Love, Isla (Wattys 2016)

1 | taunting

to tahlie who seems to always put a smile to my face

"Take a piece of my heart, and make it all yours, so when we are apart, you'll never be alone." - s h a w n

I s l a

MY DAY WAS going quite well until the news was out.
I had eaten a nice, double-coated Nutella toast for breakfast and I somehow slipped out of detention this afternoon. I even fluked it and got an A+ for my History test. By the end of the school day, I was on my toes dancing to Drake and needed Jenny to restrain me from falling off the path's curb every now and then.

Now, sitting on my windowsill and staring as Callum Justin Hayes unpacked his belongings into his wardrobe in the room opposite me, I would do anything to go back to how it was a few minutes ago when I didn't know that the Hayes family was moving in next door.

Let me rewind to a good 7 years ago when me and Callum would be holding hands and thinking we were the most unbreakable best friends ever. We had grew up together, having baths together when we were babies, learning to ride bikes, saying our first words.

Trust me, that didn't turn out well. Cue for 7th grade when Callum was introduced to the world of parties, girls and, erm, hormones. We sort of drifted apart, him getting the name as the schools 'Swoon-worthy Badboy' and me getting the name as the school's 'Girl Nobody Noticed'.

He moved to Perth in 9th grade and I had the best 2 years of my life without him and with my new and improved best friend, Jennifer Carlson.
That is until, of course...now.

I never liked the word 'hate'. It didn't taste good in my mouth and made me dizzy to think of someone in such a way. But if their was a word that came to a close second to it, that was how I see Callum.

"You're grimacing."

I jerk away from the window, looking up to see Gabriel Penrose, my ass of a brother, leaning against my bedroom's door and grinning like a madman. Gabriel's goals were to make my life the worst it can be at so he was ecstatic about the news (and also the fact that Callum had a super hot older sister called Tanya who he found out was single).

"I'm not grimacing...I'm thinking," I say - I wasn't exactly lying (I was thinking of all the ways I could avoid Callum) which was sort of the reason why I was grimacing.

"Whatever, Isla. Mum just got invited to the Hayes' house for dinner tomorrow and - "

I choked. "What?"

"We. Are. Going. To. The. Hayes'. For. Dinner. Tomorrow. Are you sure you don't need hearing-aids?"

"No, I heard you...but why?" I say, smacking my palm against my forehead.

"Because it is a friendly thing of them to do to welcome their neighbors AKA us for dinner. And plus mum wants to get involved in the community and start a new beginning. Isla, she's finally getting over her addiction and we need to be there to help her," Gabriel insists.

"You don't care about mum, you just want to stare at Tanya's butt, don't lie!"

"I never said I didn't, so I'm technically not lying," he says, and with that he walks away, humming to The Weeknd.

***
It wasn't long before I fell asleep. I was known for my habit of sleeping throughout the day and staying up at night. Nocturnal much, I know, don't judge.

I don't remember what exactly I was dreaming of. It was something weird like me and Ariana Grande getting stuck in an elevator with Troye Sivan's Fools playing on in the background. The elevator was suddenly flooding with water, and I was drowning because I couldn't swim and -

I awoke to hear fits of laughter. Male to be specific. Everything was drenched, my clothes, the bedspread and my hair. For a mere moment, I thought I had wet the bed but I realized that I was drenched in water not piss. I looked around and three boys were standing around my bed, all holding empty buckets and staring at me through tears of laughter. They were staring at me. Me wearing my Batman shorts and matching shirt that I got for my twelfth birthday. Shit.

"What the hell? Who are you?" I hiss, wrapping my wet blanket around my inappropriate clothes. I squinted at the one in the middle. Callum Freaking Hayes. That asshole. The other two, I recognised as two boys who came to my school. Callum lifted his phone and I was blasted with a light.

Oh, no he did not just take a picture of me.

"You're looking hot, Penrose. Though I feel uncomfortable that you're wearing your brother's baby clothes, to be honest," he laughs, snapping another photo of my rage.

"You idiot! Give me that phone!" I try to catch the phone but he dangled it above me in a height I couldn't reach. This is the thing with me, when someone makes me angry, I don't think, I just do. This sort of resulted is me grabbing his arm and sinking my teeth into his bicep.

The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and I quickly pulled away, realizing what I did.

"Oh god, I'm so...I am truly sorry. It was - I just got - got a lit-tl-tle angry...and I..."

They had stopped laughing and staring at me blankly. Callum cussed a few words I probably shouldn't know but just shook it off, looking up at me with hateful eyes.

"If you wanted to bite, you could've just asked, babe."

I gag and they all started laughing again.

"You know, Callum was going to delete the photo...until you bit him, of course," one of them said.

Before I could say anything, they all jump out of the window, still laughing. They clambered to Callum's room and looked back to my raging face, grinning.

"Callum, maybe you should delete the photo...weren't you two like a childhood golden couple?" One of the two boys I didn't know the name of said. He had bangy black hair, falling, dead straight, across his forehead. God, just because your straightener goes up to 500 degrees doesn't mean you have to put it to that, genius.

"Shut up, Noah." Callum punches his friend playfully in the arm and I felt my cheeks burn with anger and humiliation.

"I would rather have a relationship with a monkey with herpes rather then you, you perverted imbeciles!" I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

The third one - a close-cropped blonde with an annoyingly perfect jawline - raised a brow and retorts, "is that some sort of statement people say for self love?"

I fell face first into that one.

"Anyways, we better get going, we had a really good Truth or Dare game going on right then. Thank you for your beautiful photo that will be featured on my Instagram page and I'll see you tomorrow at school, cupcake."

And with that he shut his window  You closed, rolling down his blinds.

Picture to the top: yours truly