Author Note:

This used to be 'Living with my mum's best friend and her son!' but I've restarted it and decided to change the title too as I wasn't happy with it.I hope you like the new version!

So Much For A New Begining

Chapter One: Memories from the past

I was sitting in my room gazing out of the window watching the cars passing by when my Mum broke it to me.

"Chrissie sweetheart, you know Katie and Ben are divorced now?" my mother started with. How could I not know? Katie is after all her best friend since childhood, and my Mum was handling their divorce case.

"What about it?" I asked.

"Well, you see, Katie and Zack bought a new house and college you're going to is...the same as Zack's" she explained. My head snapped to her direction.

"What?!?" I exclaimed. "You couldn't have told me four months ago when I applied or something?" I questioned.

For those of you who are confused, Zack is Katie's son. Zack and I were best friends from birth, but then...we grew apart. I haven't seen him, nor spoken to him for 5 years, so I was annoyed to say the least.

My Mum stared at me nervously, which made me confused. Usually she'd shout at me for shouting at her, resulting in a longer argument between us. But then we'd make up and eat ice-cream while watching romance films. That's my Mum and me for you; we're more like friends rather than mother and daughter. People actually ask us if we're sisters!

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked her.

"Well, there's more. The house we're moving to, well...we're going to be living with Katie and Zack" she spoke quickly.

My breath caught in my throat as I pondered whether or not I had heard her correctly.
"WHAT?!?" I screamed.

"It's not that bad! It'll be fine! It's great actually, we'll have company, and we'll have lots of fun. You get to see Zack after having not seen him for so long. It'll be like they never moved!" She started rambling.

I took deep calming breathes. "When was this decided?" I asked lowly.

"When...when Katie got divorced I was about to seal the deal on the house, but...she needed to move out as well because Ben wanted to keep the house since Katie had taken responsibility of Zack and Ben was angry. So...we kind of agreed upon buying the house together" She explained.

"So you knew! You've known since you bought the house, you've known since I applied to college and you never told me?" I growled frustrated. "You planned it all! A happy reunion! You know Zack and I don't talk anymore, how the hell are we going to live together?"

Oh I was angry.

Five whole months this has been organised and I didn't get told once. Not even a subtle hint. How could she do this to me?

I thought my mother was incapable of keeping secrets!

We are actually moving to the house today, only a day after she gave me the dreadful news. It is two weeks before the end of the summer holidays and I will be starting my new college. It is an hour away from the current house I am living at. I'm sad to be leaving all my friends behind but the college is really good so I want to go.

Plus, it's time to move house. My father passed away when I was 11 years old, I'm now currently 16. He died in a car crash on the way home from dropping me off at school. It was the worst day of my life to say the least. I feel like it was my fault, because that morning I had begged him to give me a lift to school so I wouldn't have to carry the huge tree I had created out of cardboard for my art presentation. In the end I never even got to show my presentation because I got taken out of school to see my dad in hospital. Later on that day he was pronounced dead and I guess I haven't really forgiven myself since.
Anyway, Mum wanted to move house after dad passed away because it reminded her of him. It's not that we want to forget him; just it'll be nice for Mum to finally let him go. But then she changed her mind and decided not to move because I had just started secondary school and it was easy for me to get to school because it's like a 20 minutes walk.
Seeing as I'm starting college now Mum thought it was the perfect opportunity to buy a house. In fact she was the one who suggested I attend West Herts College. Now I understand why, it was a set up for this whole living with Katie and Zack thing.

I guess you're wondering about Zack and why I'm disappointed about the living arrangements?

Let me explain.

Mum and Katie have been best friends since high school, amazing I tell you. Gives all best friends hope I guess.

So as you can imagine, they both got married and had children, Zack and I. Naturally Zack and I became friends, we went to the same primary school as well. At the time Katie and her family lived down the road. Zack and I were inseparable. I don't know how it all went wrong really.
Zack would always hang out with me, but then some of the boys in our class started taunting Zack because he was always with me, a girl. I knew he didn't like it, he was always upset after. So once I stuck up for him in front of them. I told them to leave him alone. But the boys laughed again because I was a girl sticking up for a boy. Zack was really annoyed and told me to leave him alone and went off in a strop.

Two days later he still wasn't talking to me. There was a Christmas party at the school because it was the last day before the Christmas holidays. I wore a pretty pink dress that dad had bought me, I absolutely loved it. The teachers asked us to bring all our presents for our friends in to school so that we could put them under the school Christmas tree. Even though Zack and I hadn't really been talking I still bought him a present.

During the party I sat on my own since I was never really friends with anyone else because I always hung out with Zack. I noticed Zack was with the boys who had made fun of him.

It was time to give out the presents so everyone sat around the Christmas tree as the teachers handed them out. I waited eagerly hoping to get one from Zack, but I never did. I was the only person in the whole class with out a present, I was nearly in tears. But I kept telling myself, maybe he just forgot to bring it in.

I saw Zack with the present I had got him in his hands. I wanted to speak to him, so I started walking towards him when I bumped in to Tom, who was like the leader of the bunch of boys who Zack was now hanging out with. Tom had a drink in his hand which went flying all over my dress; I stood there shocked, tears brimming in my eyes fighting to escape. The boys roared with laughter as I stared at Zack hopefully, it was like a test, he had to choose between his new found friends, or me, his best friend.

That day my heart broke to tiny little pieces when Zack joined in with the laughter of his friends, dropping my present from his hands. I turned abruptly and ran to the bathroom crying till the end of the day, just hoping maybe Zack would come and apologise. He never did.

I never told Mum what really happened between Zack and I. She thought I was just crying because of my dress. Zack and I stopped hanging around together; Mum noticed but didn't say anything. She tried to encourage me to hang around with him but I just said he was too busy with his new friends. He and the boys would taunt me at school. During Christmas I did get a present from him, but I presumed he only gave it because Katie had made him. It was a silver chain with a heart locket, I still have it but I never wore it.

I had given him a best friend's necklace (one of those broken heart ones where you both keep half each). I put a little note in the box saying 'Zack I know you won't really wear this because it's girly, but because you're moving soon I want you to have this half so you remember me'. I kept my half of the heart with the necklace he gave me, but I couldn't bear to ever wear them. To what I know he dropped his without even opening it.

When primary school finished Zack moved away, his dad had a new job and he went to a different secondary school to mine. We never said bye to each other and I didn't see him until my dad passed away and he came to the funeral. I was so happy to see him, I put everything that had happened aside, and all I wanted was my best friend back. Mum was crying and Katie was comforting her, I wanted comfort too. But Zack didn't even look at me. I cried not only for my dad, but for my so called best friend who was never there when I needed him most.

So now I guess you understand why I am so angry about seeing Zack. Mum obviously doesn't understand because I never told her what happened between us. She thinks we grew apart because we were growing up and going through 'changes', plus the fact he moved. Well it was a hell of a change alright. A complete change for Zack he chose stupid bullies over me, his supposed to be best friend.

Five years since I've spoken to Zack and we're moving in with them. Turns out they're already at the house; they've been there for about 3 months now, waiting for us to move in after my school finished. Mum told me the old owners were looking after the house while they waited for the building work to finish on their new house what a load of lies that was then.

Anyway, as Mum drives us to our new home all I can think about is Zack and how the hell am I going to live with him? What am I supposed to do when I see him? And is he a complete jerk like he was when he was 10 years old?

Well, I guess I'll find out soon enough.