Spoiler
This is being posted by Skins, so there's bound to be a mistake or two... I'm just that cool.
Okay! This is my (Skins) and PinkShearwater's shared novel, Hide and Seek. There shouldn't be too many typos in it because Punk and I have tried to cut out all of them. Knowing us though, there will be many. If you've read mine and Punk's writing before, I'm sure you'll be able to tell who writes whose POV. If not, take a guess. It could be amusing.
Okay! This is my (Skins) and PinkShearwater's shared novel, Hide and Seek. There shouldn't be too many typos in it because Punk and I have tried to cut out all of them. Knowing us though, there will be many. If you've read mine and Punk's writing before, I'm sure you'll be able to tell who writes whose POV. If not, take a guess. It could be amusing.
Click here to join the club for Hide and Seek. I won't get rabid Punk on you if you do.
Chapter One
If you had a secret how long would you hold onto it? If it was as fragile as a butterfly’s wings, would you continue to protect it and stray away from any tears? Or would you set it free and slowly watch the eyes turn against you?
Aidan
“Are you gay?” my father asked.
I flinched, unaware of the meaning behind his words. “What?” I tilted my head as I examined his sneakers and blue track suit. He was getting ready for a morning run again, four times a week and all fifty-two weeks in the year.
“Are you gay,” he repeated, nudging his head towards my chest.
I peaked down and patted my pink shirt. A smirk crossed over my lips and I looked back at him. “In case you didn’t get the memo, real men wear pink.”
He rubbed his half balding head of thin gray hair and shook his head. “Son, that’s what the gay men say in order for them to have an excuse to wear feminine colors.” He pulled his leg back and stretched. “Why the hell did you buy that crap? Throw it away,” he shooed.
My dad was a pretty large man. He worked out and had what he called ‘a real man’s physic and mind’. I let out a sigh and pretended like it didn’t bother me. Not the pink shirt but the fact that my Dad was stretching in the living room as if he was the hottest guy in the world. I lifted a brow while watching him wink at my mother who was prepping breakfast in the kitchen. She giggled and flipped the pancakes in her pan.
It was too disgusting to watch.
“Dad,” I said. “Christine gave me this shirt.” I pinched the bottom of the button down t-shirt.
“Who?”
Leave it to him to have remembered my girlfriend’s name. “Christine, my girlfriend. She came over just a few weeks ago to have dinner with you guys.” I rolled my eyes feeling displeased with his lack of memory. Honestly, the only things he forgot were the things that meant something in my life.
“Oh, the Blondie.”
“No,” I hissed. “Christine. Don't call her that and Jesus, she's not even blonde! Do you ever pay attention to anything at all?”
“Aidan-”
I shook my head and raised a hand to stop him from talking. If he said something else to me then I was going to blow up in his face and nobody wanted that. There was only so much I could take before things spun out of control and I didn’t to ruin my homecoming weekend at school with this junk. “I’m going to school.” I swung my backpack over my shoulder.
“Hey, aren’t you gonna eat?” he shouted while I shut the door.
That wasn’t something to feel bad about. He was used to the shutting doors and the unanswered questions by now. He passed it off as ‘teenage stuff’ and was never bothered by my rude comments or the inability to comprehend his ‘wisdom’. Grumbling to myself, I kicked on the engine to my Jeep and made my way towards Christine’s house to pick her up.
When I parked the car in her driveway and honked the horn, she came out wearing some denims and a casual blue shirt with a picture of a monkey smiling. Her chocolate hair was tied into a sloppy bun, but she looked nice anyways. Christine never failed at looking good even if she tried. She wasn’t exactly the hottest girl in school but again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this beholder had been cursed for three months.
“I woke up late,” she muttered, climbing in. “I didn’t get to do my hair, or my make-up and worst of all, freaking
Reece was hogging the bathroom on purpose.” She threw her hands up after buckling down. “God, why couldn’t you have given me a sister instead?”
“A sister would have taken even longer in the bathroom,” I hinted.
She frowned. “Possibly, but at least I’d understand.”
“Oh really? Would you?” I teased, giving her a quick kiss. “Somehow I find that having a sister would be a hell of a lot more trouble.”
“You don’t have any siblings so you wouldn’t know,” she said, pulling down the mirror and examining her eyes. “I mean, siblings are nuts. You’ll have at least one fight everyday about something completely stupid.”
I pulled the car into Lakewood High’s parking lot. Turning to face her I said, “Well, at least the kid will always have your back.”
