FictionPress.com - let the words flow| FictionPress.com - let the words flow |
| Home Just In Communities Forums Beta Readers Dictionary Search | Login Register Extras |
This is dedicated to the girls who got (and keep) me writing.
Much love to you all.
The Adventures of a Teen Romance Heroine
o.O.o
We begin with our lovely heroine, who is devastatingly gorgeous, but of course, fails to acknowledge it, waking up in a foul mood and throwing her alarm clock across the room. Her parents have conveniently disappeared for the greater part of the story while her siblings (an overprotective twin brother and an annoyingly perfect sister) pop up every once in a while to be useful/detrimental to the story. So our heroine wakes up to an empty house with only five minutes to get to school, despite the fact that her alarm has only just gone off.
She somehow uses one of those minutes to get fully dressed in her baggy, figure hiding uniform, tame her shiny, chestnut-coloured hair into a ponytail, outline her green-ringed grey (or is it grey-ringed green?) eyes with a touch of black eyeliner, eat breakfast and find her school bag and car keys while the other four minutes are spent cruising along in her car, contemplating the meaning of life, which is where our story really begins...
o.O.o
The radio was playing a sappy love song at eight in the morning and Lee was very displeased.
She was, after all, quite cynical about love since her heart had been broken by Pete Taylor in eighth grade. He had been a whole month older than her, which was perfect, since everyone was into older guys at the time, though in the end it turned out he was into older guys too. When Lee found him behind the toilet blocks with Gary Mitchells from Year Nine, she had been devastated and vowed never to fall in love again...
But back to the story:
Lee fiddled with the dial on the radio of her shiny new car, which had been a sixteenth birthday gift from her average-wage earning parents. All that was playing at this time of day was news, news, sappy love songs and more news so she turned the radio off and concentrated on speeding to school.
By the time she arrived Lee had missed both the first and second bells. Ignoring the fact that she was without several necessary books, she hurried into her first period class which just happened to be Maths. Now, Lee was not a stupid girl, oh no, she was generally very intelligent but her one downfall was Mathematics. English, she could do. History? That was a breeze. Somehow, she was even acing Chemistry. But Maths? Between her horrible fire-breathing teacher and her lack of logical thinking, she was failing with a capital F.
Anyway, Lee waltzed into the classroom fifteen minutes late, without her textbook or a late pass. Her hair, had astoundingly stayed picture perfect (half tucked into a baseball cap to complete her tomboy image) and her face was perfectly sweat-free, despite the fact that she had just run into the room. She was horribly embarrassed about her lateness though and refused to meet the eyes of the teacher, instead staring down at her significantly beat-up shoes.
"This is the fourth time you've been late this week Miss Michaels," the Dragon (also known as Mrs. Jackson) was saying. Lee was still staring down at her shoes demurely.
"What do you have to say?" the Dragon demanded. Lee lifted her head and was promptly overcome by Mrs Jackson's breath.
"Woah, your breath really stinks," Lee said in disgust. She then dug into her hoodie pocket and retrieved an item. "Gum?" she offered politely as the room behind her filled with laughter.
"Why, you insolent little-" the teacher began, her face reddening like a tomato. She was interrupted by Lee who covered her nose and took two gigantic steps towards the door. Once she was safely out of Mrs. Jackson's reach, she uncovered her face and waved her had, as if to say "continue".
Mrs Jackson's eyes bulged, threatening to come out of her head. Lee simply stood still, waiting expectantly.
"Detention. Today. After school." the teacher spluttered as her glowing face turned a darker shade of red, or purple, depending on where you were standing. "Now sit down!" she yelled at Lee. "And be quiet!" she roared at the laughing class.
Lee sashayed her way down the aisle between the rows of desks and towards her seat next to the window. She sat down at a desk, dumped her bag on the floor and pulled out her diary/art & poetry journal/school notebook while the teacher began explaining the domain and range of functions. While she was doodling on her page, Lee's best friend Tanya nudged her.
Tanya was a tall leggy brunette, breathtakingly gorgeous and brilliant to boot. Most of the time, that is. She wasn't particularly pretty if you got her angry and she was quite oblivious to the hordes of boys who were in love with her - the ones that Lee was constantly fending off. Lee felt as though she was always being asked to ask Tanya for a date, her number, her schedule and Lee was just a little bit annoyed at this. But she and Tanya had been best friends for like, forever (well, since fifth grade), so it didn't really matter that Tanya was practically perfect and always got all the attention. Nope, it didn't bother Lee at all. Or at least, that's what she tried to tell herself.
