No promises

The new Ally

As I expected dinner was hell. My parents and I 'discussed' moving, if you can count them pleading and me blatantly refusing as discussion. I ate as fast as I could and then went to seek refuge in my room. 

I went to sleep pretty early, already tired from the long week. Only one more day of school and then it will be the weekend, and the party with Josh. He said he would text me later. I guess his definition of 'later' didn't mean the standard couple of hours as it did for me. Maybe he had completely forgotten about me, I wouldn't blame him, nothing about me sticks out as being anything more than average. 

                                                                          *****

My alarm started playing the next morning and I sighed as my brain slowly started to function again. Ugh, another day at hell, aka my school. Maybe I could just sleep in for a few more minutes... 

"Ally! Get the fuck up, we are gonna be late!" Someone screams in my face as my covers are roughly pulled away from me. I groan as I see that the person standing at the bottom of my bed was none other than Macey, my other best friend. What the hell is she doing here this early? 

I turn my head to look at my clock and see that it is 8:10, school starts at 8:30 and it takes 10 minutes to get there by car. Fuck.

I jump, quite literally, out of bed and stumble clumsily around the room pulling various items of clothing on. Macey soon gets bored of watching me get ready as quickly as possible without making it look like I only had 10 minutes to get ready and goes downstairs to, probably, steal all my food again. 

I ditch the hair brush and swipe a bit of eyeliner under by eyes and over my spots, cuz no body's perfect eh Hannah Montana? Unless of course you go by the name of Shawn Mendes. 

After I grab my bag that is waiting beside my desk and shove all my books in to it I hurtle down the stairs as fast as was humanly possible without falling head over heels.

"Took your time didn't ya?" Macey said, she smirks at my death glare and heads out of the door as I hop behind her, struggling to put on shoes. Multi-tasking never was one of my strong points. 

We get to the school a couple of minutes late and I arrive at my first class panting. Thankfully, classes here never start on time and the students are still milling around, chatting and sitting on the tables. 

I find an empty seat and begin to take out my books. Neither George nor Macey are in this class and I don't really have any other friends to be honest. The struggles of being shy. So I just occupy myself by scrolling through instagram and seeing what the world is up to this fine morning. 

I struggle through the next three classes. Struggle as in forcing my eyes to stay open as the teacher rants on and on. I seem to have a rather marvellous gift that even though I got like 10 hours sleep last night, I can still somehow be tired. 

Finally, it is lunchtime and I plop down beside Macey and George and some other people who I don't really talk to but like to hang around with Macey. Gossip about the party tomorrow is all anyone talks about during lunch. 

"It's just a party, why is everyone making such a big deal about it?" I mutter to Macey as we walk to our next class after lunch. 

"It's not just a party Al. It's Scott's party." She points out like it's obvious. 

"What makes Scott's party so great then?" I ask. Scott is one of Josh's jock friends. He is the captain of the soccer team and can get any girl he sets eyes on. 

"If anyone knows how to throw a good party, it's Scott. Trust me on this one. You are coming right?" She says as I push open the door to the classroom. 

"I guess so. Josh asked me, sorta." I said as I found us a double table and sat down. 

"Ohhh." She says, wiggling her eyebrows and nudging me, "Why the 'sorta'?"

"Well, he said he would text me later, but he never did." I say.

"Al, he's a boy. Any time frame they give you have to multiply by two. They say they will text tomorrow, give it two days. Or a week." She says confidently.

I nod and turn to the front of the desk as the teacher walks in.

                                                                  *******

I leave the school as quickly as I can after classes finish. The less time I spend at that place the better. I saw Josh a couple of times throughout the day but he hadn't seen me, or else he had pretended not to. I told Macey about the whole Canada situation during our last class, to which, unlike George,  she was totally against the idea and said that I couldn't leave her.

I quietly open the front door and tip toe my way upstairs so as not to alert anyone that i was home. 

"Als, is that you?" My mum calls from her office. God damnit. 

"Umm, yes. I have a lot of homework, I should get on with it. Bye." I reply.

"Ok, but just to let you know we are leaving next week, the flights are booked, can you box up your stuff as soon as possible please?" She calls back. Seriously? I only have one week? One fricking week?

I don't bother responding and continue up the stairs, scooping up Charlie who is sitting patiently at the summit.

I place Charlie on my bed which he immediately curls up on and closes his eyes. He is such a lazy cat, I swear he is part sloth. 

I do my usually routine of tying up my hair, changing into sweats and a hoodie and begin to take out my books.

My phone chimes as I get a text.

Josh: I can pick you up tomorrow if you want? ;)

Winky face? What does that mean? Should I return the winky face? Maybe just a normal smiley face? Oh god, why don't they teach us these things in school. Like seriously, why do we need to know Pythagorus' theorem when we don't even know how to respond to a text. Get your priorities right. 

Ally: Sounds good, what time? 

I respond, deciding on keeping it short, with no emoji. I can't really mess things up with that. He doesn't respond for ages (I hate when guys do that) and when he finally does he responds with just two words.

Josh: 9 ish?

9 ish? Props on you for being specific. And where is my emoji? I mentally roll my eyes and continue with my homework.

After dinner I return to my room and sigh as I look around  at all of my memories. Soon, I will have to pack everything up and leave my home and friends on what I'm hoping is going to be the start of my new life as the new, confident Ally Johnson.