Dark personalities

Change means trouble

8:00am, I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock buzzing in my ear, damaging my eardrum. I was deep in a dream, and didn't realise what the noise was until I hear Roxy, my dog barking at it. I used to love mornings, we used to all eat breakfast together, and talk about what our plans were for the day but ever since mum and dad have started arguing, I just don't have the energy to get myself out of bed. But then again, most 14 year olds don't like mornings right? I was surprised to hear complete silence when I woke up, normally I hear mum and dad screaming at each other, while Mark, my brother is trying to block out the noise with his loud rock music. I sat up in my bed, and enjoyed the silence, I knew it wasn't going to last. My phone rang and made me jump out of my skin! I looked at the bright screen to see that it was my best friend Liv calling me.
"Hey Han!" She said, not sounding as joyful as she usually does.
"Hey Liv, why are you phoning me this early? I told you, you can't copy my homework okay?!" I was in a rush trying to get ready for school at the same time.
"I don't want to copy your homework, I've already copied Liam's actually" Liam is Liv's boyfriend. They've been going out for about 3 weeks and they act like they've known each other for years.
"Oh sorry, I'm just trying to get ready. What's up?" I said, feeling guilty for snapping at her.
"I swear I just saw your dad with another woman in his car" she sounded concerned.
"Seriously? He's probably just giving her a ride as a friend that's all"
"Oh yeah and your dad just makes out with everyone he gives a ride to then yeah? As a friend of course?" She started to raise her voice, I think she was annoyed I didn't take it seriously.
"Are you sure it was my dad Liv? You know what you're like sometimes" I said, hoping she was mistaken.
"Han, I've known you and your family since I was 3 years old, I think I know your dad when I see him don't you think?" She was starting to calm down a bit now.
"Listen, thanks for telling me and all, but I can't deal with this right now, my mums crying again" I hung up before she could answer back. I heard my mum crying from her room. Ever since her and my dad started arguing, she's been crying everyday. That's why me and Mark started looking for somewhere out of the house, to get away from all the shouting. We were on a walk and we saw an old, abandoned building. We went to go check it out and it's actually pretty cool. Whenever we need to get away from the house, we go to sit on the roof of the abandoned building and just talk to each other. We call it our haunted hideout. I went to see Mark to say goodbye,
"I'm going to school now Mark, I'll see ya later" I said while tripping over his dirty clothes on the floor of his bedroom.
"Han, I don't know why you even bother with school, it's so boring" he said with a sly grin. Mark dropped out of school when he was 16, he didn't go to college, he thinks it's a waist of time and effort.
"Actually Mark, I'm enjoying school. It's better than being home with mum and dad arguing all the time and being stuck in my room trying to hide from all the tension" I said while walking out of his room.
We both shouted bye to each other and I left for school. I do normally say bye to my mum too, but I thought she'd want to be alone, from the sound of her crying.
I met Liv at the school gates like I do everyday, but today all she could talk about was my dad and the woman he was with this morning. I knew I needed to change the subject before I lost my mind, so I brought up the only thing that makes Liv happy- the schools latest gossip!
"So Liv, I haven't been in school for like a week and a half, tell me what's been going on" I said, hoping she would go along with it.
" oh Han, lemme tell you! So you know that kid Ricky and his friend Paul that we always make fun of?" I couldn't tell if this was going to be good or bad news.
"Yeah, what about them?" I said.
"Well, there's this new kid, Josh, and he's like, joined their 'weirdo' gang! The three of them were hanging out with each other all week!" She said excitedly.
"And this is interesting because??" I said, trying to keep the conversation going.
"Well turns out the new kid is actually really popular, and now all the popular kids want to hang out with Paul and Ricky so they can become friends with Josh. Most the girls only like Josh because of his looks, I mean we don't even know him yet but he's getting pretty popular. What if he over takes us and we end up being the kids eating in the toilet?" Her voice started to get firmer.
"We can't let that happen! I was the unpopular kid before, I am NOT going back to that. No matter what it takes, I'm going to make their life in this school so bad that they all move to a new school and everything turns back to normal ok?" I used to get bullied before high school because I didn't have any friends, and I'm not planning on going back to feeling that way. When I moved up to high school, I made sure that none of my school bullies were coming here first so I could be safe. At the start I didn't know anyone, I felt like a complete outsider, but then I saw that Liv started here too. Liv has lived next door to me since we were 3 years old so you can imagine how happy I was when she turned up in my new school!
Me and Liv both agreed to do our best to make sure Paul Ricky and Josh left our school for good. And with that, we both went back to our classes.
The rest of the day seemed pretty normal, Liam came to hang out with us at lunch as usual, trying to copy my homework. I let him copy my history homework but only because I wrote all the wrong answers down to annoy my teacher. He copied them all and even gave me some cash to say thanks! What an idiot!
So after school I went to the shop on my street to get some sweets with my money from Liam. I was coming out of the shop with all my sweets when I tripped over and everything in my bag fell out. I could feel my face burning with embarrassment as I looked up to see Josh, the new kid. I thought he would just laugh and walk away but he got down on his knees and started to help me pick everything up and back into my bag.
"Thanks, you're the new kid aren't you?" I said, forgetting that I should be being horrible to him to make him move school.
"Yeah I'm Josh. Ricky told me about you, he thinks your really cool ya know" he said while putting the rest of my books back in my school bag.
"Oh great a weird kid likes me! You know, you should come hang out with us in school, we can make you popular unlike those freaks" Josh seemed alright, we could do with someone like him in our group.
"I can't believe you just said that! It doesn't matter how popular someone is does it? I know you never used to be popular, I went to your school before we all moved to high school. You cried everyday in the back of the class. I think you could do with a friend like Ricky" he took this way more serious than I thought he would.
"Josh I didn't mean it like that. I just mean that I would like if we could be friends and if you would hang out with us. And could you please not tell ANYONE about me being bullied before?" I hoped he would just forget this ever happened, but the smirk on his face said otherwise.
"I would love to hang out with you, but only if we hang out with Ricky and Paul as well! And don't worry, your secrets safe with me" he said while he walked away with a sly smile on his face.
Josh seems really nice, and cool, and the girls are definitely right when they say he's good looking. But there's no way I'm going to hang out with Ricky and Paul! My social life would be over for ever. I would go back to being that girl that ate in the girls bathroom and had no friends. I couldn't let that happen, so I decided I was going to stick with the plan of getting them to move school.
I went home after that awkward first impression, and told Mark all about it. He said that I was just being stupid and that I should just hang out with whoever I wanted to, but he doesn't understand. Mark went out with his friends without telling mum or dad. Mum was in the corner of her room, crying, thinking Mark was in an alleyway somewhere with no one to help him. And my dad was shouting at mum telling her to calm down saying that Mark is 17 and old enough to take care of himself. After a few hours of screaming and shouting, my dad went out of the house, slamming the door behind him breaking mums favourite flower vase. Again, mum broke down and started crying. I somehow made her calm down enough to make her go to bed, while I cleaned up the mess. I then went to bed and enjoyed the silence before Mark and my dad came home. I constantly wondered who I would live with if mum and dad had a divorce, me and Mark both knew it was going to happen soon, but we didn't think it would be as soon as it was...