To Begin Anew {A 5SOS Fanfic}

Chapter 4

“NO, DAD PLEASE! WAKE UP, NO!” I screamed.

I woke up, my pajamas covered with sweat. I heard footsteps and Cheryl came running into my room.

“Hazel! Are you alright?!”, she said, sounding extremely worried.  “I thought this had stopped?”

I hadn’t had a nightmare in 3 weeks.

“I don’t know. I had the dream about Dad again. I’m…”

“Hazel are you ok? I heard screaming”, Carol asked, rushing into the room.

“Yeah, I’m fine I just had a bad dream, that’s all. You can go back to bed”, I replied, feeling embarrassed.

“Ok, goodnight. Call us if you need anything.’’

I didn’t have a clock in my room so I didn’t know what time it was, but it was dark out. I got up, changed into clean pajamas, lay back down and failed to fall back asleep. The nightmare kept replaying in my mind until I heard a voice outside the door.

“Fuck, ouch”, Michael grunted.

I opened the door to have a look. There he was stumbling back into his room, obviously drunk.

“Are you ok?”, I asked.

“What are you doing? It’s like 6am?”, his speech was slurred.

“I.. um.. I needed to use the bathroom”, I lied.

He looked at me, fell through the door of his room and closed it. It was Saturday morning, he must have stayed out all night. I walked back into my room and over to the bookshelf. I took ‘Mockingjay’ down, lay back down on my bed and began to read. After reading for an hour Cheryl knocked on the door and told me breakfast was ready. I went downstairs and Carol had prepared the most perfect looking pancakes. They tasted even better than they looked!

"Are you all ready for school on Monday?", Harry asked me.

“I guess, I am slightly nervous.”, I admitted.

“Don’t worry Hazel, you’ll be fine.”, Carol reassured me.

We went the mall after breakfast, it wasn’t too far from the house. I got my school books, some stationery, a school bag and a uniform. Wearing a uniform was going to be strange because American schools just let you wear whatever you wanted. My uniform consisted of a red tartan dress with black ballerina pumps. It wasn’t hideous but I didn't like the idea of having to wear a dress to school everyday. This meant I would have to make the effort to shave my legs. My skin wasn’t snow white but it wasn’t tanned either which made me quite self conscious. What if it was cold, was I still meant to wear this dress to school? Then I remembered that I lived in Australia now and the chances of it being cold weren’t too high.

On the way home I spotted a beach that was only a 5 minute walk from the house. I decided that if the weather was nice tomorrow I would go for a run. The rest of the day was spent talking with Carol, Cheryl and Harry about a bunch random things. Michael never did appear back downstairs since he went to bed that morning. I fell asleep at 9pm because I was so tired due to being woken at 6am. I drifted off to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I woke up early on Sunday morning. It was beautiful out so I decided to put on my running clothes and sneakers and go for a run on the beach. As I ran along the beach I enjoyed the sensation of the warm air on my skin. I was used to the heat but not running on a beach. As I turned around to return home I caught a glimpse of some people surfing. I was mesmerized by the way they moved on the surfboard, they did it with such diligence. It was then that learning to surf was added to my bucket list.