Do People Really Change?

{Chapter One}

Do people really change? Are they the same old football playing douche bags? Are they the same old slutty cheerleaders or high school perfect princesses? Are they the same old losers who have to sit alone at lunch because the rumours stops them from having friends? Well I am that last one. I attend St Petersburg High School. Well I did. Why did I leave you ask? Was it because of bullying? How I wish that was the reason. It is true. But that is not the reason we left. My mom died five months ago. She was the kindest, prettiest, friendliest and sweetest person I have ever known. I am not saying this because she is my mother and that role is an important one in life. She was a piano player. She taught me how to play and sing. Her voice was literally like heaven. She wrote songs and was a piano and singing teacher at schools. She cared to our house and cooked but so did dad. Until five months ago. Mom and dad met at a hospital. Dad fell of a roof when he was a builder and mom was in a car crash. They shared a hospital room together. They have never been apart. Mom found out she was ill last year from breast cancer. Nothing could help her. I don't think any of us have been the same since really. She was the rock holding us together. I know cliche. But it is true. 

Mom had long brown wavy hair that she tied up in french brain. Her eyes were hazel and she had little freckles on her cheeks. I have the same hair and eyes as mom and Zachery, my older brother also has moms eyes. Everyone in my family has brown hair. Dads is darker though and his eyes are green, which I wish I inherited. 

Me and Zachery may only have two years between us but we are opposites. Like any story of a teenager. He is the golden child. Attends Ohio State University of a collage scholarship. Well, starting in like just over a week. He plays football. Is popular. Gets the girls. See. He is the golden child, where as I care more about books and knowledge then football and parties. I am the only one who calls him Zachery. Zach. Zach Claymouth. I am Grace Claymouth.

 At St Petersburg High School I was picked on a little for liking books, knowledge and apparently being gay because I had not taken interest in the boys. Which is a lie. I am straight and interested in boys. Such as Benny Elsons. He was smart, geeky, nerdy, not interested in sport, musical. But he was friends with all the jocks. He was popular. I could barley get a few words out at him. Our relationship consisted of nods and smiles in bio class and in the halls. I used to have one friend Georgia Falcon. But she became a cheerleader and ditched me for the popular girls. Beginning of Sophomore year, in the cafeteria, twenty three minuets past twelve and seven seconds she yelled at me. "How could I be friends with a loser like you?" Which made me call her "Bitch" Which ended in me getting slapped across my face which continued through the year with people laughing at me and the lovely nicknames "Slapped", "Matilda Slappedmouth" and the best for last, "Loser". Nobody bright came up with these names. I lost my one and only friend and I never cried, never got angry. I just let it happen.   

Everyone knew mine and my brothers mom had died and Zachery got buckets of sympathy, cards, chocolates, hugs, talks. The whole lot. I know I wasn't popular or even had friends, but I thought someone to have said a least "sorry for your loss". Nothing. That hurt more somehow. Because mom was my only friend. I lost my real best friend. Dad stopped leaving the house apart from going to work. Me and Zachery went grocery shopping, to the bank, the dump. We became the adults. So for those few months we became closer together. Until one day when we got home from school their was a for sale sign on our lawn. 

Now we are almost at our new house in Pennsylvania, Narberth. We have left our grandparents behind as mom and dad live in Tampa their whole lives with their families. Mom was an only child but dad has a sister with three children and a rich husband and a big house. Guess life worked out well for her. Acknowledgements of her and her family are only on birthdays when we sends cards as she is pretty stubborn and the family fall out with her often. 

Houses, shops, buildings, cars, trees pass us. My chin resting on the car door, looking out the window, watching the world fly by. Faster then birds flight. My headphones beating music into my ears. As the younger sibling I always sit in the back of the car, which majority of younger siblings moan about or complain about, however it is moments of peace. Which surprisingly I don't get often. At school their was never silence, on the way home always noise and when I got home noise followed me there too. The TV on from dad, mom playing the piano or cooking or on the phone. Me and Zachery shared a wall so hearing his friends, his music, and the thing that scars me the most. When he had girls over. This year though Zachery is starting collage so maybe some peace will be contained for even a few moments. 

We pull up outside our new house, the moving van inches behind us also parks. I slowly take out my headphones sitting up and stopping my music. The house biggish and almost symmetrical. It is wood and stoned with steps leading up to it and is surrounded by trees. All the houses on the street look fairly similar but somehow different. Our old house was small with red outside walls and white outside walls. It was an unusual shape and was thin and tall. On the first floor was the living room, dining room and kitchen. On the second floor the bathroom, my room and Zachery's room. On the top floor mom and dads room. The garden fitted a small table, a barbecue and a tree swing that if you swung to high you would hit the fence.

Well this is a change.   

Thanks so much for reading, this is written by Jess and Liv (still working on the ship name thing). Lets us know if there is any positives or negatives about the story. Hope you enjoy reading. Love ya guys xx