The week flew and before I knew it, Saturday had come around, making
it closer to the end of the month and to the season I enjoyed the most;
Autumn.
When I was a little girl, I would spend hours looking out the window,
watching the leaves from the trees onto the ground, a rusty brown col-
our or a light red, and then going outside to play in them for hours on
end most days. That was when I didn’t have any worries from boys and
Augusta and the only thing I had to worry about was what colour pencil
to use next when I was drawing something.
I decided to go for a walk around Forrest since mum was at work and
I had nothing better to do in my day or currently with my time. I slipped
on my shoes and made sure the door was locked before I walked down
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the steps and onto the footpath.
When I got around the corner, I noticed that Amylia was outside
with another lady at the front of her house, which must have been the
same one that Nathaniel had told me about the other day during music.
I slowly walked down the street and when I got closer; Amylia looked up
and saw me approaching, but didn’t say anything until I was hearing
range.
“Brianna, hey,” she said and smiled at me. “I wasn’t expecting you to
be walking past today.”
“Hey,” I said and looked at who I assumed was Bethany.
“Oh this is the Brianna that has caught my Nathaniel’s attention?”
she asked and looked at Amylia.
Amylia nodded and went back to planting roses in the garden, not
making eye contact with either of us. The lady looked at me and smiled
warmly.
“I’m Bethany Pryor, Jack’s wife and the one that keeps all the kids in
this household under control. Nathaniel has spoken highly of you to
both of us. I’m afraid Nathaniel isn’t home though and I’m not sure
when he will be back,” she said, frowning.
“Oh that’s okay. I was just exploring the town since I haven’t really
had a chance,” I replied, looking around and seeing a lot of forest.
“There is not really much here. Colac is more of the place everyone
hangs out and gets up to trouble,” Amylia said without looking up at
me.
“Well, I’m not like everyone else,” I said.
“That we already know. You have the guts to stand up to Augusta
when everyone else is scared of her so that is good.”
I smiled at her and started to walk away when the witch herself left a
house and started walking up the street. I stopped walking and turned
around so I could look at Amylia. She noticed what I was looking at and
ushered me into the yard as her gaze turned hard towards who was ap-
proaching.
“She lives in the same street as us and she believes that because of
this, she has a better chance to date Nathaniel, but what she doesn’t
know is that my son has his eye on someone else that has inner beauty
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and doesn’t have a heart of stone,” Bethany told me.
Jealously cursed through my veins when Bethany finished talking; of
course there was no way that Nathaniel would want to date me. I
wasn’t perfect enough and there are clearly other girls at school that
have what he wants, including wealth. Something I would never have. I
was plain, boring and had a lot of issues that I was fighting tooth and
nail to keep buried so they wouldn’t scare him off or even worse; scare
him into Augusta’s arms.
“I thought that I saw Brianna around here,” James said, coming out-
side.
“James, if I were you, I would get back inside. The witch is approach-
ing and you know what she is like around this time of year with guys
that have money,” Amylia said and wrapped an arm around his waist.
“She can flirt with me all she likes and can try and tear us apart, but
we both know that my heart belongs with you and nothing will ever
change that,” he said and leaned down to kiss her.
I looked down at the ground so I wouldn’t have to witness anything. I
sometimes hated people in love and the fact they didn’t know they
were rubbing it in your face by mistake or they just didn’t care about
anyone else’s feelings.
“What is going on?” Augusta asked when she approached the house
and saw me standing there.
“Well we are planting flowers in the garden so we have a nice look-
ing front yard for the new seasons approaching. The sun is shining for a
change so why not get some vitamins at the same time,” James replied.
“I mean why Brianna is here? She never had the right to be in this
town, and she sure as hell doesn’t have the right to be with you,” she
said, glaring at me.
“If there is anyone that shouldn’t be here, it should be you and your
wicked ways,” Amylia seethed.
“I’ll just go,” I said quietly and started to step away from all of them
and most importantly Augusta.
I was slowly starting to get sick of her meddling ways and trying to
ruin my life and most others for her pleasure.
“And don’t return. You don’t have the right to hang around the
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Pryor’s when you aren’t like us and you never will be,” Augusta said,
expecting them to back her up.
Her words were like being stabbed in the heart but that was some-
thing that I needed to get used to. James ran over to me and grabbed
my arm, stopping me from leaving and forcing me to listen to what else
had to be said in this argument.
“Excuse me, you aren’t like us either, so don’t you dare go around
and say that you are when you aren’t. All the money that your father
has earned is spent by you and your mother on expensive things that
doesn’t even look good on you. That skirt for one is way too short to
walk around a town in; and you can’t even walk in those heels. At least
Brianna covers up and is friendly and doesn’t bother about working her
way up the social scene like you and Erica with money and your craving
to date a rich boy so he can fuel your need for the celebrity lifestyle that
you will never have. By the time you are in your twenties, you will have
nothing and no one the way you treat everyone and everything,” Amylia
said, glaring at Augusta. “You deserve to be alone for the rest of your
life.”
