Cold Water

Chapter 2

Rey’s POV

“Oh fuck.” I say as soon as I park my car in our driveway, and see my mum’s black Bentley in front of the garage.

Jason looks at it. “s**t. Shouldn’t she be home later tonight? Oh God, we did not prepare for this.”

Don’t get us wrong; we love our mum…to a certain extent. It’s just that sometimes she tries too hard because she knows she doesn’t spend as much time with us as she should, and she tries to make up for that by being way too intrusive and buying us designer clothes and whatnot.

Well, that’s not that bad, but no money and no presents could ever make up for the time lost. We basically grew up with Rosa as our mother and our father. She’s 2 in 1, that’s why my mother was offended when I asked Rosa to go to the Parent-Teacher meeting instead of her in tenth grade.

“I’m not mentally prepared for this.” Jason sighs as we get out of the car.

I press the button on the key to lock it, but I contemplate whether I should climb back in and just to for a ride until my mother falls asleep. Oh well, too late now, because she’s just opened the door and is looking at the two of us with a big smile on her face.

“My babies!” she exclaims, and my ears hurt already.

She hugs us both at once, and I nearly choke on her strong perfume.

“I’ve brought preseeents.” She sings and doesn’t even wait for us to take off our shoes before she waltzes down the hallway towards the living room.

Jason and I exchange glances, and we follow her towards the living room. There couch is filled with bags from different brands, like Zanotti, Moschino, Armani, Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Michael Kors, Hermès, Chanel, Gucci, D&G, and of course, her personal favorite, Alexander Wang.

“You forgot Louis Vuitton!” I sarcastically exclaim, and cross my arms. I know I’m being really ungrateful right now, because who wouldn’t want a mom who goes shopping and gets all the brand new stuff each month? But to be fair, I just want a normal mom, who I can gossip about boys with, and do all that normal stuff I don’t even know about.

“Yeah…shit. Well, Alexander has this new fall line coming out soon, and he said he’ll send over a bag for you.”

I nod, not really impressed. Yes, I like having nice bags and nice shoes, but this is too much. Especially because she’s trying to make up for the lost time. That’s bribing; sort of.

“Jason, yours are the bags on the left side. Renee, the rest are for you. Oh, and this one.” She says, picking a Saint Laurent bag out of the bunch. “This one is for Jed.”

I raise my brows, because I was never aware of the fact that my mother knew my boyfriend’s name. One time he came over for dinner and she happened to be home, she called him Jake.

She calls Rosa to help us with the bags upstairs, and then she tells me that she’ll get her closet organizer to come over and help us put everything in place.

Jason shakes his head when she’s not looking, but takes the bags anyway and follows me upstairs. I drop the bags I could carry on my bed, and then sit down next to them. If I’m being honest, I’m a bit excited about the Zanotti boxes, because I absolutely love their sneakers, even though they’re way too expensive to be fair. I’d never pay for a pair with my own money. 900 dollars for a pair of shoes? No thank you. I’d rather stick to Vans.

But the craziest thing by far is the Hermès bags. They’re terribly expensive and don’t even look that different from a normal handbag. Once, when I was out shopping with my mother, I asked her why she wouldn’t just buy me a bag from Forever 21 or Hollister, because they’re a thousand times cheaper, and she yelled at me about designer brands and stuff like that. I never questioned her again.

Rosa helps me arrange the new stuff in my walk-in closet, before she asks me about school, but my mother interrupts us by walking into the room.

“Rosa? Shouldn’t you be starting on dinner soon?” she asks and Rosa nods, excusing herself before she walks out.

“Stop being rude to her, she’s here to help.” I say and walk over to my desk, where I place my bag.

“So how was your first day of being a senior?” she asks, sitting down at the edge of my bed. She looks uncomfortable, and sort of forced.

“Do you really care? Or are you trying to be a good mother?”

She sighs. “I care Renee.”

“Fine. It was s**t, okay? I don’t want to thing about my final exams and the fact that I have to study for the next nine months, or the fact that some people attending are plain annoying. That good enough for you?”

