Post by silent.lullaby on Dec 5, 2009 16:38:19 GMT -5
//We Run This Town//Chapter 005//The Reid Twins
The alarm startles me and I jolt awake. Clicking it off I can’t help but yawn and stretch. Pushing down the blankets I step into the soft white carpet. I gaze around my room. It hadn’t changed at all why I was away. Pictures of family and friends still hung in black frames on my baby blue walls. I walked over to my CD player and clicked it on while wondering what it was I was listening to two years previous. It was one of those no-name bands that I thought was so cool. Listening to it now I could tell my tastes hand changed and switched the function over to the radio. I should start listening to music other kids my age were listening to.
I swung the closet doors open and study my clothing options. I immediately grab the white ruffle blouse I am so in love with. I rub the back of my head trying to decide what to pair it with. I take a shower while I continue to debate on the black skinny jeans I got in Italy or the grey pencil skirt. I blow dry my hair straight and use a hot iron to fix little curls. I apply hair spray and make up.
The black skinny jeans end up winning the war and I pair them with knee high, brown, kitten heal boots. I check myself out in my full length mirror and am pleased with the outcome. I hear my rotary phone ringing and I quickly answer it. “Hello?”
“Lil? Thank god, okay I’m having a fashion crisis.” I can tell by the voice it’s Gemma, which is no surprise. She’s done this every year since kindergarten on the first day. “See I’m totally wondering if I should wear that black slim dress I got the other day, or like go rocker edge and wear my black and silver patterned shirt with those old worn out biker jeans with those sexy boots of mine. Or maybe like a girly flirt, with that floral patterned dress and the earrings, you know the ones, the glass dangling flowers.” Gemma rushed her words and I was left flabbergasted for a moment. “Lil what are you wearing?” I told her. “Oh Lilianna! Super sexy, are you wearing your leather jacket too?”
I shrug and realize I’m on the phone. “Yeah, I think I will. It’s probably a little chilly out.”
“True, okay I’ll go rocker edge so you know, all those minor niners will know we’re in the same clique. I’ll call Blaire and Lucia!” I listen as I paint my fingernails a deep red. “Alright, meet at the front of the school no matter what, okay! I got so much to do, see you there!”
There was an immediate click and I raise an eyebrow. “Goodbye to you too,” I mutter putting the phone back on the receiver. I wait for my nails to dry blowing on them impatiently.
“Lilianna!” There is a bang on my door, and I can tell that it’s Sergio by the voice. “Mom wants you to have something to eat before you go so hurry up and get down there.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I respond touching my nail lightly to find they are dry.
I rush, eating a banana and packing my lunch, Sergio was looking through the cupboard for some kind of sweet treat for his lunch with not much luck. “Are we actually taking the school bus?” I asked him.
“Well Max doesn’t have his license,” Sergio responds. “Dad’s working something out with the crew and Mom’s gone fabric shopping, apparently she’s going to make new drapes for the north sitting room.”
“So in short we have to take the bus.”
Sergio smiles, “I think our parents planned this. A ‘humbling experience’ isn’t that what dad always calls it?”
“This sucks.”
“You think it sucks?” Maximo says coming in the room and sitting at one of the stools at the island. “I’m in my final year, and I’m taking the bus. I’m going to have to break a finger or something to gain some respect in there.”
“You make highschool sound like prison,” I respond with humour ringing in my voice.
“Do you want me to list the similarities?” Maximo asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Save it, we’ll need something to talk about on the bus,” Sergio says finding a pack of individually wrapped brownies. “Score.”
On the bus, I take a spot near the back, Maximo grabs some poor freshman who’d taken the back seat by the collar and tosses him down the aisle. Sergio sits with me and Maximo behind us sits with his back to the window and his feet on the seat across from him.
The bus ride is a long one. Forty minutes of old country music, squealing tires, shouting teens, and dodging spit balls. Getting off the bus at the front of the school made it clear everyone was meeting their friends there. Groups were forming, people were hugging, catching up. I look around trying to find Gemma. “Lilianna?” I turn and see Blaire come up behind me, she looks rocker chic so I assumed Gemma got the call to her. “Good, one face here,” she says looking around.
“Hey, I think that’s Gemma,” I point to a the back of a girl who stands about the right height, curly blond hair, and decked out in black jeans, boots and a leather jacket.
“Gem!” Blaire yells, “she can’t hear us from here.”