You okay? Tanya had written down her margin.
Yep. I'm fine Lee scribbled underneath it.
No, you are super fine : ) Tanya wrote, giggling.
"Miss Michaels! Miss McKinley! Are you paying attention?" the Dragon yelled, just as Lee was about to reply.
"Yes Mam!" they both replied. Mrs Jackson glared at them and returned to her lesson.
I'll talk to you later. Tanya wrote on Lee's book as the Dragon turned to write on the board.
o.O.o
It was Roll Call the next time Lee and Tanya happened to be in the same room together. They sat next to each other and chatted while they waited for the teacher to arrive.
"Hey, what's that on your desk?" Tanya suddenly said, interrupting her own long-winded explanation on the pros of skinny leg jeans.
"Huh?" Lee replied intelligently. She turned away from her friend to see a plain white envelope on her desk with her name written in black ink on it.
"Oh no, not again," Lee muttered under her breath.
"Was that there when we walked in?" Tanya asked, eyes still fixed on the envelope.
Lee shrugged.
"Ooh, someone's got a secret admirer. Aren't you excited?" Tanya giggled.
"Nope, it's probably some insane stalker."
"Ooooh, a stalker. Fun." Tanya replied.
Lee glared. She had already received two different envelopes on previous occasions, once in Year Seven and once in Fifth Grade. The contents of the letters (and the letter writers) had been quite odd. One read: I'm watching you and the other one had only had U + ME LURVE written in sparkly purple pen, both of which Lee found very strange. In any case, neither of those letter writers had followed up on their first letters, probably because Lee had ripped them up and thrown them in the trash. She told Tanya as much.
"Well, this guy might be different. Aren't you going to open it?" Tanya asked.
Lee just rolled her eyes.
"Can I open it then?"
Lee shrugged again.
Tanya ripped it open with undisguised enthusiasm and read it. Her face melted into a smile.
"Third time lucky," she said, handing the letter over to Lee. There was a brilliant miniature drawing of Lee (perfect, right down to her grey-green eyes), dressed as a princess, next to text which read:
Dearest Lee,
Roses are red,
Violets are blue
I'm not too great with poetry
But I do really like you.
-Anonymous
Lee's eyebrows shot up.
"Um, yeah, ok. That was odd," was all she said.
"How can you say that?" Tanya exclaimed. "It's sweet!"
"If you say so," Lee dead panned, preparing to throw it out.
"Don't you dare," Tanya hissed at her as a young teacher walked in. Lee sighed and stuffed the note unceremoniously into her school bag.
"Hey guys," the teacher said, "I'm, uh, Mr Wu. Your normal teacher is, um, absent today so I'll call the roll." When no one responded he took it as a sign that he was being welcomed and continued, "I'm, um, really bad with names so I apologise in advance," he said with a sheepish smile. Most of the class was ignoring him, although he was so busy trying to pronounce names that he didn't notice.
Lee zoned out until she heard him call Tanya's name.
"Ta-a-nee-ya Mack-in-lee?" Mr Wu said.
"Present!" Tanya chirped.
"Molly Mick-els?" Oh, yeah, great, thought Lee, pronounce my full name, why dontcha. As you can see, Lee's name wasn't actually Lee, it was Molly, but she had forced everyone to shorten it...for no reason at all really. Of course, she also hated it and got unreasonably upset when people called her her full name, which was why Lee was almost growling when she said:
"It's Lee Michaels"
Mr Wu scratched his head. "But it says right here-OH! Look! It's in brackets. Hehe, didn't see those. So it's Lee My-kay-els?"
"Yeah, present," Lee said grumpily and sulked all the way through the daily announcements.
o.O.o
At recess Lee completely forgot to go to her locker but somehow managed to gain possession of all her notebooks for her next classes. She and Tanya fought their way through the crowded quadrangles and settled under one of the many trees on the unoccupied soccer oval. Lee had her head in a book and was consequently oblivious to the world around her. Since she also became completely deaf and blind when reading, she did not notice that James Markem had wandered over and stolen her food.