“Who’s annoying? Are you having problems with someone?” she asks, and I roll my eyes. Well she got me there.

“It’s this guy I can’t stand since the ninth grade. You don’t know him.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Maybe I know his parents. Try me.”

“Niall Horan.” I shrug. “I don’t think you know him. I think he lives in Newham.”

I kind of hate the way her nose scrunches. I know she knows that Newham is one of the poorest boroughs in London, and that the poverty rate there is one of the highest in the country, but there’s no need for her to make that disgusted face.

“Horan? That-isn’t that a family with three kids?”

I shrug. “Why do you know that?”

“Doesn’t matter. Just be nice to him, okay?”

I’m surprised to hear those words coming out of her mouth. Since when does my mother care about who I’m nice to?

“Anything else?” she pushes, and I sit down at my desk, as far away from her as possible.

“No, not really mom. Thanks for the presents, but I think I’ll start on my homework now.” I lie. We didn’t get any homework today (thank God), but I still have to buy that book Mr. Andrews assigned us, because I’m not planning on being on the verge of failing in any subject this year. I almost failed Economics last year, and I don’t want to be that stressed again.

I look at her, wondering whether she caught on my attempt to make her leave, but of course, she hasn’t.

“I think I’m going to go to the mall and buy a book I have to read in English.” I say and stand up from the desk and walk towards the bathroom to take a shower. Whether she stays or goes, I’m taking a shower either way.

Once I come out of the shower, I walk into my closet and pick out a random white Ramones shirt, my favorite black ripped skinny jeans, a pair of crocodile leather Zanotti sneakers, and a black bomber jacket to go with my bag.

Rey:

I call Jake up, because there’s no way I’m going to go alone, and when he picks up and tells me that he’s already dressed, I smile. That’s one of the reasons I love him; he’s always there for me when I need him.

“Where are you going? Are you leaving me here alone?” Jason whispers when he sees me walking out of my room.

“I’m going to the mall. You want anything?”

“Uh?! To get out of the house, sure?” he obviously says. “Give me one minute to put on a shirt.”

I wait for him to get dressed, and then we’re down the stairs and out the door. Our mother doesn’t even bother to ask when we’ll be back, because she’s too busy phoning her personal stylist to come over tomorrow.

I climb into my car and let out a relieved sigh as soon as the door closes. Jason connects his phone to the car’s Bluetooth and starts blasting his techno music, so I turn on the engine and pull out of the driveway.

Jake is waiting for me in front of his house and gets inside with a giant smile. “You have no idea how much a shopping therapy session is going to help right now.”

“What happened now?” Jason asks, looking at him through the rearview mirror.

“So I told Harry that Louis might be gay, and that’s all he talks about now. I kind of wish I hadn’t.”

“Wait. Louis as in Louis Tomlinson?” Jason asks. “He’s gay?”

“Might be.” Jake and I answer at the same time.

“We don’t know for sure.” I add.

Jake rolls his eyes. “b***h, he knew your bag was Hermès. I didn’t know your bag was Hermès.”

“Oh will you stop with the bag already? Let’s just drop the subject. We can’t judge him based on what he knows and how he acts. If he’ll say he’s gay, then he’s gay.” I say and stop the car at a stop before I step on the gas once again.

Westfield London mall is about ten minutes from my house, but twenty minutes from Jake’s house, due to the traffic in London. It would be way easier to just get there by foot, but lazy idiots surround me and I like driving way too much.

I park in the underground parking lot and don’t bother paying for a ticket, so we head towards the elevators.

“So where are we shopping today?” Jake asks me excitedly.

I forgot to mention that by ‘shopping therapy’, Jake doesn’t mean that he’ll shop. He means that I’ll shop and he’ll criticize absolutely everything I get to he’ll feel better about himself, and then bully me into buying him some comfort food from the food court once we’re done.

“Well, first of all, I’m going to buy that book Mr. Andrews told us about. That’s the reason we’re here actually.” I tell him and he almost trips over himself in shock.

