The End

Chapter 7

"Why? I thought you were taking care of it!" My so-called mom yells at me.

"Why is it my responsibility?" I yell back at her.

"Because you said you would take care of it! And now I have to clean up your mess!"

"My mess?" I ask.

"Yes, your mess! You said you were taking care of it, you failed as always, and now I have to fix it!" She yells.

"I said I was taking care of it because you were too drunk to do anything other than drink even more!"

"What am I supposed to do? My son died!" She yells.

"My brother died! You don't see me drink my problems away!"

"I'm drinking to forget!" She yells.

"Why do you want to forget?" I ask.

"Because it's your  fault!" She yells.

She's said that to me a million times since my brother died, and this one hurts the most.

I roll my eyes and storm out of the house and walk to school trying not to cry.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I keep my face angled towards the ground as I close my locker and head to class.

I walk in the direction of class, but I won't be able to focus on class, and I sure as hell won't be able to deal with Ross. God, Ross. He's going to want to talk to me about what happened on our date and he'll want to talk about how I am. And I don't want to talk about that. The thought of ditching today runs through my mind, and right as I'm about to go through with it, I see Ross coming my way.

We make eye contact so there's no way I can walk away and claim that I didn't see him. I keep my eyes down as I continue to walk towards Ross, hoping with everything I have inside of me that he'll leave me alone. I don't want to deal with the small talk and explanations.

"Hey, how are you?" He asks softly as we meet up.

"I'm fine," I say as I try to avoid all possible eye contact. "I'm sorry about-"

"No, don't apologize. Let's just try and forget it if you want."

"I'd like that." I say with a small smile.

He gives me a small nod. The awkward silence makes me extremely uncomfortable because I know all he can think about when he looks at me is the story I told him. I don't see this relationship working.

"I-I actually have to go, but I'll see you in class." I say.

"Okay," He says as he pulls me close by my waist. He gently presses his lips against the top of my forehead and lets me go.

"Shane!" I hear a girl's voice yell when I'm at the top of the stairs.

I turn around and see the girl who was trying to get me to set her up with Ross.

"What do you want?" I ask.

"Okay, rude."

I roll my eyes. She flips her blonde curls over her shoulder and steps closer to me.

"I am going to need you to stay as far away from Ross as possible, okay?"

"Excuse me?" I ask.

"You need to stay away from Ross. You're not good for him." She snarks.

"Oh, and you are?" I retaliate.

"Better than you. For one, he's totally out of your league and two, he only feels bad for you. You're the weird new girl who doesn't have any friends, so he just wants to be nice to you." She says rudely.