At War with the Bad Boy

Dad's Mystery Lady

Noah's POV

College was out for the day and Jack, Robbie, Luke and I walked to the car park and said our goodbye's and went our separate ways. Curiosity was killing me. Who did Dad want me to meet? As I arrived at the house I saw a Silver Toyota that I didn't recognise parked outside the house. Maybe this is Dad's mystery woman. I open the door and walk towards the front room where I heard 2 voices. My Dad's and a woman's. I open the door and look around the room and I am horrified.

"Nooooo!" I scream and run out of the room, up the stairs to my bedroom and lock the door. I paced back and forth in my room, take off my shoes and throw them at the wall one at a time. One hits a picture of me and my friends in a frame and smashes. Glass shoots across the floor. Next I pick up my pillows that are neatly placed on my bed and throw them. It's true to say I was angry, frustrated, confused. How could he do this. Then I went into the bathroom and punched the mirror of the bathroom cabinet that is screwed to the wall and it smashes into pieces around my feet. I stomped out of the bathroom and threw myself on the bed, grabbed my headphones and played Linkin Park's 'In the End' on repeat. This song is what got me through the last time I saw this woman. Playing the song for the third or fourth time I feel a pain in my foot. Taking off my headphones, I sit up in the bed and lift my foot up onto the bed to see why it was hurting so much and saw blood. Quite a lot of blood, dripping onto the bed sheets. I took off my top and wrapped it tightly around my foot to try and stop the bleeding, then lay back on the bed. 

A knock on the door interrupted the calmness that had only just engulfed me. Now I was back to feeling infuriated. 

"Get lost!" I scream to whoever is banging on the door. I refused to open it.

"It's Dad," came the reply, "Son, please open the door, I just want to talk."

"No Dad, not this time, either she goes or I go!" I say furiously.

"She's not here to stay son, she just came to talk," He calmly told me.

"Are you for real Dad, after what she put us through, she's dead to me! I never want to see her again! I'm going out and I won't be coming home tonight!" 

Putting my headphones back on to drown everything out, I swiftly packed a bag with a few things, then throw my headphones in, put on a clean top and climb out the window. Using the drainpipe to get down, I drop onto the grassy lawn at the front of the house, jump into my car and speed off down the road. It was only 5.30pm so I phoned Jack on the handsfree and told him to meet me at the condo pronto.

Fifteen minutes later I reach the condo, unlock the door and head through the large living room, straight for the kitchen and grab a beer from the fridge. I paced around the living room drinking my beer until Jack walks through the front door.

"What's going on? What's the emergency?" He asks hastily.

"Why did he invite her over? Why her? I just don't understand!" I say in rage.

"Slow down Noah, who did he invite over? Why is this so bad?" Jack was confused.

"MUM!! It was f*****g Mum!" I cried furiously, still pacing the room. I threw my beer as hard as I could against the wall.

"WHAT! What did she want?" He questions me.

"I don't know! I didn't stick around to find out!" I shout. "And why should I give her any of my time after what she did to my family!"

"Sorry I was just curious of what she had to say, and why now after all these years? Has she come for forgiveness?" He wonders.

"Well that ain't ever going to happen! I never want to see her again as long as I live!" I yell.

"OK well for now lets try and forget about her, lets put some music on and play some Fifa" Jack says, thinking of ways to try and distract me.

"Whatever!" I reply disgruntledly.

Jack sorts out Fifa as I slump down onto the 3 seater settee facing the TV, he passes me the controller and walks off into the kitchen to grab us some beers.

Two hours later I felt a lot calmer, thanks to Jack, so I told him I was off to bed and he could stay in the spare room if he wanted but he said he would go home and pick me up for College in the morning.

The next morning I got up around 5am. I'd had many nightmares throughout the night so I had the worst night sleep, so eventually I gave up and went in the shower. Being around this woman always gave me nightmares. Throwing some clothes on, a black t-shirt and blue jeans with my white Nike trainers, I check the time, 6am, and walk downstairs to the kitchen to make some breakfast. I turned on the music player, turned up the volume and cooked myself some bacon and eggs. I poured myself some Orange juice and sat on a stool by the breakfast bar to eat. Looking at the time again, 6.40, "time is going so slow," I thought to myself, wondering what I could do to pass the time until Jack came to pick me up, so I went into the living room and chucked the Xbox on. A little while later I hear the front door open that leads directly into the living room.

"Hey Jack!" I shout over the music without looking. I heard someone clear their throat so I paused the game and turned around to see who it was, surely Jack would say "hi" or jump over the back of the sofa and sit next to me. But no, it wasn't Jack, it was Dad.

"What do you want?" I ask angrily.

"Just to talk son," He said calmly.

"Well I don't want to talk!" I snap, turn round and continue playing my game.

"You really need to hear what I have to say," He says walking in front of the TV to block my view.

I get up off the settee and walk out the room into the kitchen and open the fridge to get some more orange juice. Dad follows me and sits down at the breakfast bar and begs me to listen to him.

