one door down

Billie

It was a Monday morning the day of the new school year , I put on my warm and cosy green jumper with my favourite high top black converse , I looked in the mirror and realised yet again that I hated the way I looked , The light starts to flicker and in the moment I know it is because my dad forgot to pay the electricity bill again .I put on my mother's necklace and walk downstairs as slow and quite as possible as I know that my dad would be in his usual drunken state and so it was best not to wake him up , I make myself some quick toast and get ready to leave , I felt nervous the kind of nervous where your heart becomes heavy but if there was one thing to get me out of this house and to prevent me from living a life like my fathers school was my ticket out of here . I shut the door on the way out and here a slam beside me , my ex best friend and neighbour Joshua was also leaving his house at the same time , we hadn't spoke in a long time but he was still the person who knew me the best and the only boy I have ever trusted with any of my secrets .With just one look he knew what I was feeling and I knew what he was feeling and so he could tell that I was nervous , he always had this way of reassuring me and calming me down but that was then and like I said we hadn't spoke in a long time . when I would talk to him years ago, he was the only thing that would make me feel utterly and completely safe and so we were often seen at his tree house just happy in each other's company. we would hang out every Saturday night and even though Joshua would never open up to me about his feelings we would sit there together happy and hidden from the problems and challenges we now face .He looks at me and I realise that we now hate each other and so I stood there waiting for a witty sarcastic line that he had been planning for me but instead he just decides to be mean and looks me in the eye and tells me "if it isn't the drunken fathers daughter , you know what they say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree " he knew that what he said would get under my skin as even though I loved my father for staying with me when my mother left , I still resented him for making me grow up to early and for making me the parent who looks after him and fixes his mistakes instead of me making my own . I sarcastically tell Joshua that he is funny and then look away and walk to my boyfriend's car that is ready to pick me up. I had forgot how much I hated him. Joshua was usually seen in a blue or black flannel accompanied by some jeans and trainers and whenever his dad would fight with him, he would brush his hand through is hazelnut hair. I start to think of when We would go to the tree house and Joshua would turn the music up so that I could not hear my parents argue, I could still hear them, but Joshua made me feel like everything was going to be alright. Everything had changed.

Joshua

It's a Monday morning before the new school year , I look through the window and see Billie , she is wearing he favourite green jumper , I know it's her favourite because I gave it her on her 14th birthday and since then she wears it whenever she is anxious about something , I smile and I don't know what it is about her but she makes me feel like home , well what home used to be like , I see her put on her most beloved valuable , her mother's necklace and I think back to the day where her mother just left leaving her only with that necklace , she was upset and I knew it but she wouldn't talk and so we sat there in my tree house on the old green couch just sitting there not talking just being there for each other . I get changed pretty quickly in hope to coincidently see her leaving but then I come to remember that we were no longer friends and that every time I spoke to her I was mean and horrible and for some reason I couldn't control it . I see her and she bites her bottom lip , I know that it means she is nervous and instead of being kind like I really wanted to be I blurted out a hurtful comment and realise that we would never be like we once where , she was my best friend and at that point in time I loved her more than I had loved anyone else but since then we have drifted apart , thinking about these memory's reminds me of why we were so distant and I don't regret being mean to her . I liked that billie wouldn't ask me questions all the time when my mother passed away, everyone also just repeated the same question "how are you feeling "but she would distract me, she would make a funny face or put on a movie, she made me her top priority something that only my mother would do . She tucks her deep brown hair behind her ear and my eyes become stuck on her I hated her, and I loved her as a friend and she hated me, and so I guess it was a usual Monday.

Billie

Cory comes in his big expensive car ready to pick me up, he was my boyfriend and as a boyfriend he felt that it was part of his duty to take me to school everyday in his flashy car as taking the bus would ruin mine and his reputation, he was the stereotypical jock with the perfect family, the perfect house and a healthy relationship with his father some of the things missing in my life. I sometimes wonder why he chose me out of all the beautiful and popular girls at our school and I wonder if he is ever going to come to the realisation that he was out of my league, but he did not at least yet. He is kind and supportive and he was one of the only good things in my life, I didn't like his friends and his friends didn't like me but he was different from them , at least when he was with me .I arrive at school and things are still the same , I see Joshua with his small group of friends and I smile at him but he just looks away I don't know what I did to make him hate me so much and I wish I did so I could apologise and speak to him like we once did but that brief feeling leaves just as quickly as it comes , cory and his friends start to discuss the start of school party that was within the next few days I knew cory would make me come , he would always like to show me off like a prize as I wore the new dress he would buy for me , they were different to my usual style but I still appreciated the thought and I guess being shown of meant that he wasn't ashamed or embarrassed to be with me and that showed that he cared .

Joshua

Her boyfriend comes to pick her up every day, the girls at my school want to be with him and the boys want to be him, his only vocabulary includes football and cars and he flirts with every girl at school behind billies back , whether innocent or not billie deserved better . His flashy car drives along, and I walk to the bus. I arrive at school and there they are the most popular couple at school with there big group of friends that everyone outside of that circle hates, unlike them I have a small group of friends who always have my back, we sort of stick to ourselves that is when we are not getting pushed or bullied by Cory and his dumb groups of jocks. I arrive at class and I'm already behind , for some reason education and me just didn't click , I would always try really hard but nothing seemed to work , I would work every night and still I struggled to understand it , Billie used to help me with my school work and patiently teach me and support me until I got and understood it but since then I had to figure all this out on my own , My father would tell me every night about this really smart kid called Cory and how his father was so proud of him and so when I got a bad grade and that was a lot he would bring Cory up and I felt stupid and useless and all I wanted to do was make him proud , My mother always loved me no matter what grade I got , but she passed away a few years ago and so it felt like no one in the world was proud of me , so I stopped trying in school and I stopped trying to please my father . I remember when I was younger when I though I would end up marrying Billie but my feeling changed , they changed because if the relationship wasn't to work then I would lose her , my best friend and there could be a chance for me to lose her and knowing me I would just mess it up as she deserves more than me , I could never tell her this though not now and not ever , these feelings where locked in a box thrown into the deep ocean years ago