// ♡ irwin
Michael was hungry. He was always hungry, and me being me, offered to go to the store to get him something to eat. Michael, Luke and I had been in the middle of playing an intense game of Black Ops when he was made the complaint about his stomach and how I never kept any food in my apartment - which was partially true, I kept the essentials. Cereal, milk, bread but not much else seeing as I like to go out for meals instead of eating in.
I waltzed into the supermarket and smiled at the pretty check out chick as I passed her bagging somebodies groceries. I walked straight past the first and second aisle that were mainly for chips and chocolate before surpassing the third aisle as well - drinks - before coming to a stop in front of the fourth.
My eyes roamed over the over-head sign signalling to me what would be in the aisle, yes, this was the aisle. It would mean for Michael to get up off of his free-lancing ass and make himself a snack. Instead of buying a pre-made, pre-packaged cake from the other end of the store, I looked over the DIY cakes and biscuits.
Michael, and Luke for that matter, were going to hate me but bigons will be bigons. They were both eighteen - younger than me but definitely old enough to know how to at least make two minute noodles and a pre-mixed cake. They would be out in the world on their own soon enough, unless they moved from free-lancing off of their mothers straight to me.
Because if they did decide to live off of me, I'm sure I wouldn't have a choice in it.
I picked up a few pre-mixed Chocolate cakes and a few packets of chicken two-minute noodles before I sighed and turned, ready to go get some eggs before I ran straight into a girl. I gasped as she stumbled back several steps and dropped the phone she had been speaking on. It bounced several feet before lying face down on the tiled supermarket ground and the girl swore before running a hand through her long, unruly dark hair.
"What the hell, man?" She glanced at me through striking green eyes before she hurried to pick up her phone, groaning as she spied the broken screen before pressing it to her ear again as I bit my lip, feeling terrible for not seeing her and running into her so she broke her phone in the first place. I decided to stay put and wait for her to get off of the phone so I could apologize.
"Sorry, Cal, some asshole ran into me and I dropped my phone. Yeah, it smashed. I know, don't bother telling me how they're going to react, they'll probably make me sleep outside again. No, I just won't tell them. No, I won't do anything stupid stressing about it... Not until later anyway. Okay, sorry, Cal, I'll see you when I get home," The girl sighed heavily before ending the phonecall and pushing her phone into the tight back pocket of her black, ripped skinny jeans.
The girl spied me still standing there, watching me and glared, shifting the basket she had on her arm before placing the spicy asian noodles in it and turning to me, who was still staring straight at her.
"Look, I'm really sorry, I didn't see you there," I tried saying but she just cut me with a look and I closed my mouth, not even bothering to say anything else. I would just be shot down anyway, the girl was a bitch - to say the least, it wasn't like I had meant to run into her. I hadn't even seen her.
"Whatever," She scowled, "Nobody ever sees me," Her voice dropped as her gaze cut away from mine and I raised an eyebrow, wondering what that had meant. I don't think I was supposed to have heard the girls words and as she glanced back at me to check if I was still standing there, she bit down on her lip - a lip piercing on the left corner as she pulled on it with her teeth.
"Why are you still here?" Her voie was cold, unforgiving and I knew that I didn't know her, but part of me wanted to get to know her. To figure out why the hell she was so anti-people and all of that.
"I'm Ashton Irwin, what about you?" I took the friendly approach, instead of being the unforgiving asshole she seemed to have already stereo-typed me with. The girl, her calculating green eyes the colour of a rainforest looking me over, her long, dark eyelashes sweeping over her high cheekbones as she did so. She was really pretty with those eyes and that mane of messy dark hair tumbling over her shoulders and down her waist like long ripples of dark ocean waves.
"Stella," Her name didn't suit her appearance - all the black clothing and the dark hair - to me, Stella had always been a blonde girls name. Though it didn't suit her one bit, it suited her perfectly. It was like it was perfectly imperfect for her, I didn't know how to put it into words - it was just a feeling that the name, though so wrong for her, was so right as well.
"Stella what?" I cocked my head to the side, a lopsided grin crossing over my face as I looked over her slim figure again. Ripped skinny jeans, a band t-shirt. She wasn't really all that special, just another punk rock teenage girl in an effort to rebel against her parents, but I didn't seem able to look away.
"Connors," She answered cautiously, "Stella Connors," The name didn't ring any bells through my mind and I wondered if she was new to the area seeing as I had never seem her before - and we lived in a small town where everybody knew everybody, though by the state of her messy hair and pale skin - maybe she didn't get out that much.
"Sorry about your phone," I said as I saw her hand run over the bulging back pocket of her fitted jeans that held her phone in, as if she was scared that after ut had smashed it had been stolen as well. Stella played with her lip stud again, looking nervous, before rolling her eyes and hiking her basket higher up on her arm, as if it was heavy even though it only had maybe two or three light items in it.
"Whatever, I'll get over it," The way she said that she would get over it made me think that it wasn't her she was talking about, but someone else. Maybe the person she was talking about with 'Cal' on the phone? Maybe her parents, I didn't know and it really wasn't any of my business seeing as I was just the guy who had broke her phone in the first place.
"So who were you talking too?" I asked in an effort to keep the conversation rolling, seeing as I wasn't ready to bid my goodbye to such a pretty, intriguing girl just yet. I wanted to keep her talking so I could get to know her a little bit, find out how old she was, where she went to school, had she been in Rose Grove long? Where did she grow up?
"My step-brother, Calum," If she was confused or annoyed by my constant questions, she didn't show it. The only expression I could read off of her face seemed to be boredom, like she wanted to be anywhere else than at Rose Grove's only supermarket talking to a complete stranger about her life.
"Did you just move here?" I wondered while I racked my brain, thinking of anybody I had ever known that was called Calum to try and figure out if any of their parents had been divorced or re-married, but nothing was coming to mind.
"No," She seemed perplexed, "I've lived here my whole life," As perplexed as she seemed, I could tell she was horrifed by the fact that I had never picked her out of a crowd before. I bit back on my lip, now I was the one begging to find a way to leave this strikingly awkward conversation.
"It's okay, I didn't expect you to like, know me or anything. Nobody does. I was home-schooled until tenth grade and then I went to Rose Grove High for VCE and now I basically stay home all the time. I'm only here now because Cal is sick and his mum and my dad are away on business," Stella shrugged before she froze, looking as if she had said way too much.
"Sorry, its not like you care anyway," She shook her head abruptly, "See you around, Irwin," Stella hurriedly brushed past me and escaped aisle four before I could say another word and I was left frozen by myself, wondering what sort of internal war Stella Connors was fighting with herself - because I was telling you, she was not just a normal girl, there was something going on inside of her mind that I wanted to help her with.
I looked around the empty aisle for a moment before I noticed a pre-mixed cake box lying on its side, burst open with brown cake mix scattered all over the ground that must have fallen there when Stella and I had made contact. I sighed before muttering under my breath, "Clean up in aisle four," Before I hurried to pay for my purchases and get back to Michael and Luke in my apartment as quick as I could... All the while thinking about a green eyed Stella Connors, whose name suit her perfectly and didn't suit her at all at the same time.
***First chapter, tell me how you like it! Feedback is greatly appreciated! xxx Jade