James Markem was Lee's other best friend. He was pretty average in the brains department, quite above average in the looks department and had a talent for running, which all together made him pretty endearing to the opposite gender. Though, with his brown eyes and scattering of freckles, he tended to lean slightly more towards the you're-so-cute-I-want-to-take-you-home-and-feed-you! good looking rather than the wow-he's-hot! look. Despite this, he has a significant amount of the school's female population chasing after him so it was probably lucky that he was a fast runner.
It would be important at this particular moment to point out that after stealing her food, James promptly sat down, completely ignored the beautiful Tanya and began to stare at Lee. Every so often Lee looked up to turn a page while James blushed hotly and pretended to study the tree bark above her head. This continued for the entirety of the fifteen minute break. Lee obviously didn't notice James' staring and kept reading while Tanya was just left out of the whole interaction, reappearing a few seconds later in order to hurry them both off to class, only to disappear again.
"Oh, hi James. I didn't notice you were there," Lee said as she walked to class.
"Well, I've been here," James said, "right in front of you."
"Mhmm," Lee said, wandering aimlessly down a corridor she was not sure she recognised.
"Yep, right in front of you" James repeated.
"Uh, you said that," Lee replied, still walking.
"Just wanted to make sure you know I'm right here, in front of you" he said.
Lee looked at him, "O...k. Well, Could you maybe stop being 'right in front of me' now?"
James looked hurt. "Why?" he asked.
"Cause you're kinda blocking the entrance to by Economics classroom."
"Oh, ok, yeah" James said with a nervous laugh as he realised they had reached her classroom at the inopportune moment when he could have been confessing his non platonic feelings for her.
Not that he would have because he was too worried about ruining their friendship. He'd been in love with her since sixth grade (well, it had started as more of a crush really, because who genuinely falls in love when they're eleven years old?) but they'd been friends since kindergarten and he couldn't bear to put the strain of a possibly unrequited love on their relationship. It had absolutely nothing to do with him being a coward. Nope, nothing at all.
James sidestepped out of her way with a very strange look on his face. It could probably be described as one of longing but Lee misinterpreted it and thought he must have needed to go to the bathroom or something.
"Well, I'll see you at lunch then?" Lee smiled brightly at him, which made his insides feel all warm and squishy. Oddly enough, it also made him feel like singing.
"U-u-um. Yeah, lunch, see ya," James stuttered before skipping off.
Lee watched him go with a funny look on her face. He must really need to pee, she thought.
o.O.o
Lee walked out of her Economics class an hour and twenty minutes later slightly confused. It wasn't the work bothering her, no, that had been a cinch. It was the odd behaviour of a certain boy in the class that was bothering Lee.
Damien Reichler had been sitting next to her, like he alway did, but he had not been concentrating on his work and for Damien, that was very odd. You see, Damien was, for lack of a nicer term, a bit of a nerd.
He was one of the smartest people in Lee's grade but sometimes he did...odd things. Like just before the end of the period Lee had turned to ask him a question. She was just about to open her mouth he smiled and said, "Your hair smells really pretty."
Lee was momentarily blinded by his smile. She wasn't sure he'd ever smiled like that before but whatever he was doing made him look really really good. Not that he was bad looking in the first place. Well he had been, until yesterday, when he had finally grown into his slightly too big ears, his acne had cleared up and he had been blessed by a very sudden, overnight growth spurt that resulted in him being about 6 ft tall. He had also gone on exchange to Hungary that past summer (before the perviously mentioned changes) and become all buff, almost good looking and ready to bloom into a fully-fledged hunk, once Lee took notice of him that is. Then again, since all the guys in Lee's life somehow had to be devastatingly handsome, this was pretty much to be expected.
After Lee snapped out of her smile-induced hypnosis, she realised that at some point during the lesson Damien must have been sniffing her hair. That was odd.
Before she could ask him to explain himself the bell had gone and he had swept up his things and lost himself in the period-change rush. That was also unusual since he usually liked to discuss the current rate of economic growth as they packed their books away but there was no talk of inflation rates or domestic fruit prices today.