Felix
Hmmm... Mould. I gazed above me and tilted my head. The corner of the ceiling looked as though it was inhabited by some kind of disease, either that or a mashed up frog. I squinted as I stared at the green substance. Nope, it definitely wasn’t a dead frog. Just boring old mould.
I sighed heavily, lifting myself off of my bed. It was almost seven in the morning, and quite frankly, I couldn’t be arsed to go to school. I’d have rather watched mould all day; it had more charisma than half of my teachers.
“Stop! Don’t do that!” There was a loud scream and the next thing I knew, my door shot open.
I watched as Alex slammed my door and pressed his hands against it, keeping it shut. His copper hair fell over his eyes as a look of concentration ran across his tanned face. I just stared at him. Boy, he was lucky I wasn’t naked.
“Yo... Ginge.” I lifted my eyebrows. “Any reason you’re in my room?”
“Dan told me that there was a spider in the bath, but there wasn’t, but then he started laughing, and then he took my iPod, and I shouted at him, then Rosie started shouting at Dan because he took her phone, but I don’t think it was actually him because she had it taken off of her by Hayley. Oh, but then Dan started poking me! So I had to escape to stop him and your room was the closest, so I--”
I lifted my hands up. “Okay, that’s lovely.” I nodded a the door. “Bye.”
It was rather amusing how it took the boy quite a few long sentences to actually answer my question. Alex started muttering to himself as he turned to look at me. Whoa, daggers... I couldn’t help but laugh as the kid began frowning, glaring at me. That only made him more annoyed. I laughed some more.
“Mate, I’ve gotta get dressed for school.” I was still laughing slightly as I glanced at my digital clock. “And I’ve got ten minutes. Either I get changed in front of you, leaving you scarred for life, or you bog off, resulting in no further mental damage.”
He finally let go of my door, but a few seconds after he did so, the handle began turning. Alex stared at it, his face turning pale. Was he worried about getting poked to death or something?
“Do you need a lift to school, darling? I’m taking Jamie in about five minutes.” Hayley walked into the room and looked up at me with a smile on her face. It soon turned into a frown. “Felix, it’s almost seven. Why aren’t you dressed? Have you even got your bag ready yet?”
Alex nudged past her and left my room, leaving me awkwardly scratching my head as I stood in my tracksuit bottoms and stained white top. I shrugged.
“I slept late.” It wasn’t as though I’d ignored my alarm, swearing whenever it went off, even after it had buzzed for the seventh time or anything...
Hayley sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well, you better get ready quickly, otherwise you’re going to school in that.” She scanned my clothes.
I winked at her as she lifted her arms up and tied her long hair back into a perfect bun within the matter of seconds. How women could whip their hair up so quickly was beyond me. Maybe they were mutants... I supposed Hayley had to do things quickly because she had to keep up with the kids as a care-worker in this orphanage.
I was about to happily wave Hayley goodbye when she wandered towards me and eventually sat down on my bed. It was easy to tell that she’d rushed while putting on her make-up today. There were random black spots dotted around her eyelids, a few of them smudged. She also had a pile of blusher on one cheek, but virtually none on the other. I would have told her... but nah.
“Hey,” she said, tapping my bed: her way of signalling for me to sit down. I did as she’d requested. “You’re not going to lock yourself in here during open day again, are you darling? Look, I know what happened with Shane and Jodie was hard on you, especially for the reason they did it... but the couple Sally’s being fostered by are lovely. She met them on the last open day, so there’s bound to be-”
“Nah, I’m good.”
Hayley closed her mouth, but didn’t take her eyes off of me. Why would I allow a load of child hunting creeps talking to me and asking me about a load of crap that wasn’t any of their business? The worst thing this orphanage did was hold open days, which involved puckishly sweet couples wandering around the home, browsing us kids as though we were something they could purchase. Why the hell would I want to be a part of that?
“At least think about it, Felix. Please?” Hayley’s hazel eyes looked at me softly.
Gritting my teeth, I nodded. There was no point in arguing with the woman. She stood up and made her way towards the door. Besides, she’d asked me to think about it. Hmmm... showing my face on open day? No thanks. There we go, I’d thought about it. I was definitely going to stay in my room that Friday evening.
“Come on then,” Hayley said as she stopped at the doorway. “Get yourself ready for school. You’ve got five minutes.”
Oh, crap.
Aidan
My fingers drummed on the scratched up desk in the English classroom. With all my strength, I tried to listen to the teacher as she spoke a foreign language. Well at least that’s what it sounded like. I was sure she was speaking some different type of English though.