I walk forward and Blaire quickly caught up to walk at my side. “Gem, I’ve been looking for you.” I grab her shoulder and she pivots on her heal, only it isn’t Gemma. Once she’s turned around I can tell immediately I’ve got the wrong person. From behind, very alike, up close from the front, not even close. This girls hair was a lighter blonde, bright baby blues as opposed to dark hazel not to mention their different bone structures. “Sorry.”
“You’re Lilianna Lombardi aren’t you?” She asks. It takes me a moment, before I realize who she is. One of the Reid twins, either Lexie or Kara I can’t tell them apart.
“So what if she is,” I turn and see Lucia and Gemma come up.
“Happy to have daddy back?” The blonde taunts.
“You little!” My arm draws back my hand in a fist but Lucia grabs me around the waist and Blaire catches my hand.
“Go to hell,” Gemma snarls. “Before we fuck up that pretty little face of yours.”
“I know I’m just so gorgeous, too bad, what happened to your face? Irritation to bad acne cleansers?”
The second twin walks up to the first and grabs her arm. “The alarm is going to be going off soon, let’s go.”
The harsher of the two twins stares at us smugly for a moment before turning and going with her sister and my friends let me go. “Thanks guys.”
“No need for suspension on the first day,” Blaire responds. “I think the one starting the fight was Lexie.”
“How can you tell the difference?” I asks as we all head to the doors.
“Lexie in the past years has become more of a pain in the ass to us. Deliberately trying to get us in trouble,” Blaire explains. “Kara mostly doesn’t want to be bothered and is typically one to try to defuse hostile situations between her sister and... well anyone else.”
“They also dress differently.” Lucia elaborates, “Kara’s into softer things, pastel colours, feminine cuts. Lexie is more leather, chains, and cut off gloves.”
The warning bell rings and we go over to the postings of home room, which I didn’t have with anyone. I sighed and went off to room 307 by myself. It wasn’t to hard to find despite that I’d never been to the school before. Third floor, seventh room, pretty simple stuff.
I walk in and see a few people talking. I take an empty desk in the middle. I look around, I’m sure I went to middle school with some of these people, but everyone has changed so much. I wonder if I had changed? Lexie recognized me, or maybe just though it was me since I was new and with Blaire.
Our teacher came in, and there are announcements over the PA about boy’s football tryouts, girls soccer tryouts, the first dance of the year, cheerleader tryouts, the hours of the library, a quick overview of the rules, and voting for student council. The PA ends and our teacher reads out our name, and hands out our locker number and class list.
I go to the hall and find the locker number 2239. I pull my lock from my bag and spin the numbers in 14-59-35. I toss in my bag and look at my classes for the first semester. Math, Science, Art and P.E, I sigh but I know it could be worse. While math isn’t my favourite, I’m pretty good at it. I struggle in science but my average will be kept up with my art mark, I’m sure. Then there is P.E, some sports I’m just plain uncoordinated in... any one that has a ball.
I unclasp my messenger bag and pull out one of my binders and my pencil case and head to Math wondering if I’m going to have it with anyone I know. Inside the room I find that I have the class with Lucia, I quickly sit down beside her. “What classes do you have?” I ask her.
“Math, Spanish, Drama and Physical Education.”
“We have the same P.E class then!” I say smiling.
“Awesome!”
The teacher comes in and groups start walking back to their desks. “Hello class, I’m Mr. Anderson, I’ll be teaching you Mathematics this semester.” The teacher droned and eventually started handing out the class expectations and assigning textbooks. The class goes by slowly, I finish my work early so I would be free of homework, in that class at least.
The break is short and I use the time to go to the washroom, and my locker. I dump my textbook on the top shelf and my math binder on the second shelf. I grab another binder and head to science. The room is still pretty empty when I get there, the elderly female teacher is sitting at the front in a lab coat, grey slacks with a dust of white hair on her head. “Name?” Her harsh tone didn’t match her grandmotherly appearance.
“Lilianna,” I respond.
“Fourth row, fifth seat.” She tells me and I stand with my mouth open a bit. I shake my head and head to my assigned seat. In elementary school assigned seats were the norm, but in high school? Already agitated I sit down and hear the warning bell. I start doodling on the front of my clear binder in black sharpy, making the front look like it’s covered in a floral lace. The teacher is working on assigning seats to everyone coming in after the warning bell... which is pretty much everyone. I don’t even look up till the lecture begins.