“And you will? Most marriages these days don’t even last two years.
You will have no one when a divorce is on the cards either and that’s
when I will get my chance at James if I can’t get Nathaniel first. I am
bound to grab a Pryor boy even if it kills me. No one can resist me and
that will never change,” Augusta said, glaring back at Amylia.
I started to wonder how many people she has turned against each
other with one simple word or action. She was the spawn of Satan.
There was no doubt about it.
“I adore Amylia and I would never leave her. Especially for someone
like you who holds no interest for me as she is cold, vain and selfish as
you,” James said, anger and hatred lacing his voice.
“You have said what you wanted to and you can leave now Augusta.
Brianna is more than welcome here anytime she wants to,” Bethany
said, speaking up for the first time.
“Why are you defending her for? She is just a poor girl from Melton
that everyone wants to know because she is different and once that
wears off, she will be alone like it should be and like she will be.”
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“It doesn’t matter if she is different or not. At least we want to be
around her willingly because we like her. We don’t want to be around
you anytime of the day because we hate you,” Amylia spat and grabbed
my arm, pulling me out of James grasp.
She was walking at a fast pace, making me having to run to keep up
with her while she still had my arm in her grasp. I didn’t have it in me to
say anything as Amylia was angry and I didn’t know if she would take it
out on me.
“Are you okay?” I asked when we were out of hearing range.
“She just makes me so angry, thinking that she is like my family
when she clearly isn’t. We have more money than her and some of the
things we have are cheap and not everything we wear is designer. If we
were like her, we wouldn’t have befriended you like we did, and try to
make you feel welcome any way we can.”
“All she wants to do is make my life a living hell until I end my friend-
ship with Nathaniel or until I get sick of her and flee this town. I have
fought back once and now she has become much worse. You saw that
she has decided to turn to violence at school so I dread what else she
might be capable of doing to me.”
What Augusta said and the way she has been treating me was mak-
ing my confidence drop each time and on top of that, I was worried that
she would convince Nathaniel to end all contact with me. Amylia
stopped walking and turned to look at me. I sighed and looked down at
the ground, trying to fight back the emotions that had started to over-
come me.
“Don’t worry about her and once Nathaniel finds out about all of
this, there will be trouble brewing. He doesn’t let anyone that he is
close to get hurt, and this will be no different to any other time. You are
special to him Brianna and nothing will ever change that.”
“It just all depends how special I am.”
I decided to make my way home. I didn’t want to be seen by Augus-
ta, as if she saw me alone, she could do anything to harm me. As I
walked up the steps to get inside, I heard a car skid to a stop at the front
of my place. I turned around and saw that Nathaniel was getting out of
the car.
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“What are you doing?” Nathaniel asked.
“I just came back from a walk, and I also met your mother, Bethany
on my walk as well,” I said, from the veranda.
“Why didn’t you stay there? I am heading back there and it would
have been a nice surprise to see you at my home for once and not run
into you on the street or something like that.”
“Because I had a not so nice confrontation with Augusta and I didn’t
want her hanging around, with her making sure that when you come
back, she can pounce on you and say I caused the trouble. She doesn’t
want me around you and she won’t stop until that happens.”
“So what are you saying? That you don’t want to be friends anymore
because of her?” Nathaniel asked, completely misunderstanding what I
just told him.
“No, I’m not saying that at all,” I said and walked towards him.
“That’s what it sounds like to me Brianna, so why don’t we just do
that? End our friendship and do you think that will stop Augusta causing
trouble because it won’t do anything to stop nothing. You don’t know
her like we do.”
“I am not saying that Nathaniel! I am just saying that she won’t stop
until we aren’t friends, then you go and blow this out of proportion, but
you know that I only wanted to be your friend, and it seems like you call
the shots, so if you want our friendship to be over, go right ahead!” I
yelled, fighting tears and ran inside.
I locked the door so he couldn’t enter and ran to my room, slamming
the door, listening to the window shudder. I let the wave of emotion
wash over me and slid slowly down the door, not stopping until I hit the
floor. Nathaniel knocked on the door a few times and called out my
name, but I didn’t answer him back. I really didn’t want to see him until I
cooled down after what happened. I was still there when mum came
home from work and shopping. I heard her calling my name, but I didn’t
know if I wanted to say anything in case I broke down again. Getting up
from the floor, I unlocked my door and slowly walked down the hall
way.
“There you are,” mum said and turned around so she could look at
me. “What happened?”