“Finish reading the rest of the passage tomorrow and we can have everything done by this Friday,” Mrs.Newberry said while fixing her two inch thick glasses. She was a tall, lanky woman with no chest and if she turned to the side, I was sure she was skinny enough to disappear, vanish.
I began racking up my books and papers as soon as the bell rang. A hand flew onto my shoulder and I whipped my head around.
“Dude, you scared me,” I growled at Chris.
“Yo.” He grinned and walked with me out of the room. Chris stood a foot taller than me so I kept a pace behind so he could act like a bulldozer in the crowded halls. “I’m having a Homecoming party this weekend at my house, you wanna come?” he asked. He was pretty much the party guy around Lakewood. Leave it to him to have a bash for every little event that happened in this small ass town.
I looked up at the rectangular white lights in thought. One wasn't working...
“You could bring Christine and everyone is gonna be there,” he moaned. “Everyone’s gonna be there, man,” he repeated with more emphasis. “You’re part of the football team, you can’t ditch it by law.” He released an extravagant smile which probably made him think he’d won.
I let out a sigh. “I’ll be there, yeah.” I shrugged, giving in.
He hooted and slapped my back so hard it made me think why in the world he didn’t join the football team instead. The only reason I was on that damn team was because of my dad and his obsession with the stupid sport.
“You can’t take back your word, okay?” He pointed a finger at my nose. “You always say you’ll come and end up ditching the last second, I know you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I slapped his hand away. “I promise I’ll be there.” I shivered at the thought of where his hands had probably been. “Go.” I shoved the mammoth away and he went to bother someone else down the hall, slapping the guy’s butt like it meant nothing.
I sighed, curved the corner and leaned my shoulder against the locker next to Christine’s. She turned and smiled at me, showing off her perfect set of teeth.
“You fixed your hair,” I said. Her brown hair was now in a nice, neat ponytail.
“Mm, it was bothering me.” She lifted a brow. “Hey, I heard that Chris is having some sort of Homecoming party this weekend.” She blinked and continued to stare at me.
“Uh, yeah. Just heard.” I looked down at her blue sandals and examined the yellow flowers. I felt like plucking all the petals off of them.
She picked at my shirt, rubbing the fabric between her thin fingers. “You look nice in it. See? I know what looks good on you,” she whispered. "Pink is my favorite color."
I met her eyes and did my best to lift up the corners of my lips. “Do you wanna go? To the party, I mean.”
Instantly, her gaze perked up. “Only if you wanna go,” she pouted.
“I’ll pick you up at seven then.”
Biting her lip from smiling she gave me two quick nods. I kissed her head and turned around. My feet echoed down the now growing silent hall. Another tardy for math class. How many did that make so far? Five or seven? Did it matter, it wasn’t like they would actually drop me from the class just because I was late, right?
I quickly broke into a run.
Best not take the chance.
Felix
“Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you,” I sang under my breath, including the odd drum beat here and there. “By now, you should’ve somehow realised what you’ve gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do abou-- Ow!”
Something nudged me hard on my side, causing me to yelp. I turned to look at Shannon Johnson and smirked. I could hear Dave laughing from the other side of me. Shannon muttered something, telling me to shut up, if I heard right.
“Now, you shouldn’t flirt with me in a lesson, Shannon.” I leaned back in my chair. “I know I’m amazing and everything, but do try and hold yourself back.”
Once again, she simply stared at me. The more I spoke, the narrower her eyes became. Maybe if I kept on speaking, she’d end up closing her eyes. That would have been cool.
I pressed the play button on my iPod again, joining in with the Oasis song as it continued. I glanced at Shannon to see her teeth gritted, causing me to sing louder. Oh, the joys of school.
“Alright, class.” A loud voice echoed in the background of my music. “My name’s Mr. Richards. Mr. Perry is off sick, so I will be the one teaching you for today.”
I yanked my earphones out of my ears, switching my iPod off at the same time. When I looked up, boy did I grin.
The substitute teacher carried on blabbering about MacBeth or something, but I wasn’t the least bit interested in a Scottish nutter that Shakespeare bloke invented. I was far more interested in the substitute himself. His hair was perfectly messy,swept to the side. It was a dark brown colour which matched the stubble on his chin and contrasted incredibly with his almost honey coloured eyes. He was tall, but not at all lanky.
