Broken // Michael Clifford [Finished For Now]

Chapter Five

Dianas POV

I was not looking forward to school this morning. I didn't get any sleep at all last night. I stayed up thinking about the argument my dad and I had had the night before. I wondered if he would apologize to me this morning or not. When he first started to yell at me and drink after work he would apologize the next morning, almost in tears because he felt so bad. We used to be close, my dad and I, but after this summer we both took the loss hard, blaming ourselves for everything that happened. We both stopped trying to talk to each other, it was almost like neither of us cared enough to try.

The difference between him and me was that I came to my senses after a few months while he only started to care less and less. Whenever I would try to talk to him he would come up with an excuse to ignore me, saying he would have to do work or something.

I was honestly surprised that he still had a job. He worked as the manager of finance team and he always had to be fully alert which was hard to do when he drank so much the night before. He usually only drank right after he got home from work at 4:00 up until 8:00 at night at which point he would pass out in his bed. The past week he has been drinking later that usual and I'm worried that he'll lose his job.

He was our only source of income besides my occasional babysitting gig. He got payed well enough to pay for bills and other necessities, but if he were to lose his job we would lose more than we already had.

I pulled myself from my dark thoughts so I could get ready for school. I walked to my bathroom and looked in the mirror. I could barely recognize myself. My eyes were puffy and bloodshot, my cheeks were tear stained, and my hair was unruly. I looked just as I felt, like absolute shit.

I quickly took a shower to try and look a bit more decent because anything was better than how I had looked. When I stepped out of the shower I peeked at the mirror again and noticed that my cheeks were no longer stained with my tears and my eyes were not as red as before but were still bloodshot from the lack of sleep and puffy from me rubbing them constantly throughout the night.

I blew my hair dry, curled the ends, and tried to use coverup to help with my appearance along with some mascara. I searched through my drawers until I found the pair of black skinny jeans I was looking for along with my flowing teal tank top that matched

my cream colored cardigan. I added a long necklace, my real-looking diamond earrings, and my purse to complete my outfit. I felt like crap and didn't look like I had gotten much sleep but my outfit didn't need to scream "Hey look at me, I didn't sleep a wink last night and feel even worse!"

I descended the stairs to the living room where my dad was laying on the couch in his pajamas. He was supposed to be dressed in his work suit rushing around looking for his car keys right now.

"Are you off of work today?" I questioned him.

"I'm not feeling well so I called in sick." he groggily replied.

"Yeah, okay." I scoffed while rolling my eyes.

"If I didn't feel like crap I would yell at you for your attitude. I suggest you don't do that again, especially because I have a headache." he warned me.

"Maybe you wouldn't have so much of a headache if you didn't get drunk everyday after work!" I snapped, beginning to raise my voice.

"What did you just say to me!" he boomed as he got up from the couch and stared at me.

"I have to go to school. Bye." I murmured as I ran out the front door to my car wishing I cod take back what I had said.

I started the engine and backed out of the driveway in record time. It wasn't until I was halfway to school before I realized that I hadn't had anything to eat due to all of the fighting. I sighed and tried to take my mind off of this morning's events by turning the radio on.

I walked into the school and straight to my locker trying to avoid as many stares and odd glances as possible. When my locker was in view I noticed that Michael was there talking to two of his friends. I tried to walk past his locker to mine unnoticed, but he wasn't having it.

"Hey Diana!" he beamed, trying to ignore his friends who were poking and prodding his face and hair.

"Hi." I mumbled, hoping the conversation would be over and not looking in his direction, but at my locker as I sorted through the books I needed.

"How was your night?"

I stopped what I was doing and gave him a questioning look.

"Um, I was just wondering how that thing you had to get to was." He rephrased.

"Oh!" I had forgot that I told him I had somewhere to go when I was just trying not to talk to him. "It was great! Thanks for asking." I lied through my smile.

"Are you sure it was okay? You look really tired." He must have noticed how bloodshot and puffy my eyes were even through all of the makeup, great.

"Yeah. I have to get to class before I'm late, sorry." I lied again as I practically ran away from him.

"Okay, bye!" I heard him call from behind me.

I felt bad for lying to him so much already when I didn't even know him. I wanted to get to know him, he seamed really nice, but when you get to know people they get to know you too and I didn't want him to know about this summer. I didn't want to have to answer questions that I knew would be asked and I didn't know the answer to.

***

Michael's POV

"I wonder if she's on the track team." Calum thought out loud.

"Why?" I questioned.

"Because she ran away from you pretty fast. I'm pretty sure you could qualify for nationals at that speed." he responded while Luke laughed at his stupid joke.

"Shut up Cal!" I said as I punched him in the arm.

"He has a point. Either she really believes she's going to be late to class when it starts in ten minutes or she doesn't want to talk to you." Luke added, much to my displeasure.

"Or she has a big secret to hide." said Calum, referring to Ashton's remark about her being a murderer the night before.

"Is Ash seriously going to try to look stuff about her up just because he recognizes her last name and thinks she could secretly be a murderer?" I asked the two of them.

"According to Ash you never know what someone could be hiding so you should find out before you get too attached." Luke replied.

"Who says I'm going to get 'attached'?" I said using air quotes.

"Dude, you stopped in the middle of our conversation just so you could say hi to her."

"So?"

"So, you already seem to be trying to attach yourself to her." Cal responded. "Although I don't know why, you barely know the girl."

"She's a really interesting person and I want to get to know her." I defended.

"Yeah, you want to 'get to know her' because you think she's interesting after a twenty minute conversation you were forced to have by the teacher." Luke laughed.

"I don't know why but she's just really interesting to me! And yes I do want to get to know her!"

"Geez, calm down would you." Cal requested.

"Then stop bugging me about her." I said as I walked to my first period class and away from the two pestering idiots.

It was true, I really did want to get to know her. There was just something about her that intrigued me, made me want to know more about her. I was going to get close with her whether she wanted me to or not because I wanted to know what was so different about her than any other girl I had ever met before.