“We’re here for a book?” he gasps, placing a hand over his heart. Then he looks at my brother. “Jason, do you hear your sister? Or am I going insane?”

“No, she’s really saying this. I don’t know, I just wanted to get out of the house.” He shrugs and follows me out of the elevator.

Of course though; before we get to the bookstore on the second floor, we go through Calvin Klein, Gucci, H&M, Miss Sixty, Top Shop, and Nike.

Jake and Jason struggle to handle my bags as well as their own bags, and I guess a little ‘shopping therapy’, as Jake puts it, never hurts.

We enter the bookstore one and a half hour later than we were supposed to, but everything is better now.

“Excuse me, where can I find Great Expectations?” I ask a lady behind the desk who looks up from her computer.

“Right over there, in the English Literature section under Dickens.”

I nod and thank her, before I walk over there and spot the book right away.

“Now that we’re here, I actually have to get this book about this bird-“ Jason says.

“To Kill a Mockingbird.” Jake says and points him to the book. “Boring as fuck.”

Jason takes it and turns his head, before he does a double take.

“Rey.” He says and I turn my head to look at him.

“What?”

“Look.”

Jake and I follow his line of vision, just to see Niall and his sister entering the store.

“What are they doing here?” I ask Jake. “This is my turf.”

“Easy there mama bear.” Jake laughs.

“Don’t they live in Newham?” I continue, trying not to stare in order to not accidentally kill them with my looks and go to jail young.

“They do, but Jesus, let a man shop.”

I bite my lip. “The bookstore though? Honestly.”

Jason turns away from them and tries to hide himself, but it’s a bit too late, because Lilly spots him and nudges Niall to look at us.

Our eyes meet, and then his fall on the bags I’m currently carrying, and his eyes roll to the back of his head.

Now, I’m not usually a religious person, but I pray to God that he gets stuck like that some day.

And what a good day that will be.

“Let’s just go to check out.” Jason tells me. “I’m not ready for another one of your sessions.”

“Sessions?” I ask. “Excuse me, what I did in the cafeteria was for you.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t ask you to do that for me.” He retorts, and buries his face in the book. “It was so embarrassing.”

I look at him, offended. “Well, sorry for caring about you. I’ll stop then.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “Stop being so dramatic. C’mon, do you have your book?”

I nod and follow him towards the checkout. We wait in line for a few minutes, and then I smell something familiar-it’s that smell that makes my insides turn and my throat convulse. I try not to look back, but Jake does it anyway and greets Niall with a smile and a handshake.

Once Niall greets Jake, he looks at my brother and I, but he doesn’t say anything. How f*****g rude.

“So you plan on actually doing the assignment Andrews gave us?” Niall asks, looking down at Jake’s book.

Jake is about to say something, when I interrupt him. “Excuse me? My friend is not going to get a bad grade just because you’re a lazy piece of-“

“Whoa, easy there princess.” Niall laughs, speaking the last word in a mocking manner. “I was about to ask him where I could get the book. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

I see Jason grit his teeth, but not saying anything, which means he’s getting angry, but not to an extent where he’d start throwing punches. Not yet, anyway.

Jake tells Niall where he can find the book, and his sister asks him about her own English assignment, before they’re off with a wave in Jake’s direction.

“Ughh.” I exhale, trying to calm down. “I swear to God, if I have high blood pressure when I’m older because of him, I’m going to sue.”

***

Rosa wakes me up the next morning, telling me I have one hour until I have to get to school.

Three months have passed since I’ve been a senior and I hated every single minute of it.

Oh wait. No.

One day has passed and I’m already done with school on my last second day.

I put on a grey top, jeans, my favorite white Zanottis, and a white leather jacket my mother got me yesterday.

Rey:

As I put my stuff in my bag, I spot the two new Hermès bags on the table in the walk-in closet. There’s a light pink one, and a white one. Without thinking too much about it, I walk over to the white one and place it back in the shopping bag it came in.

