Remember Me This Way

Remember Me This Way

2014

Prologue

 

CASSIE CHAMBER’S ~ POINT OF VIEW

“Move out of the way, red-leg-circus-freak.” Tate-The Devil-Coleman hissed at me as he pushed me into the lockers, knocking my books out of my hands.

Everything in my hands clattered to the dirty ground as the deep rumble of Tate’s chuckle re-sounded off the walls of the slim hallway.

I glared at the back of Tate’s head as he sauntered down the hallways like he was the king. Yuck.

This was my tragic school life – being bullied and called horrible names from 9 o'clock in the morning up until the last bell rang for the day.

It was just my life, and I dealt with it pretty well.

Most of Clorville knew that Tate and I had problems with one another; in fact, most people know that we absolutely hated each other down to our very last bone.

It started in fifth grade, when he was assigned the seat next to me – and Tate, being the trouble maker he is, stole my pencil and flung it at the fan. After I told the teacher on him and he got sent on a time out, he had a personal vendetta against me – and it hadn’t changed since.

Over the years, his pranks and bullying got worse. He eventually got all his buddies in on it and even some of the girls who fawned over him.

I gained the name ‘circus freak’ in grade eight. It was when I was really interested in ant farms, and after I brought in my ant farm to show my science class. It was a hobby of mine to watch them and I had even, much to my embarrassment, had even named them and pretended I could tell them apart. Everyone had started making jokes about how in my spare time I trained them to be my friends since I didn’t have any.

In grade nine I made the mistake of wearing white pants on a day that I had my period, and without knowing it, I bled through my pants and ever since I’ve had the nickname ‘red-leg’.

Being the smart-arses they are, they managed to put the two stupid, quite nasty nicknames together and have called me ‘red-leg-circus-freak’ ever since.

I guess I wouldn’t mind so much if I had friends that I could bitch about it to, but I didn’t. In grade ten, I met a new student called Carly and we had both hit it off really well until her dad was offered a new better job somewhere else and she moved only a few months into the school year.

Other than Carly I had never really had friends – I always had trouble making friends even before Tate and his cruel group decided to make it their job to make sure I was completely friendless.

Over time I guess I got used to the bullying because now I just expected it. I didn’t fight it much anymore because I found out through experience that if I insulted Tate back, the cheerleaders would wait in the girl’s bathroom and ambush me.

It was only natural that Tate had followers and fan girls – he was incredibly attractive after all, although I would never admit that to him or anyone else. He was probably around six foot two, with light brown tousled hair and vibrant blue eyes that always seemed to be narrowed at me. He played high school football, so it was natural that he had an athlete’s body.

Although the school had many attractive people swirled into the mixture of cliques, I was always reminded how I was not one of them.

I had long, dark brown hair that was naturally and annoyingly curly. My front fringe was cut short so it fell in my sooty green eyes. My hair looked darker than it actually was because of my unnaturally pale skin, although I was proud that it was pretty flawless most of the time.

My nails were short and half chewed. I chewed them when I was nervous, which was usually in the car on the way to this hellhole I call Clorville State High School.

I got my avocado shaded eyes from my mother, who unlike me, was beautiful and I got my dark brown hair from my dad who was probably every young girl’s fantasy back in the day.

My parents were oblivious to the bullying and I intended to keep it that way. They had enough troubles with money and my new baby sister, Adelaide, to be worrying about me.

We were pretty normal and average as regular families go I guess. We had a small townhouse were the four of us lived. My parents still loved one another, thank god. But ever since Addy was born they focused more on her than me or each other.

I began picking up my books in the empty hallway and chanted in my head that it was only a few more months and I would graduate. Only a few more months of this torture and I’d be gone forever.

No more teasing; no more being friendless; no more icky aromas from the school hallways that always smelt like sweat and hormones; and best of all, no more Tate Coleman and his merry little band of antagonising delinquents.

Then, I would use my hard earned, good grades to try and get into the Marine Biologist course I wanted to do at the University in the city a few hours away. I would move into a small flat if I could and apply for rent assist; I wouldn’t look back and eventually my time here at this school would be forgotten – or so I was praying.

“Do you want some help?” A profound, thick voice asked me and I looked upwards.

I didn’t know who it was, but I wasn’t complaining if they wanted to help me. I didn’t know many people since I usually just kept my head down and walked around trying to go unnoticed by my tormentors.

He looked nice. He had a sympathetic smile on his face which told me he saw the whole thing. His almost black hair suited his dark brown eyes and his pale, full face. He wore dark skinny jeans, a white wife-beater, a cross on his necklace, a grey beanie and black thick rimmed glasses.

I nodded gently and the boy smiled at me, showing off his straight white teeth, before bending down to help me pick up my scattered books.

“My name’s Carter… You should ignore those guys. They’re all jerks.” Carter advised, probably not realising I had been dealing with this most of my life.

“Thanks.” I murmured embarrassedly when we both stood, each holding half my books.

“Hey, you have Maths B now, right?” He asked hopefully and I smiled and nodded quickly. His flashed me a pearly white grin, replying that he had seen me in that class as he had it to.

“My name is Cassie Chambers.” I said, holding out my hand for him to shake, feeling a blush creep up my neck at how silly I sounded. Instead of making fun of me, he simply gave me a lopsided grin and chuckled before taking my hand and giving it a firm shake.

“Carter Andrews.”

He walked with me to our class and I felt a giddy sensation pump through my veins.

Things were finally starting to go my way.