Life's a Party

Chapter 7

Izzy and I had spent a lot of time together over the past week and, as predicted, she turned out to be a wonderful person. She told me all about here previous home, about the scorching California weather and about her friends there.

I also opened up a little more and told her about the situation with my family and how I never really had a real friend after kindergarten. She did not pity me, or look at me like I was weak, instead, she accepted it without judging me, and said it didn't matter because they were such pretentious people anyway.

"Gosh, if you were actual friends with them, I can't begin to imagine what a pain in the behind you would've been," she declared, succeeding in lightening the mood.

She had also been introduced to Taylor and Aunt Becky, having already met Steve. The both of them too had gushed about how sweet a girl she was, and that she was the perfect friend for me.

I met her father, who was a very kind man, and I knew immediately who Izzy got it from. He seemed like a good father- unlike mine, and played the role of both parents.

##

Today is the first day of school and if I said I wasn't nervous I'd be lying. It was a little reassuring that Izzy would be with me, but she was new here too and was as nervous as I was, if not more.

She was supposed to call me when she was ready, but I haven't heard from her yet. School started in fifteen minutes, and we had to drive all the way into town. I did not want to be late for my first day of school.

"Isabelle Williams! Come out here right now or I swear I'm going to leave you!"

All I got in reply was a muffled sound, and ten seconds later my new best friend came running out of her house like a whirlwind.

She didn't seem to be dressed yet, considering she was holding her shoes in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other and had a pullover slung over her neck. I wasn't too good at the fashion thing, but I was pretty sure that didn't belong there.

"Oh, Your Majesty! Ready to leave already?" I asked her sarcastically.

Izzy stuck her nose in the air and said, "A queen is never late, everyone else is just very early."

"Let's see you say that to the principal," I muttered.

###

We got to school just as the bell rang, giving us no time to look around. After picking up our schedules we left for our respective classes, planning to meet at the entrance of the cafeteria for lunch.

My first class was English, and so I headed there. I walked in to class as soon as the tardy bell rang, and looked around. I managed to spot an empty seat in the middle of the class, and immediately made my way towards it.

This was a new school, a new town, and new faces, so for me, that meant a new start. Nobody knew me as Roxanne the party animal, or the girl who blew up on her parents in front of the whole school. They'd just know Roxanne the new girl, so in this place, I could be whoever I wanted to be. I could be me.

I was brought back to reality by the teacher clapping her hands together for attention, and slowly the loud chatter in the room dwindled to a stop.

"Good morning everyone, I'm Miss Grey, and I will be teaching you English for this year." The teacher glanced at her file on the desk, and spoke again. "Today we have new student with us," she then looked around the room until she spotted me, and said, "Would you like to come up here and introduce yourself sweetie?"

In my old school everyone knew everyone, and we hardly got any new students, so the last time I did something like this was on the first day of kindergarten. As I thought this, Miss Grey was looking at me expectantly, and so I took a deep breath and made my way to the front of the class.

"Hi everyone, my name is Roxanne Anderson, and I recently moved here from New York to live with my aunt. It's wonderful to meet you all and I hope we get along well," I spoke in an overly cheerful voice with a big but awkward smile on my face.

"It's nice to meet you too Roxanne and I'm sure you're going to have a blast here with us," Miss Grey responded, dismissing me back to my seat. I once I sat back down, she began teaching.

The rest of the day was basically the same; I introduced myself at the start of each class, and the teacher would respond kindly to what I said, and then we'd move on with the lesson.

I met Izzy during lunch, and we were glad to see the food there was really good.

##

The last bell of the day had just rung, and I was waiting for Izzy at our lockers, which we were lucky enough to get next to each other. My phone buzzed in my pocket, showing that my mother was calling. i groaned, but picked it up anyway.

"Hello?"

"Hello Roxanne, I hear today was the first day of school," my mother said, getting straight to business.

"Yes mum, it was the first day of school. How are you?"

"I hope you're keeping up with your work Roxanne, and not just going out to late night parties," she harshly said, totally ignoring my inquiry of her well-being.

"Today was the first day of school, we've hardly done anything at all, and I'm not going out to any parties mum, please," I said, slightly offended she still thought of me like that after I explained so many times.

"Well I wouldn't know, you went to them here. You have been such a disappointment to your father and I, I hope you know that and are trying to change it," she said in that characteristic cold voice of hers, freezing off my hopes of ever having a bearable relationship with her.

How dare she throw words around like that without even trying to find out the reason? I understand I dealt with the problems at home the wrong way, but in the end it was still hers and my father's fault. They were the reason I tried staying away as much as possible, and they were the reason I drank away all my horrible thoughts.

"If I am such a disappointment to you, then why did you bother to call? I can see very clearly that you don't care about me, just my studies, but if I'm such a disappointment to you, then shouldn't you just expect me to do horribly? Why did you call and ruin my perfectly nice day?"

I heard a gasp on the other end of the line, and then, "Don't speak to me like that young lady, have I not taught you how to behave?"

Now I was absolutely furious. "Oh but mum! I'm such a disappointment aren't I? How can you expect me to speak nicely? You were just the perfect parent, I was the delinquent child. I never listened, I never scored well to make you proud, I didn't score the highest in the whole state, I didn't do any of that. I've had enough of trying to make you proud; doing that is ruining my life. I will speak to you the want to, whether you like it or not. So either you deal with it or don't call at all, that way both of our lives will be so much simpler."

I didn't get a reply to that, just the beeping of my phone signaling the end of the call. I was certainly not getting a call from here for a long time now.

Forgetting all about waiting for Izzy, I turned around, my head bowed down with tears streaming down my face, and I ran out of school.

I ran for almost ten minutes before slowing down and blindly walking into a store, without looking where I was going or what store it was.

##

Hey guys!

How's it going? Again, I apologize for updating so late, I was busy with exams, and then I just couldn't write, no matter how much I tried.

This chapter is the longest I've written yet, which is honestly not that long, but it's more than usual :)

I hope you guys liked this chapter! Tell me what you thought in the comments!

-Mishi