I jump out of the car, grabbing my overly heavy school backpack.
‘Why do I have to come to school so early anyway?’ I say to my mum who is sitting in the drivers seat, heater keeping her warm.
‘Because we have bills to pay and the only way I can pay them is by going to work at 7 in the morning.’
‘Maybe if Patrick didn’t take all our money to the casino every night we would have enough.’
‘I’m not talking about this here Lanii.’ Mum says before handing me five dollars for lunch.
‘Have a good day.’ She says sympethetically before I slam the door and turn to face the stone path leading to my class, the same path I take every morning to the hell I call school. As I slowly walk to the wooden benches outside of form class, I kick a small, grey rock. Just before I reach my destination it bounces off and lands on the overly watered grass. I look up and notice a new boy sitting on the bench. What’s he doing here? School doesn’t start for another hour and a half. I drop my bag onto the bench and sit down, swinging my legs back and forth. I feel the boy looking at me and grab my phone from my pocket, unlocking it and hitting twitter.
‘New people freak me out but this one’s pretty hot.’
I tap the tweet button and scroll through my timeline a bit, nothing interesting. I decide to call up my bestfriend and try to convince her to come early.
Ring ring..
Ring ring..
‘Hello?’ She says tiredly.
‘Rubez..’
‘Don’t ever call me that again.’
‘Ruby, because you love me, come to school now?’
‘Lala, I just woke up.’
‘Get ready here.’
‘I’ll be there at 8, hate you.’
‘Love you too.’ My phone beeps to signal that she’s hung up and I look over at the new boy.
‘Was that your boyfriend?’
‘If my boyfriend is called Ruby then yes.’ I say sarcastically. He laughs before standing up and walking over to where I’m sitting on the bench.
‘I’m Christian, nice to meet you.’ He says, his hand extended out for a hand shake.
‘I’m Lanii.’ I say, shaking his hand and smiling.
