A/N: Hello all! I have returned much more quickly than I had originally expected. But here's the first chapter of my new story. Storyness is what I'm using cause I haven't come up with a title yet. I'm having so much fun writing it...when I can. I hope everyone likes it. But keep in mind that it's only the first chapter. Oh and I promise, promise that I will be working on the other ending shortly... I just got taken over by my inspiration and well... Voila! What can I say? Lol. Enjoy!
Life Ruiner
This is good, Brooke Merrin thought as she let her back fall against the seat, sinking into the soft leather upholstery of her best friend's car. The air was warm, heated by the rays of a bright sun uninhibited by clouds. The combination of the warmth and the cool breezes, made the weather just right for her mood. It was... serene with hints of cold, complacent with undertones of sorrow. It was...just, what it was.
Brooke glanced at Jaelyn Mitchell, her best friend and reckless driver of the car, who was too busy checking out her new sunglasses in the rearview mirror to notice that the traffic light had turned red.
Jaelyn looked up just in time to slam on the brakes. Brooke laughed as her friend ignored the outraged honks of the other drivers and backed up until she was out of the intersection.
Brooke stretched and put her arms behind her head, "You know... yellow means slow down and red means stop."
"Actually, girl-who-could-be-walking, yellow means floor it, and red means stop."
Brooke rolled her eyes at her friend's sarcastic comment, and grinned. She'd learned, after two years, not to bother attempting to turn Jaelyn into a responsible driver.
As they stopped at another red light, Brooke glanced out of the window at two guys in a gorgeous '65 Pontiac GTO. They were staring, well practically drooling, due to Jaelyn's car. It was the usual reaction of anyone who knew classics. Brooke nudged Jaelyn, who put the top down, and grinned from the other side of her friend at the two strangers, "You like my baby?"
The driver smiled back, "I like what she's got in her even more."
Brooke raised an eyebrow, and leaned out over the door a little bit, "Really?"
He nodded, appraising her with a knowing eye. He paused, licking his lips before pronouncing his words slowly, dragging out the syllables, "Hell yeah."
She bit her soft lip slowly, wrapping a golden curl around her finger, "That's nice and all, hun, but unfortunately for you, you don't have that certain something that would...tickle my fancy."
The girls laughed as Jaelyn sped off, leaving the boys in their dust. It was actually a rather common occurrence as Jae's car, a creamy white 1961 Austin Healy 3000, was always a conversation starter. Her parents had been divorced since she was three but her mom was old money and used most of what she made to feed her car collecting habits. Jae's car, or Baby, as she so lovingly referred to it, was a sixteenth birthday present.
It was pretty clean and orderly, except for the shopping bags strewn across the back seat. The two were on their way to Brooke's house after an exhausting last-ditch effort to find the perfect outfits for their first day of school the next day. Well that was the original intention of the shopping trip, just a few last minute items. Of course, it slowly transformed into a full-fledged, all day event. Could there possibly be a better way to relieve back-to-school anxiety? Definitely doubtful.
Brooke hopped out of the car as soon as they pulled to a complete stop behind her mother's silver Lincoln Town Car in the J-shaped driveway. She struggled, leaning precariously over the door into the back to retrieve her shopping bags.
"Don't fall!" Jaelyn yelled loudly from directly behind her friend, laughing as Brooke fell unceremoniously into the back.
Brooke sat up, shopping bags crinkling beneath her. She glared at her friend folding her arms across her chest, "Not funny."
Jae braced herself against the car for support as her body shook with laughter, You're just sayin that because you didn't see the-" She paused as a another fit of giggles overtook her, "You didn't get to hear the shriek you made when you fell in." She shook her head, "You musta jumped at least a foot in the air before you even fell."
Brooke rolled her eyes as she climbed out of the car, but she couldn't help but laugh a bit. She knew that had the roles been reversed she would've been laughing just as hard. She quickly grabbed her things out of the back, this time careful not to lean too far over, and headed up the wooden stairs to the deck. She slid the patio glass and screen doors open and collapsed on sofa in the back living room. It was really more of a den area, but it was used more like a living room. It hadn't really been designed to seat adult guests, as was evident by the various posters and collages strewn across the walls. Brooke smiled fondly at the collage she and Jae had put together of the previous summer. It was just a collection of pictures they'd taken during various outings. Nothing professional, just fun stuff taken with disposable cameras…A lot of disposable cameras. Most of them were from hanging out at Excalibur, the local club for teens. Brooke laughed. We must've spent at least one night every weekend there, she thought. She was so absorbed in the pictures that she didn't even notice when Jae came back in.