Jason is already done with breakfast by the time I walk into the kitchen, so I grab an apple and what Rosa made us for the day, before we’re out the door.

We get to school on time with a couple of minutes to spare, so I tell Sophia I’ll see her in Economics, before I’m off looking for Louis. I probably look like a total snob carrying a Hermès bag in one hand, and a Hermès shopping bag containing a bag in the other.

I find Louis outside behind the building, smoking with Niall and Zayn.

“Uh…hi.” I say and weirdly smile at Louis, because I’m trying my best not to make eye contact with Niall.

“Hi.” Louis trails off, looking at me like he’s trying to find out what I want.

“So uh… my mother came back from America yesterday, and she brought me some stuff. And I’d really like for you to give this bag to your sister.” I say, showing him the white Hermès bag.

His eyes go wide and his mouth falls. “Oh my God. Are you serious?” he asks.

“Yeah. And please don’t view it as charity or anything, but I really don’t need another bag. And since your sister really wishes she had one, you can have it. As a present.”

“Well it was her birthday a month ago and I didn’t get her anything.” Louis smiles, taking the bag from me, and then hugs me tightly. “Thank you so much.”

I smile and pull away from him, just in time to see Niall rolling his eyes at me. I refrain myself from properly hitting him in the face, and instead choose to walk away with a smile on my face and my head held high.

“What did you do?” Sophia asks me when I sit down next to her in our Economics class.

“I gave Louis a white bag my mother brought me yesterday to give to his sister.”

Sophia looks surprised. “Really? That’s nice of you.”

I smile and shrug, just as the teacher steps inside and closes the door.

***

Louis’ sister comes over to my table during lunch, hugging me and thanking me for the bag, and asks how she could ever repay me.

“Just stay in school and be nice to your brother.” I tell her, before she’s off, back to her friends’ table.

“You’re unusually nice today.” Jake observes and takes a sip from his soda. “Is Jed coming back today by any chance?”

I think about it for a second. “Actually, f**k. But it hasn’t occurred to me until now. Oh f**k, I’m going to have to shave again.” I sigh.

Even though Jed and I are way past the shaving-before-we-have-s*x stage of our relationship, I still like to feel like a baby down there.

“Is he coming to school today?” he continues and I frown. I know he landed last night at Heathrow but he hasn’t said anything about school. Knowing his parents though, they’ll probably make him come to school today. It’s weird, because I haven’t seen him in any classes yet, but there are still two more periods to go.

“I think so.” I nod and take a sip of my lemonade.

“Speak of the devil.” Sophia says in a singing voice and nods over to the double doors of the cafeteria.

And there he is, of course. My boyfriend of eleven months, Jed Elliott. His hair is messy as per usual (probably because he didn’t have time to comb it before his mother forced him to school), and he’s wearing one of his many band shirts with black skinny jeans and converse.

I smile instantly when we make eye contact, and get up from the table to run towards him. He picks me up and spins me around once before kissing me on the lips and letting me down.

“I missed you.” I say and smile against his lips.

“I’ve only been gone fifteen days babe.” He smirks and takes my hand so we can walk towards our table.

I smile. “I knooow, but still.”

He shakes hands with Jake and my reluctant brother, and then kisses Sophia on the cheek before he sits down in his usual spot next to me.

“How come you’re at school today? Especially since there are two classes left?” Sophia asks.

I try not to look at Jason’s annoyed face as Jed explains her that his mother made him come to school, and that the football tryouts are today, and he wants to be there for the new guys; getting to know them and everything.

“Oh s**t, I’ve got cheerleading tryouts as well.” I tell Sophia, who nods.

“At three in the gym.” She adds and I roll my eyes.

Changing into my cheerleading uniform and watching people bounce around for an hour is the last thing I want to be doing after school today to be honest. But I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to take over the co-captain position last year before Emily, the head cheerleader left, putting Katherine and I in charge. And since my lovely cousin is on vacation until this weekend, I’ll have to overlook the tryouts and pick out three girls out of thirty. Thank God I’ll have Perrie there to help.