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“I think that Nathaniel and I aren’t friends anymore,” I said and
wiped away a few tears that were still falling down my face.
“Did you and he have a fight over something?” mum asked and
looked at me concerned at the state I was in.
“I went for a walk and Nathaniel drove past when I got home. I said
that I thought that Augusta wouldn’t stop making my life a living hell
unless we stop being friends, and the next thing I knew, Nathaniel and I
were having a fight over it. I said that it seemed like he called the shots
in our friendship and that if he didn’t want to be friends, go right
ahead,” I told her, trying to force back more tears that wanted to fall.
“Brianna, when Nathaniel was here last week, he seemed to be en-
grossed by you, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he shows up here later on
or when you are at school on Monday, apologising to you or if he has a
gift for you at the same time. Nathaniel seemed like the type that
wouldn’t be able to handle not having your friendship. Jack told me be-
fore that Nathaniel had changed a lot since you have arrived into his life
and that he doesn’t want him to go back to the way he was before,”
mum said, a strange look in her eyes.
“Well, if he has decided to end our friendship, he will be going back
to the way he was before I came into Nathaniel’s life. I don’t want to be
friends with someone who can’t understand that I wasn’t saying that we
can’t be friends and blowing things way out of proportion when he
doesn’t have to.”
Mum didn’t look convinced though. I wasn’t expecting Nathaniel to
arrive or even talk to me anymore, but when someone knocked on the
door around seven at night, I secretly hoped it was him on my doorstep,
but I couldn’t bring myself to answer the door; so I forced mum to do it
while I stayed in my room, hiding from the person I so wanted it to be.
But knowing my luck, it would have been Jason, coming to annoy and
harass me that bit more, making me snap and causing harm before real-
ising what I was doing. It doesn’t take much for him to get on the wrong
side of me, that’s for sure.
“Brianna, there is someone here for you,” she said, her voice laced
with excitement.
Grumbling down the hall, I turned towards the entrance way and
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stopped frozen when I saw Nathaniel standing there with a bouquet of
roses looking down at the floor. For once, my wish was answered and
not placed in the reject basket. On the inside I was dancing and jumping
for joy, but on the outside, I was stony faced.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, still deciding if I was going to
play nice and let him off easy or if make him work hard to earn my for-
giveness.
“I came to say I’m sorry about what happened before between us. I
brought you roses because I thought that they might cheer you up over
everything that has been happening since you arrived in town,” he said
and handed them to me.
I looked at them before looking at Nathaniel and sighing. “You think
that this will make me forgive you after what you said before? I don’t
like being bribed so I will forgive someone if they can’t get their way.”
“Brianna,” mum said, exasperated.
Why couldn’t she just leave and let us talk alone without saying
something that she didn’t know about? I thought to myself and bit my
tongue so I wouldn’t say anything. I shot her a look, telling her to leave.
She finally took noticed and stepped out of the room, leaving us alone.
There was a tense silence between us that I didn’t want to break.
“Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that this will cut it at all. You hurt
me Nathaniel and once Augusta gets wind of what happened, she will
try her hardest to force the divide that is now between us to be even
deeper,” I finally said, breaking the silence.
“That’s why I’m here. I want to be your friend Brianna, and maybe
more one day only if you wanted it to become more than what it is now.
I want you to forgive me so badly and even if I have to get on my knees
and beg you to forgive me and be my friend again, I will do that. I just
want your forgiveness so bad because I don’t know how I would go with
you are upset with me,” Nathaniel pleaded.
“You picked these coloured roses because of the way my hair smells,
didn’t you?” I asked, changing the subject.
I had a feeling that Nathaniel also picked them because of the com-
ment he made on my blood coloured hair that I was still thinking about
colouring so I wouldn’t have to think of blood every time I looked at it.
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“Well, as you can see I made sure they were blood red,” he said ges-
turing towards them with a smile.
“Thank you,” I said and smiled briefly.
I turned around and walked into the kitchen, noticing that mum had
a vase out with water in it. Rolling my eyes, I placed the roses on the
bench and reached for the scissors so I could trim the ends of them.
“There is another reason why I am here also,” he said behind me.
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“Monday is Valentine’s Day and this year, the school has decided to
hold a Valentine’s Day dance, so I was wondering if you wanted be my
date to this event?” he asked, sounding nervous.
“I don’t have a dress for it,” I said and cut the stems off the flowers.
“And I wouldn’t even have the time to buy one.”
“Amylia said she would lend you one if you agreed to go with me. She
will be around sometime tomorrow with everything and then again on
Monday to help you get ready for the dance if you agree to attend with
me.”