"B," Jae, said, calling her by her nickname to get her attention.
Brooke looked up, shaking her head. "Hey, sorry." "I was..." her eyes drifted back to the photos, "just um, looking at the old pictures from last summer."
She sat down beside her friend, a mix between worry and sympathy played across her face, "You cool?"
Brooke continued to stare across the room, and for a second, one couldn't be sure if she had even heard the question, but she stood up and smiled at her friend. "I'm fine. Let's head to my room."
Jae looked at her skeptically, knowing that she was covering up, "You sure you don't want to-"
"So do you think the pictures from the other weekend have been developed yet?" Brooke asked, intentionally changing the subject as they walked down the long corridor.
Jae sighed, but let her friend have her way, knowing that it would all boil over eventually, "I don't know. Was that the weekend we went on Saturday 'cuz it was closed Friday night?"
They turned left at the end of the hall and headed up the stairs, "Was that the time that we hid in the bathroom to keep those guys away from us?"
"You mean when your ass got sick of hidin' so when they found us you basically filled their heads with a rack of discomforting images until they left?" Jae replied, her voice saccharinely sweet.
Brooke laughed and entered the room on the right, her room. The open door revealed her name, artfully painted in a sunset over the sea. She dropped her bags in a corner and fell back on her high bed. "You're over exaggerating" She said, denying her friend's accusation. "It was not that bad."
Jaelyn settled down in the white director's chair by a white round protrusion from the wall. It was low enough to be used as a desk but, Brooke had various pictures and her collage materials: scissors, paper, and glue, spread out in no particular arrangement. She smiled and rolled her eyes, "Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall somethin' 'bout cutting off a certain important appendage and shoving it up a particular sphincter..."
Brooke squealed, a combination of mirth and embarrassment, "I did not!"
Her friend nodded, "It was the shit; how could I forget?"
Brooke groaned. "Well, I'm looking at it in hindsight, which is why it looks so stupid..."
"Um... of course." Jae replied, not remotely convincing.
"Come on, can I get a little more support than that?"
Jae just laughed in response.
Brooke was about to respond, when they both heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. Brooke's room and a guestroom were the only two rooms on the fourth floor.
Jae looked over at Brooke in confusion, "Her Majesty home?"
Brooke grinned at the title they'd given her sister, and shook her head, "I don't think so, but with her you can never tell until it's too late."
They waited in silence for a few moments as the steps grew louder. A small blonde woman, of about forty or forty-five years of age poked her head in the door, with a pleased smile on her face.
Brooke glanced over at the woman, surprised, "What's up, mom?"
Her mother, Lucy Merrin, took another step or so into the room, moving beyond the threshold. "I need to speak with you when you have a minute, ok? It's rather important."
Jae and Brooke's eyes met with Jae shrugged to consent for Brooke to go talk to her mother.
Brooke followed her mother out of her bedroom and into the guestroom across the hall. She had no idea what her mother could possibly want to talk to her about, but judging by the slightly nervous look on her face, she knew that it wasn't going to be particularly good news. "So what's the news? Is someone sick or something?" Brooke asked, worried.
Her mother shook her head, smiling slightly, "It's nothing that serious. Actually, it's regarding this upcoming school year."
Brooke looked at her mother in confusion, "What about it?"
"Well, honey, as you know, this is your sister's senior year..." she began, slowly, taking in every movement her daughter made.
Brooke couldn't help but grimace at the mention of her sister. Well that explains it, she thought to herself. What has she done to ruin my life this time?
"...And your father and I have decided that it's too much of a hassle to drive each of you to separate schools every morning..." Her mother continued.
"Wait," Brooke cut in. "Rachel is going to Wallace with me?" She couldn't imagine her elder sister being torn away from the preppy high society of Wellesley Academy and shoved into the multicultural environment of Henry Wallace High School
"Well no," Brooke's mother began tentatively. "You'll be attending Wellesley this fall."
Brooke fell back against the wall. "What?" Her mother could not possibly be serious. "Is this some kind of joke? Because I'm not laughing."