Once we finish discussing football and cheerleading, I proceed to question Jed about his vacation, but I don’t really get the time because the bell rings, which means it’s time to return to class.

***

Rey’s cheerleading outfit:

“I’m done with this. I resign.” I sigh at four pm later that day, when tryouts are over, and now Perrie and I have to decide whom to pick so we can hang up the list tomorrow.

It’s not that hard; watching girls do a three-minute routine and give them marks from 1 to 10, but I’d rather be watching my boyfriend play football than sit in a smelly gym wearing a short skirt and a matching crop top.

“You can’t resign, it’s not a paid job.”

I roll my eyes. “Fine then, I officially quit.”

“Rey Parker isn’t a quitter, come on. Besides, the choices are obvious. Lottie, Hannah, and Olive.”

“Olive? No way. She’s not coordinated at all. I’d say Gigi.” I tell her. “She’s graceful and she learns fast.”

Perrie scrunches her nose is disgust. “Well, I didn’t like her.”

“Is it because of the Zayn thing?” I ask, throwing her a knowing look.

“No.”

It’s obvious that it is.

Perrie and Zayn had a thing half a year ago, when they dated for a few months until Zayn dumped her for unknown reasons (aka a new girl aka Gigi probably), which left a really heartbroken Perrie for me to look after to make sure she doesn’t do something stupid.

“Look, I know you have a grudge against her and I don’t blame you, but I also don’t blame her. If anyone should be blamed, it should be Zayn, who was a dickhead. Let’s not take it out on her.”

She sighs. “You’re right. Besides, I’m over him now.”

I raise a brow. “What? When did that happen?”

“Right before summer started. I’m uh…sort of seeing someone else now.”

“What?” I ask, shocked. “What does ‘sort of’ mean? And who is someone else?”

“Well I’m not dating them per se, but we’re f*****g occasionally. Like, twice a week or so.”

I dramatically place a hand on my forehead, as if I felt like fainting.

“Who is it?”

She looks hesitant to tell me. “I don’t think you’ll want to hear who it is.”

“Oh, come on. Does he go at our school?” My eyes widen and the corners of my mouth turn into a smile. “Is it a she?”

“No.” she laughs, shaking her head. “I mean, no it isn’t a girl. But yes he goes at our school.”

“Well come on, no one’s that bad. Unless it’s Niall, which would be-“ I stop when I see the expression on her face. “No.” I gasp.

She nods. I place a hand over my heart.

“No.” I repeat, this time louder. “You can’t. No. This-I’m going to be sick.”

“Oh, come on Rey. Niall’s actually really nice. And there’s a lot to talk about with him. He’s never boring.”

My ears are on fire. My vision goes blank. My throat is filled with the lunch I ate three hours ago.

“Niall Horan is not boring? He has a brain? I don’t follow.” I say, crossing my arms. “How and when and why?”

“Well, it happened at that party you missed that the seniors threw after exams. You know, you were in Bali with your family-“

I nod. “Yeah, I do remember.”

“Well, we got drunk and we had s*x, and then we sort of met at another party a week later, and things escalated from there.”

“And now you’re friends with benefits.” I state, still hoping that it isn’t true, and that it’s sort of a pre-April Fools prank.

“Yeah, we are.”

“Did Jake put you up to this? Tell me honestly.” I plead.

She shakes her head. “Come on Rey. I just wanted you to know, in case people find out. He’s really not that bad, honestly. I don’t get why you hate him. I mean yes, he’s sarcastic and witty and annoying sometimes, but he’s actually funny and nice when he wants to.”

“I’m sorry. I’m happy for you, obviously, but I can’t associate ‘funny’ and ‘nice’ with Niall Horan. And this is the first and only time I will be using those words with his name in a sentence.”

She laughs it off. “It’s fine. I get it.”

After a few moments of silence, we decide on Gigi instead of Olive, and then get up to walk towards the football field.

I turn my head towards her as we enter the girl’s locker room.

“Tell me one thing though.” I say.

“Hm?”

“Is his d**k game strong at least?”