Lee felt as though there was something to be read into his actions but decided that it was probably nothing to do with her. Besides, she was too busy being blissfully ignorant (and navigating her way to her next class) to have time to dwell on it too much.
o.O.o
By the time lunch rolled around, Lee was starving. She made her way to the cafeteria where she was hoping to run into Dave, her overachieving, popular older twin brother. This meant that she had to also run into her brother's jerk of a best friend (who secretly enjoyed playing love ballads on his guitar, photography and romantic dinners).
"Yo, Mol!" William, the aforementioned jerk, called from The Popular Table in the centre of the room. How Lee managed to hear it she couldn't say since almost eight hundred loud students were in the room at the time.
Lee had snubbed The Popular Table ever since Year Seven, when her brother had first broken into the Popular scene as a result of his brilliant swimming career. She could have been at that table, she had the looks, the brains, the talents but, of course, she favoured sitting outside with her small group, consisting of her best friends and a couple of other artsy/emo people who floated over from time to time.
A gorgeous blonde was almost perched in his lap but Will did not seem to notice. There was always a pretty girl lurking round Will, there had to be. He had a reputation as a player after all.
"How many times have I told you that my name is Lee?" she snarled at him, magically appearing next to them. Will was pleased at he fact that he had gotten Lee riled up with just two words. Usually, it took him a whole sentence to say something witty and mean to disguise his true romantic feelings for her.
For the next few minutes Lee and Will had a cute little interlude where they snarked at each other and made witty yet degrading comments about each other to the amusement of their Popular Table audience. The argument grew to a stage where Lee and Will were standing nose to nose and the whole cafeteria was listening.
"Isn't Lee like, a guy name?" the ditzy blonde who had been on Will's lap chipped in during a momentary silence.
Lee rolled her eyes, breaking eye contact with Will which had suddenly made her feel quite funny. Maybe she was just really hungry. She ignored the last statement, deciding to join the canteen line instead of trying to reason with Will's latest bimbo. As she was just about to purchases her lunch she realised why she had gone to find her brother in the first place. She had no money.
Luckily, Will and Dave just happened to have shoved their way into the line behind her.
"Hey Lee," her brother said, patting his scowling sister on the head and promptly disappearing.
"Three eighty" the canteen lady said to Lee, handing her a brown paper bag containing a tuna, lettuce and tomato sandwich and a bottle of juice.
"Oh, um, yeah, just a second," Lee mumbled, digging through her bag, hoping to find some loose change. All she came up with was two fifty and a lot of five cent coins which she began counting out. There was a groan from the lady and the rest of the line.
"Here," Will handed the lady a twenty as Lee proceeded to look sheepish.
"Thanks," she half-smiled at him, caught in his blue-eyed stare.
Will simply grunted, leaving Lee befuddled at his uncharacteristic kindness to her.
That is, until he ruffled her hair and said, "it's not your fault you haven't learned to count yet."
Lee scowled at him and he walked back to The Popular Table laughing.
o.O.o
The next two hours of Lee's life were pretty much uneventful. She stared out the window, slept in class and astounded her teachers with her intelligence, even though she wasn't listening at all. She wrote in her notebook and drew funny little cartoons on her page while thinking about what she was having for dinner that night.
At about a five to three, Lee was half-listening to what Article 51 of the Constitution stated and half-listening to emo rock on her iPod. The teacher was standing at the front of the room delegating questions from the textbook which Lee conveniently had in her bag, even though she was sure she had not packed it in her bag that morning.
There were currently three sets of eyes on her. One pair belonged to a predominantly black magpie who was sitting outside the window, thinking how nice her shiny silver hairclip would look in its nest.
The second stare was from the ditzy blonde from lunch who had just been dumped and was planning how to ruin Lee's life. Action would have to be taken directly after her afternoon manicure.
The last pair of eyes came from the very back of the room where a scary looking boy with five piercings on his face and bleached blonde hair was wondering whether staring at someone hard enough could really make them turn around.
Lee felt as though she was being watched. The boy with the piercings thought his stare had worked when he saw Lee flip her hair and half turn to watch the magpie outside her window.
The poor boy would never find out because at that very moment, the bell rang and the school day ended. The majority of Bayside High School leapt out into the freedom of the after-school world. Lee made it all the way to her car before she realised she had somewhere to be, although she wasn't quite sure where. With great difficulty, Lee pushed her way back through the exiting crowd and back into the building.
o.O.o
So that's the first chapter. Tell me what you think. Any feedback is appreciated greatly.