He could have been talking about fences for all I knew. I was too distracted by the man himself rather than what he was saying. With a face like that, he could have been the most boring guy in the world and I wouldn’t have given a damn. The only thing I noticed about his voice was that it was spoken in a smooth Australian accent. Oh, I would.
“You’re disgusting,” Shannon muttered as she shook her head.
“Thanks. Love you too.” I smiled. “Why am I disgusting exactly?”
Instead of answering me politely, Shannon nodded to the front of the class. I turned to where she’d nodded to be blinded by Rebbecca Mitchel’s breasts. I swore to God those things had a mind of their own; they were certainly big enough to.
As I realised what Shannon meant, I started laughing. She dropped her pencil onto her desk with a slam and turned her full attention to me. She desperately needed anger management, or needed a leash. Either one.
“No thanks, Shan. Too much on top and not enough down below.” I winked and started laughing as I began tapping my fingers against my desk. “You’d sound funny with an Australian accent. Your voice is too deep. I bet you like kangaroos though; you look like the kind of person who’d like things with giant feet.”
“You’re sick.” Shannon crossed her arms. “Australia isn’t filled with kangaroos. That’s just a bad stereotype, Felix.”
God, she was weird. I was sick because I said that kangaroos lived in Australia? Someone needed a visit to a mental asylum. I decided to ignore Shannon and began concentrating on Mr. Richards again. It wasn’t too hard to do. That’s it... gracefully flick your hair, smile with your Australian teeth... Now just bend over. Please... For me... Sadly, Mr. Richards never fulfilled that last request.
As we were leaving the lesson, I made sure I got a good glimpse of Mr. Richards from behind. Lowering my eyes from his torso, I wasn’t disappointed. Now that was what I called an arse. He better have been here tomorrow. I paused and got one last glance of Mr. Richards before leaving the room. If my usual English teacher happened to break his leg tonight, I couldn’t have been held responsible.
As I was ambling down the hallway, Dave followed beside me. In his hands were a few sheets of crumpled paper, stapled together.
“It’s unbelievable!” he complained, shoving the papers in my face.”Ninety three percent, when I deserved one hundred!”
“Okay, no offence, mate.” I stopped in the hallway, getting a few grunts from other kids for stopping so suddenly. “But no one gives a crap about R.E. Maybe except for Jesus... he probably does, or did, or whatever. Hey, wasn’t Jesus ginger? I was looking at a bible in R.E the other day, and I swear he had ginger hair. I guess you could have classed it as blonde, but I reckon it was orange.”
Dave paused and opened his mouth wide. What was he trying to do? Catch flies? He looked a bit like a fly... just with better proportioned eyes.
“You need to know when to shut up, Felix. I certainly care about R.E. Look at this.” He pointed at one of the questions. I scanned the words to see that it was some question about homosexuality. Go figure. Dave continued. “The bible states that it’s a sin, which is most definitely true, so that’s exactly what I wrote. I said how disgusting it was, and what happens? I lose marks for it!”
I had to admit, it was rare and even slightly worrying that Dave didn’t get one hundred percent on a R.E test. If he couldn’t get one hundred, then there was no hope in hell for me. He practically was God. I mean, he actually read the bible - more than once too. I skimmed through his answer, eventually rolling my eyes.
“Mate, you ain’t put the other views on the whole gay thing.” I started walking again. “You’ve written three paragraphs on how God forbids sinning and crap.”
“Other views? Really? Why should I lose marks for putting down the right answer? Gay is just... wrong.” He shuddered. “Don’t you think?”
Not exactly... Dave’s blue eyes watched me as we turned a corner. He wasn’t one of my best mates, partly for the reason being because he couldn’t go through a day without mentioning the bible or something.
“Yeah, whatever,” I replied. “You going to Chris’s homecoming party on the weekend?” I changed the subject.
“I think so. My sister’s planning on going, I think, so I may as well go too. You?”
I nodded, opening my bag. I caught a glimpse of my leather wallet and flinched. Standing still, I must have been staring at it for at least five minutes. I avoided bringing this wallet to school, or using it full stop, but it was the only one I could find this morning. I shut my bag and fastened it tightly as if it would lock it in there forever.
That wallet was the last thing Shane and Jodie bought me before... I shook my head. Dave seemed to be too fixed into his test to notice me. I had no idea why I’d given into Shane and Jodie. Yeah, go live in America with a pair of randomers you hardly know, Felix. Great idea, idiot. I laughed bitterly. It clearly all turned out so well, didn’t it?
me sad.