There was no way I was getting out of this one in a hurry. Closing my
eyes, I tried to think of another excuse but none came to mind. If I was
any other teenage girl with a guy with looks and money asking me to a
dance, I would have agreed in a heartbeat, but I wasn’t. I was shy and
hesitant when it came to some things and this would have been one of
them.
“What dance and why wasn’t I informed about it from the school?”
mum asked, walking into the room.
“There is a Valentine’s Day dance at school on Monday night and I
asked your daughter to join me by my side,” Nathaniel said. “Also, it is
the first time they have decided to do something this year and hopefully
the last. I really don’t want to attend something like this every single
year on a romantic day if I ever had plans with your daughter.”
“That is a lovely idea on the schools behalf. What do you say Bri-
anna? Will you go with Nathaniel and make him happy for one night?”
mum said and looked at me.
She was trying to blackmail me into going. I could sense that from
over a mile away. Sighing, I closed my eyes before opening them and
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looking at Nathaniel and my mother. There was no way I was going to
get out of this one without a lot of kicking and screaming. I had no
choice but to do what I didn’t want to do. And that was relenting.
“Fine, I will go to this dance if you don’t say any more about it until
Monday when I have come prepared for Augusta and the hell she will
unleash on me when she finally finds out that you are going to be my
date and not her. If I were you mum, I would start planning my funeral
now once she has finished with me. I will be buried alive by the end of
the night,” I said and grabbed the vase in both of my hands before mak-
ing my way to my room before she could reply back to what I just said.
I placed it on my dresser and took a step back, hitting something hard
behind me. Turning around, I saw Nathaniel standing there.
“Do you even really want to go to the dance Brianna?” he asked.
“I have no choice, do I?” I asked. “I have already agreed to go and I’m
not the type that likes backing out of things so I will go and suffer it for
one night. Who knows, I might have some fun for a change.”
“That’s good to know because you are going to be the most beautiful
girl at the dance once Amylia is finished with you.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” I muttered, a strange feeling starting to
form in my stomach from his words.
“I should get going so Beth doesn’t worry about me. I will see you on
Monday, bright and early in the car park.”
“Why the car park, Nathaniel?” I asked, feeling unsure that I even
wanted to know the answer to my question.
“No reason,” Nathaniel said, too quickly for my liking.
He had something planned, and I was only hoping that he didn’t
make me feel obligated to buy him something. Even if he did, I had no
idea what to get a teenage boy that had everything under the sun.
When he left, mum decided to corner me for answers in the living room
and get the answers I could tell she was dying to know.
“So what is going on for Monday? Do I need to finish work early so
you can get ready or-”
“Mum!” I shouted, cutting her off. “There is no need to get so excited
over this like you are. I don’t even want to go. I mean, it’s Valentine’s
Day, and it’s not a day I like. You should know that by now. ”
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“There is nothing wrong about getting a bit of attention from a boy
that you like Brianna and who happens likes you back,” she said, her
eyes sparkling.
“Oh, you mean one that I do want to start a relationship with and
another I want to push off a cliff into the rocks with sharks circling, mak-
ing him shark food so I’ll never have to see him again? It doesn’t work
like that anymore mum; at least not in my world. I have one guy that is
obsessed with me and might even result in kidnapping me if worse
comes to worse that won’t get the hint that I am not interested and an-
other that is far too perfect for me and yet, is still hanging around when
he knows what this house looks like inside and knows for a fact that we
aren’t rich.”
The look mum gave was like I was speaking another language to-
wards her that wasn’t English. I had thought to myself that Nathaniel
was judgemental at first and treated everyone like they were nothing,
but he was slowly starting to prove me wrong, but mum was under the
impression that he was an angel to begin with and couldn’t do anything
wrong in the world. She didn’t really know how he treated me to begin
with and I didn’t want her finding that out. Nathaniel might be banned
from hanging around me if that came out into the open. There were
two sides of Nathaniel that I didn’t want her seeing.
“I’m going to my room,” I said and walked away from her, a dull
throbbing starting to form inside my head from all this thinking and all
the crying I did before.
When I got in there, the first thing I realised was something looked
different from when I was in here before. Doing a full circle, I saw that
the photo I hid last week from Nathaniel had reappeared from the place
I put it and it was now in front of the tissues. Nathaniel must have seen
it and put it on display, not realising one of the reasons why it was hid-
den out of seeing range. That was something I didn’t need. Just looking
at the photo stirred a tantalizing destruction that I urged and craved to
let free inside of me and out into the open. I had already ripped up one
photo and I didn’t want to do it to another one, even though it had the
man I couldn’t stand in it. I would need a place to store a lot of photo
frames if I ripped up every single photo I had of him up.
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Clenching my hands, I turned around so I couldn’t see the photo and
took a few deep breaths, trying to calm both myself and my emotions
down to the way they were before I came back in here. I didn’t know