"I got to go to school!" I tell him abruptly. I grab my bag and my black leather jacket that was hanging near the front door and walk out. I really don't want to hear anything he has to say about Mum being back in our lives. Leaving through the front door I took my phone out of my jeans pocket to message Jack to say I was walking to College but I see someone standing on the path in front of my house. "It's Mum, why can't she get the hint!" I think to myself. I try to walk past her without acknowledging she's there. She calls my name and I put my wireless headphones in my ears, turn up the volume and carry on walking showing her my middle finger over my shoulder. 

I'd left the house early this morning due to Dad's unwanted arrival, so I knew by walking to school I'd make it on time. About 15 minutes later a car pulls up next to me but I don't look, thinking it's Dad or worse, Mum. The car continues to follow me and I hear muffled talking, maybe someone calling my name, I don't know I couldn't quite hear over the music in my ears. I look out of the corner of my eye so that if it is Mum or Dad I can pretend I couldn't hear them and just carry on walking, but I see its Jack. Phew. I take out my headphones.

"Sorry man, I thought you were someone else," I apologise.

I jog round the car to the passenger side and jump in. He asked what happened to which I told him.

"Really? Doesn't he get it! He shouldn't even be talking to that b***h after what she done! He should be the first person to understand why you don't want to see her!" Even Jack was getting angry by this situation.

I turned the music up in the car not wanting to talk about it anymore and Jack understood so kept quiet during the rest of the car ride to College. Pulling into the car park we see Robbie and Luke messing around next to Luke's car. We parked next to them and realised that they weren't messing around they were actually fighting. What is going on? Jack and I got out the car quickly and broke up the fight. I grabbed hold of Luke and Jack held Robbie back.

"What is going on with you two? And you Robbie! Two fights this week! What the hell!" I shout, really not in the mood to be solving other people's problems when I had problems of my own. But it did take my mind off things for a bit.

"NOTHING!" They both shout at me.

"Fine, don't tell me but I will find out what's going on eventually!" I say and walk towards the College entrance.

"What's wrong with him today?" I heard Luke say behind me.

"Just leave it," I heard Jack answer, "You've both got your own problems to worry about," he says and runs to catch up to me. We both walk silently to class and sat at the back hoping to blend into the background and be left alone. Then in walks Adam, that's all I need. I roll my eyes and look down so not to make eye contact with him and maybe he'll leave me alone. The teacher was already in the classroom so it was unlikely Adam would say anything. Not that I'd put it past him but for now we wouldn't be fighting, I wasn't in the mood for him today. 

Through every class I had, I managed to get a back seat and avoid most people. By the end of the day I began to cheer up a little bit, thanks to Jack. I asked him to come back to the condo with me in case Dad or Mum was there. I needed him to stop me from doing anything stupid. He agreed, so we jumped into his car and stopped off at the shop on the way to grab some snacks. We arrived at the house and it looked like no one was there. Jack and I decided in the car on the way home that we'd go in the gym first before we started eating. We walked up to the front door, I unlocked it and we walked through the living room into the kitchen, making sure the front door was locked behind us first. We threw our bags and snacks on the kitchen table and went into the basement to my gym. The room was nearly the whole length of the house, filled top to bottom with all sorts of gym equipment. It also had a separate shower room and changing area. We both changed into something more appropriate for working out and hit the gym. We went hardcore today. I definitely needed to release some anger. We went on all sorts of different types of machines, then took turns with the punchbag, lifted a few weights and we were done. We'd been in there about an hour and a half. We each took a shower, changed and went upstairs to grab our snacks. We decided to put a film on. We had a look through my DVD collection and decided on Hitch. It always makes me laugh and I needed some laughter around at the moment. Being there with Jack and a good film made me forget about things for a while. We talked about the party coming up at Harry's and I thought we could all start off with a few drinks here before we go, so I messaged Robbie and Luke to see if they were up for it. Luke replied saying he was definitely going to come but Robbie declined. There's something going on with him and I can't put my finger on it. He's slowly drifting away from our friendship group. Maybe someone will know something at the party, or maybe Luke knows something as they were fighting this morning. So Saturday night after Luke has had a few drinks I planned on asking him.

Early Friday morning I got to College at around 8.45am as College started at 9. I hadn't heard from Dad since he turned up at my condo the other day. I was grateful, I needed some space to deal with this. I wasn't planning on going home anytime soon as I didn't want to face him just yet. I walked with Jack to first lesson, Math, and went straight to the back of the class to find a seat and noticed Georgia sitting in the corner. I realised I hadn't seen her since she was crying on the phone Tuesday. 

"Alright slippy!" I call, sitting down at the desk between her and Jack.

She rolled her eyes and snapped, "Please don't start, I'm really not in the mood for you today!"

"Oooo, a bit touchy are we," I laughed, scrunched up a piece of paper and threw it at her. It hit her on the side of her face.

Georgia picked up the bit of paper, that had bounced onto the floor, and threw it back at me, which hit me on the forehead. So I scrunched up a few more bits of paper into separate balls and started throwing them at her, laughing while doing so. She started throwing them back and one hit Jack on the head, so he joined in and started throwing the balls of paper at Georgia too.

