The Band Dude

Chapter 4

I spent Sunday night worrying about everything. If my friends suspected anything, if Oliver suspected anything, why he seemed to hate me. I mean, I must've met him before, right? Why else could he hate me?

After several hours of tossing and turning, I finally accepted that I would look like death at school, and threw my bed covers off me, sliding out of bed. I decided that I may as well do something productive with my time, rather than just lay there, waiting for something that would continue to evade me all night. I had a few choices: Revise for my up and coming science test, check up on my Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, or... look back through old family photo albums to find an explanation about Oliver's apparent loathing towards me. Usually, I would choose the middle option, but my curiosity was growing too strong to ignore, so I decided to see if I could catch a glimpse of Oliver anywhere in my past.

I grabbed a pair of purple, fuzzy socks and pulled them on over my icy toes. Also putting on my dressing gown, I silently opened my bedroom door and crept along the landing, towards the stairs. I hopped down them, silent as possible, avoiding the squeaky board beneath the sixth step. My mum kept the photo albums stacked up on a shelf in the dining room, so I also had to try to dodge the creaky floor boards downstairs, so as not to wake my slumbering family.

We had five photo books; ranging from when my parents were a new couple, to when I was twelve and they stopped taking family photos, although my Mum had saved one last space in the most recent one, for when her only daughter, me, went to prom. I had three older brothers, so if I had turned out to be a boy, she was going to give up hope on ever achieving a little girl.

I started on the third one, because all the pictures in the previous ones were from before I was born. I flicked through countless images of me and my brothers, all little, chubby toddlers. My oldest brother, Riley, is only five years older than me, making him twenty. My other siblings, Jackson (Jacky), and Alex (Ally), were eighteen year old twins.

About halfway through the second one, I spotted something that caught my attention; it was a picture of me and a boy who had dark brown hair and stunning grey eyes. My stomach dropped as I recognised the distrustful glimmer in his stormy irises, despite the fact that this moment was captured ten years ago, when we were merely five years old: Oliver.

"Brooke?"

I started as my name was called out to me, startling me out of my trance. My mother sleepily stumbled in, confused and rubbing her eyes profusely.

"Yes, Mum?" I answered, softly patting the space beside me as an invitation to sit with me.
"Baby, what are you doing up?" She murmered, wrapping her arms around me in a warm, comforting hug.

" i couldn't sleep,"I admitted, glancing shamefully down at my clasped hands.

" but why are you looking at baby photos?" she asked in confusion.

I avoided the question, instead showing her the image of Oliver and me," Mum, who is this?"

she spent a few moments gazing at the laminated sheet in my hand, as though she couldn't quite recall the memory. I sighed. When she was tired, my mum was really mellow and cuddly, compared to how alert and business like she usually was. However, when she was like this, she wasn't always the best at remembering things. Still, I waited patiently for her to think about it.

"Oh, I know!" She rejoiced quietly, knowing that Dad and the twins were asleep upstairs. Riley was living in a small flat with his girlfriend, and Jacky and Ally were searching for somewhere to move to," That's the little boy who used to live next door. I can't remember his name. Sad child, he was, it broke my heart to see. He wasn't planned on being born in the first place; his parents already had had two kids when they were very young, but still he came along. His brother was in a gang, I'm sure, mixed up in all sorts of drugs, and his sister got pregnant when she was sixteen. That's why they moved away, I think."

It took me a moment to process all that information, especially at three in the morning.

Oliver had been through all of that by the time he was five. And what was to say that his life had improved since then? I wondered whether he had been unhappy then. I mean, he certainly didn't come across as the most cheerful boy I'd ever met.

"When was this taken?" I asked quietly, my head spinning.

"I pitied him, so I invited him around for tea one day. He was a sickly, skinny lad. You didn't like him at all, though. You were quite the way rude to him, actually. Anyway, after we'd eaten, I sent you both into the front room to play for a bit whilst I washed up. You came in a few minutes later saying that he'd hit you, so his mum came round and picked him up. She was furious with him. I remember being quite worried about how tightly she gripped his wrist. They moved out the next week. Why are you asking me about this, anyway? Do you remember any of it?"

"No," I answered honestly," I was just wondering. Poor kid."

"Go to bed now, sweetheart," My mum whispered, rising from her seat," You'll be a zombie in school."

I made my way back up to bed, the new information swirling round my mind. He couldn't hate me simply because I didn't like him when I was five, could he? As I fell to sleep, I vowed to myself that I would interrogate him about it at the first opportunity.

Okay, so you learned something about Brooke and Oliver's past. I'm considering a brief chapter in Oliver's POV sometime soon, as I have a few ideas for it in my head. Anyone for it? And any ideas for this as a side plot are always welcome!