"I'm sorry honey, but it won't be so bad. And you'll get to spend more time with Rachel." Mrs. Merrin replied gently, trying to soften the blow.
"W-why would you do this to me?"
"Well we've been promising your sister a car of her own for a while now, and she's been so good and responsible with her job this summer..."
Brooke smirked. Her sister had gotten a summer job with a local Shakespearian Company. How hard could it really be to go to a job where you would do what you had planned on doing anyway? Rachel, or Skylar, as she had christened herself, was as she so fondly put it, "born to be on stage."
"...And so we've decided to give her my old car, but she'll have to give you rides to and from school...at Wellesley ." Her mother finished.
Brooke shook her head, causing more curls to slip out of her already loose pony tail, "Wait so Rachel gets a car and I have to leave my high school, junior year? What kind of skewed version of justice is this?"
" Wellesley has an excellent academic record, you'll be getting a better education, dear."
"Wallace is the best public school in the state," Brooke shot back.
Her mother's brow furrowed as she got a little angry, "Brooke Merrin don't you dare take that tone of voice with me. Your father and I made this decision for your benefit. You are going to Wellesley tomorrow, and you will like it. And that's final."
Shit, Brooke mentally chastised herself, as her mother stormed from the room. She knew that with her mother angry she was never going to be able to talk her out of the horrible decision she'd made.
She staggered back across the hall into her room where she found Jaelyn rummaging through her shopping bags, who looked up at her friend and immediately froze, "What's wrong?"
Brooke fell on top of her bed, "You are not going to believe this."
"What happened?"
She rolled over onto her back with an exasperated sigh. "Her Majesty managed to ruin my life yet again."
Jae sat down next to her friend, which was a difficult feat accomplish considering how Brooke had spread herself out over most of the bed. "What did she do this time?"
Brooke sat up playing with the edge of a pillow, "Somehow Her Majesty managed to talk mom into giving her the Jeep."
"That ain't too bad," Jae replied, trying to soothe her friend.
"That's not even the worst part," Brooke growled. "She gave them some lie about wanting to spend more time with me so they're going to be shipping me off to Wellesley ."
"What?" Jae exclaimed, jumping off of the bed. "You've gotta be shitting me?"
Brooke sighed, slowly shaking her head, "They're actually making me go. Tomorrow. And I pissed my mom off when I wasn't thinking so now there's no way I'm going to be able to get out of this."
Jae paced, her shoulders slumped in frustration, "This is bullshit." She glanced over at her oldest and best friend, "How am I gonna make it without you?" She paused and then groaned, falling back on the bed, "And how the hell is the team gonna make it to State this year without you, shit, without us?"
Brooke gave her a sad, wistful smile. The previous two years she and Jaelyn had led the Wallace Lady Wolverines to the Regional championships for basketball and this year they had planned on making it to State. But that dream had been crushed. "I'm sure you guys will be fine without me."
The two sat in silence for a few minutes, the gravity of the future washing over them. They had been almost inseparable, rarely fighting, like sisters, twins even, despite the obvious differences in appearance. The two were opposites in that department; Brooke often told others that her best friend could be a model. Jaelyn was...tall to say the least at 5'11. She had the coloring of warm coffee with cream, and luxurious black hair that fell in soft waves to her shoulders.
Brooke was pretty in a different sort of way, though she didn't think so. She saw herself as someone a around average height, 5'4" or so. She had let her golden blonde curly hair grow out and it fell about midway down her back. The feature she appreciated most about herself were her eyes. They were a strikingly clear blue. They would seem cold, stoic perhaps if not framed by long, thick blonde eyelashes. Brooke's blue eyes swept slowly across the room until they rested on the mass of shopping bags they two girls had accumulated that afternoon. She strode the few steps purposefully towards them. She turned grinning mischievously to Jaelyn, "Okay. Clearly, it sucks that I we won't be together this year, but we should focus on more important matters, like what I'm going to wear to Wellesley tomorrow. I had best make the right impression, you know."
Jaelyn raised a hand to her new mauve tinted sunglasses and brought them down slowly. "Well we must do what we must," she said aloud as she helped Brooke start rummaging through her closet and drawers for the most...appealing of her clothing.
Coming Soon...Chapt 2.
Review please! )