra equation, and went to bed.

--

I wandered into school the next day with a lost expression - I'd overslept, so my hair was a bush, my make-up wasn't done to standard (as per usual), and I'd thrown on some jeans and -wait for it- a wooly jumper. The non-cute type. It wasn't even that cold. 

"Oh, hon," Madi said when she saw me. "You look like you just wandered out of the forest after sixteen years."

"I think that's an exaggeration," I muttered defensively.

"I bet you also think that jumper is fashionable," She replied. "Oh well. No hot guys for you."

"I'll live."

Double history made dictatorship sound easy, and I added it to my (long) list of career choices at the end of class. "Dad desperately wants me to go to college," I told Madison as we walked out of the room. "I think he just doesn't want me to do what he did - get stuck in a small town forever."