"Two against one! That's not fair!" She declared.

In the middle of our paper fight, which I'm sure I saw Georgia smile, the teacher walks in.

"RIGHT!" He shouts at us, "YOUE THREE....OUT!" 

He points at the three of us, his face bright red with anger. Georgia tries to speak up and gets shut down, so realising she won't win this battle she packed up her things and the 3 of us walked out the classroom.

"This is all your fault!" She bellowed as we enter the corridor and stormed off in a huff.

"Don't think she likes me very much," I chuckled to Jack. We went to see if class 608 was free again to hang out in while we waited for the next lesson but there was lesson going on in there so we started walking to the canteen. We would have gone and hung around outside somewhere and smoked a cigarette but It was pouring with rain. However, I had an idea, which was to go to the bus shelter at the back of the school. There we could have our cigarette. Jack agreed, so that's where we went. We ran through the rain to the shelter and lit our cigarettes. We see Georgia run past. She looked soaked.

"Hey slip girl!" I call to her. She stuck out her middle finger as she ran and me and Jack laughed.

Once we'd finished our fags we ran through the rain to the canteen to grab some coffee and we see Georgia sitting in the corner scrolling through her phone. After getting our coffee I tell Jack to follow me over to where Georgia was sitting and we both sat down either side of her. 

She eyed us carefully and utters, "What do you want? Can't you just leave me be?"

"Nope," I say to her. She stands up from her chair and knocks over my coffee, spilling it all over my trousers. "Watch what you're doing you little b***h!" I scream. It was so hot.

"Leave me alone then!" She yells back.

"You owe me a coffee!" I screech at her, "NOW!"

"Just calm down Noah, it was an accident," Jack pipes up.

"Fine I will get your stupid coffee!" Georgia pouts.

Two minutes later she brings over a black coffee.

"BLACK COFFEE! REALLY?" I holler.

"Well if you'd just got it yourself you'd have the coffee you like!" She comments agitated.

I stand up, walk towards her and tower over her head with a mean look on my face. She looked up at me and I could see she was scared but she tried to put on a brave face. 

"How dare you speak to me like that!" I say through gritted teeth. Anger building up inside me.

"I'll speak to you however I like!" She responded.

I growl at her, "You can get me a proper cup of coffee and then I want you to go buy me some new trousers!"

"Get them yourself!" She shouts at me, turning round to walk away.

Grabbing her wrist I pull her back. I'm not finished with her. As she spins back around she brings her other hand towards my face and slaps me. At this moment classes had ended and her friends Rachel and Hannah walk into the canteen and a few other groups of people. I felt humiliated, being slapped like that in front of all these people. Grabbing my things, I tell Jack we're leaving and walk out of the canteen.

"I can't believe her! She slapped me! Does she think she can get away with what she did! And look at my trousers! Ruined!" I rant at Jack.

"You went too far there Noah! You didn't need to speak to her like that, it was an accident. You deserved that slap!" He tried to convince me, but it wasn't working. I was in an anger induced haze and needed to go calm myself down somewhere. I told Jack I'd see him later and went to the gym. I needed to throw a few punches.

An hour later I left the gym feeling much calmer then went to my next lesson, drama. Strutting into the drama theatre I see Georgia talking with Hannah. Just looking at her made the anger boil up inside me, but I ignored her and pretended that she wasn't in the room. Then I saw Luke and Jack and walked over to talk to them.

"Feeling better dude?" Jack said to me.

"Yeah! Fine!" I say unconvincingly. Jack sniggered and shook his head. Luke was looking confused.

"Don't ask!" I tell him.

The teacher arrived and put us into 4 groups. 5 people in each group. Luckily I wasn't in the same group as Georgia or I think I would have walked out. I was very surprised to see her there as she didn't seem the type to do drama, she seemed quite shy and timid and came across as someone who didn't like the attention. But then again, I don't know her so I can't say much. I just know she annoys the hell out of me. Each group was given a short script in different genres and we were to practice in our group for the next few weeks to perform in front of the class at the end of next month. I quickly looked through the script and the sorts of characters that were in there and decided I wanted to play 'Sam.' His character seemed fun to play. He was a bad boy in a gang, but gets on the wrong side of his gang boss, so becomes an informer for the police. I called dibs on Sam before anyone else had the chance. Once we had decided who was playing which character, we sat on the floor in a circle and went through the first 2 pages of the script. Then the bell went to signal the end of the lesson. I had no more classes for the rest of the day so I told the boys I was off home to "study." They knew I was joking, I never studied but always managed to get good grades. I just seemed to be naturally smart, which I was glad of because I didn't have to waste my time looking through books outside of school. I could have fun instead. On the way home I thought I'd go to the shop and get some things for the condo and some bits and pieces for the party tomorrow. If it's raining like this tomorrow it would save me having to go out. Once I'm home I empty my bags of shopping and my phone rings. It's Dad!

"Don't hang up!" He says quickly. I was about to put the phone down on him when I hear him say, "Your Mum is dying!"