Second Chance

Chapter 4 - disaster strikes

I wake up to the sound of loud knocking on my door. When I open my eyes I find my mum walking towards me.

"Honey, it's time to get ready for school. I'm a little bit hungover so Dallas is going to drive you to school this morning and I should be able to pick you up this afternoon." She smiles exiting the room. I glance over at the clock on the bedside table to see it reads 7:30. Oh no I only have 30 minutes to get ready. I jump out of bed grabbing my crumpled clothes from my bag, normally I would worry about my clothes being crumpled but I don't have enough time. I race to the bathroom and have a shower. I start to do my makeup when Dallas walks in, only wearing his boxers. By his sleepy eyes I can tell he only just woke up, how we have to leave in 10 minutes. He walks straight past me as if he didn't take notice of my presence. I ignore him and finish my makeup when I hear a soft trickle of water, I turn around to find him peeing. Gross could he not have waited till I left. I luckily didn't see anything and turned back around and packed up my makeup.

"You really don't need that." He speaks for the first time this morning.

"What?" I ask.

"Makeup, you look good without it." He smiles before turning on the shower. He better be quick because I don't want to be late.

"Thanks." I say before exiting the room, and walk back to my room putting my makeup away. I walk down stairs and grab a muesli bar from the table where Janine left a note telling us (Dallas and I) to have a great day at school. I sit on the chair next to the bench tapping my toes on the ground. 2 minutes till we need to leave if he's not ready I'll be angry. Another 10 minutes past when he finally comes downstairs. I glare at him as I walk towards the garage and into the car. He soon joins me with a muesli bar in his mouth as he starts driving down the street. It took approximately 20 minutes to get to school so we didn't end up being late thank god. I was given quite a few weird looks as I got out the car and made my way to my locker with Dallas by my side. I find my way to my first class and the day is fine until lunch. I grab my lunch and find the table I sat at yesterday. I guess I'm fine sitting by myself, I'm used to it but I really thought that moving to California would change things. I'm sitting by myself for about 10 minutes when 2 cheerleaders sit on either side of me. Let's just say I did not expect to be joined by the rulers of the school at lunch. But I soon found out the reason really wasn't because they wanted to be my friend.

"So, new girl" the blonde one says, "let's get this straight, Dallas is off limits." I should have known driving to school with the most popular guy in school would cause trouble.

"I don't know why you were in his car this morning but he's mine." She says as the brunette one nods in agreement, completely clueless. I'm guessing the blonde is the captain and the brunette is one of her little minions. At least I think that's how it goes in the movies.

"Honestly, I don't care about Dallas." I say, it's not complete the truth but it's not a lie. "He dropped me off because I stayed at his house lat night." Her face fills with anger, dammit. That sounds bad. "Because," I start as the two cheerleaders get up leaving the table in a hurry. All eyes are turned towards me as I finish my final pieces of my lunch. I get up to leave the table when Dallas sits down. He looks angry.

"What the hell did you say to Lacey? He yells, but quiet enough for no one else to hear. Lacey must have been the blonde cheerleader.

"I just said you dropped me at school because I stayed at your house last night." I stutter. His face does not flood with relief like I hoped instead his face screws up more making him look angrier.

"She left before I could explain why." I add at the end trying to often the blow.

"Why would you feel like you needed to tell her? It won't gain you any popularity" He snaps.

"She came up to me and told me to stay away from you, sorry your girlfriend threatened me and told me to tell her why I was in your car." I reply. He laughs.

"My girlfriend? Ha" he keeps laughing.

"Well she sure seemed to take claim of you." I say.

"Every girl around here thinks they own me, but in reality no one does." He said before he got up and left.

By the end of the day I was sick of everybody staring at me and I just wanted to go home. I walk towards the car park where my mum picked me up from yesterday and wait. Everybody has left and I'm still waiting here. It's 5:30 and I've been waiting here over 2 hours when I feel a tap on my shoulder. Dallas.

"Hi blondie." He smirks. Great why is he here?

"I am really not in the mood Dallas, my mum left me stranded here." I say ignoring him.

"I got a text from my mum before school finished saying I had to bring you back to my house, I just didn't want to do it while everyone was here." He says.

"So you left me here waiting just so you didn't ruin your reputation?" I ask dumbfounded. He shrugs his shoulders and gestures for me to hurry up as he walks towards the car. The ride home seemed to take forever with the silence and once we finally arrived I noticed my mums car wasn't in the driveway. We walked in to find Janine rushing towards me, he usual smile replaced by a unmistakable frown.

"Audrey honey, we need to talk." She says ushering me towards the couch in the living room. I sit down and begin to worry when she struggles to begin talking.

"Today your mother was driving to get some lunch when she was in a terrible crash." Before the words came out of her mouth warm, salty tears rolled down my cheeks.

"They took her to the hospital," she paused, I needed to see her. "They tried as much as the could." What? What does she mean. My mouth opens but I couldn't get the words out. "Your mother died Audrey" the words hit me like a wrecking ball, crumbling my body as I fell to my knees. I cried and cried until tears could no longer come as I lay on the floor, Janine sits beside me stroking my hair back. What was I supposed to do, my mother was the only person I had in my life, no friends and no other family to lean back on. Mum was an only child and my grandparents both died before I turned 6 so it has always just been me and my mother. Where was I meant to go? I didn't have any friends, never have. I can't really go back to Australia I have no money. Here I am thinking about what I'm gonna do with my life when my mother just died.

My mother just died. Then the tears began to role down my swollen cheeks once again. The days go by and I have been laying in the spare room of Dallas's house. Not eating, not sleeping, not moving. Soon it's time for my mother funeral. I know no one will come. I know mum had friends but they're all in Australia the only person I've met here is Janine. The first day in a week that I get out of bed, I put on a black dress that Janine must have laid on the bed while I was in my own thoughts. I decide not to do anything else except brushing my hair, I don't care what I look like right now. I don't care about anything right now. I walk downstairs to find Janine, Lucy, mark and Dallas all in black. The ceremony was short, Janine said a few kind words but I could not bring myself to talk. The words still wouldn't come. After the lowering of her coffin we walked back to the car and drove back home. I walked back up the stairs and into the spare room got out of the dress and into my tracksuit pants and crawled back into bed.

2 more weeks past and I've had a few small meals here and there but most of the time just threw it back up again. Now it was time for me to go back to school. I do not want to have to start year 11 again. I woke up the morning of school and threw my hair in a ponytail. I put on a denim skirt, black stockings, black long sleeve shirt and my black high tops. No colour today. I walk downstairs and to my surprise I find Dallas sitting at the bench. He looks over with a reassuring look. He grabs his keys and we head out the door, I wouldn't have gone to school if I'd know how it would turn out.