Stronger than the Boys {1}

Chapter Twenty-Three - Reality is Calling

A week passed, the witches went back home, Jeremy went back to almost normal, Jay and I hung out a few times so he could show me around town, and my family fell into a routine. My mom, however, was in distress. We all tried to ignore it, but since the boat sailed away and we put the asshole in the basement of Jay's house, she wasn't even trying to live anymore.

I knew we were all secretly worried about her, but no one wanted to bring it up. Jeremy's parents, Caleb and Zoe, picked up a lot of the housework with my mom MIA. She was either hiding in my parent's room or sitting outside on the deck making the front yard rain. My dad, on the other hand, tried to help but would get easily frustrated and go out to the back yard or into the forest and train.

Jeremy and I prepared for school, by that we mean we watched a lot of TV with Charles and Simon. That was a good way to distract myself, just watch TV and not think about anything.

Then, after dinner time, Jay would come to the front door and knock. He would politely ask if I would like to go explore a different part of the new town and I would agree because after dinner was when my mom liked to mope around outside her room. So it was better to go with Jay anywhere that wasn't here. And he was being weirdly nice to me.

He never made me feel uncomfortable or pressured. He didn't even try to hold my hand, which I thought about a lot. I didn't know how I would react once he did, so I needed to be prepared. But the moment never came.

Sunday night I spent in my room, actually getting ready for school. For real this time. First impressions were key at new schools. I got cool pens, a couple of nice notebooks, a new purse, and some cool new shoes that Sky bought earlier this week on the mainland. 

I laid it all out for tomorrow morning, and triple checked my alarms before plugging in my phone and heading for a shower. Everything was going to be perfect.

In the morning I curled my hair and even put on some makeup. It was just a little eyeliner and mascara but I bet Jeremy was going to ask me if I was okay. For clothes, I put on a pair of black jeans with rips in them, a dark green t-shirt, and the cool white shoes that were gleaming and brand new.

I brought my purse down to the main floor with me and put it by the front door beside Jeremy's backpack. Then I went into the kitchen for breakfast. Everyone was already there but Matt had built me a plate and swatted off anyone who tried to eat off of it. I gave him a bright smile and ate as much as I could before it was all gone. Zoe handed out lunches to everyone who was going to school - me, Jeremy, Matt, Blake, Nicholas, and Jacob - and we all headed out to the cars to drive down the massive hill to school. Jeremy and I took one because we would be going to the high school, and Sky drove the rest of the boys to the middle school.

Jeremy decided to drive and I welcome that as I played on my phone. Jay had actually texted me for once, saying he'd see me at school, and it made me a little excited. I already knew someone at this school who knew everyone else. It wouldn't be as awkward with Jeremy and I sticking to ourselves all day!

When we pulled up to school, Jeremy smiled at me. "I assume the makeup is for Jay?"

I frowned, "it's for a good first impression."

"There's like, ten other people in grade 11 with us," he laughed at me. "These people are going to worship us city folk like were royalty gracing them with our presence."

I rolled my eyes, "if you treat them like that then you won't make any friends."

He shrugged, "I don't need to make friends because I have you as my best friend."

I smiled a little, "fine, but I want to make friends."

We both got out of the car at the same time and made our way up to the school. There were a couple of people hanging around outside and they definitely took notice of us. Just like Jeremy said, they were basically drooling just looking at us.

We found the office right away - it was right inside the doors - and proceeded through the usual first day activities. Find locker, find classes, find bathrooms, get textbooks, and then find the first class. Jeremy and I had the same schedule, which meant there wasn't a whole of options. 

The first class we had ended up being  English Language Arts. Jeremy walked in before me and I heard him let out an annoyed groan that was so quiet I'm sure no one in the room actually heard it but I did. So I looked around Jeremy's shoulders and smiled a little. Jay was beaming in a seat with one of his werewolf friends chatting to him. 

My smile fell quite quickly, however, when I finally noticed the two human girls sitting awful close to him.

Jeremy turned back to look at me and I erased all emotion from my face.

The teacher called us in and welcomed us to the school. We both grabbed a couple of empty chairs and I ended up only one chair behind Jay. There were only ten people in this class. Twelve now with Jeremy and me.

The girl sitting between Jay and me turned around and smiled at me, "hi I'm Penelope."

I smiled without showing my teeth, "I'm Raven" Her voice was kind of like she was breathing through a small hole in her nose. She also had a lot of perfume on which was not kind to my super smelling.

"Hey, Raven, can I show you to our next class after," Jay smiled at me brightly and I scrunched my eyebrows and Penelope frowned deeply.

"You two met already?" Penelope asked before I could respond.

Jay then beat me to respond to her question, "oh yeah, Raven and Jeremy's families are the ones who moved into the house next to ours on the top of the hill this summer. We're neighbours!"

That got a sneer on Penelope's face, "oh Jay, baby, why didn't you tell me! I thought we told each other everything!"

I was gripping onto the desk so hard, I thought it was going to break. Jeremy must have thought so too because he reached over and placed his hand on top of one of mine. I flickered my gave over to meet him and then relaxed a little. Penelope was now whining about not seeing Jay as much over the summer as she would have liked and then complained about him hanging out with me instead.

Jay finally told her to shut up, "Penelope, we aren't even friends. You and I have nothing in common so I don't see why you'd ever want to hang out with me."

I relaxed and Penelope rolled her eyes, "Jay you're the hottest guy in this grade and I'm the hottest girl in this town, its destiny."

Jay laughed loudly, "then go for the hottest guy in the town, better yet, the hottest guy in the senior year. We all know you want to really get with Wesley really. You're just using me as an invite to get up top and see him since he graduated last year."

Penelope was livid, I could almost see the anger radiating off of her.

"Not to mention there's a whole new house of dudes for you to fawn over. One of them being Jeremy here." Jay gestured to my right, where Jeremy was watching the conversation and trying his best to not get involved. When Jay did that, Jeremy glared at him.

"Not interested," Jeremy crossed his arms over his chest and Jay rolled his eyes.

Penelope then grabbed her books and got up to move closer to the front of the classroom. Jay took that as an invitation to take her spot and sit in front of me.

"There's always mean girls at high school," Jay smiled at me and I rolled my eyes.

That was true.

Hey, long time no update! 

Long story, I was looking at all of my plot lines and this one was the longest and since I've been writing so much and back to "normal me" I figured now was a good time to tackle this book. 

Honestly, I haven't been completely myself in a couple of years as I was trying to figure out where I was headed in life. But I have an amazing significant other who makes me feel like me again. He just being around and believing in me has made me a better version of myself. I'm writing a shit ton more and reading like it's going out of style on top of pretty much acing my class(es). (Now that I'm back in school.)

I've never been better! And its time to finish this story.