I was sitting in my bed on Sunday night with my laptop in front of me. Time for a Skype session with the squad from Sydney. I was chilling and gonna go to bed to after this call. After a third attempted call, they picked. I could barely hear my thoughts over the cheers and shrieks that greeted me.

"Jay! Omg how things on the other side?"

"Jay I absolutely need to tell you about this guy at school."

"We miss you!"

"I scored the winning try on Friday."

I laughed. "You crazy bunch."

"We're your crazy bunch, bitch. And we miss you!" answered Campbell, an Asian skater girl type.

"I missed you guys way more. Trust me on that," I said, shaking my head.

"Well to make this a little less chaotic, first you tell us about the past few months for you. Then we'll tell you about us," proposed Tyler, a tall and skinny brunette with an attitude and gaming skills like you would believe.

"Typical Tyler. Oh well here goes," I said and told them everything about the last few months of my life. The war, the stepfam and all associated with it came pouring out in one big Cady Heron word-vomit.

"That's pretty huge stuff going on in your life. The rest of us are just same old, same old," let out Calum, the local bad boy and heartthrob.

"Yip," I finished, somewhat lamely.

"But you're our fighter. You're a champion and you can beat all of this," said Campbell so fiercely I believed her.

"So my try on Friday?" Calum offered.

"Oh yeah that was rad!" Lexi, a grunge goddess, said loudly.

Calum proceeded to tell me about his rugby game on Friday. As always, everyone else butted in to add to the story and I missed when I was a part of that. The Lexi told me about this guy at school who she was into and I gave her some advice. Then Campbell's skating competition coming up, Tyler's experience at the school's LAN evening, Daisy's puppy and how Vic had sprained his wrist.

I never wanted that call to end. But like all things, good or bad, it had to come to a close. I said goodbye and shut off my laptop. It took a lot of willpower not to cry into my pillow, I missed my old life so much.

It's okay, Jay. One last week of school then a awesome roadtrip. And in the next holidays dad said you could visit home.

☆☆☆

It was the last day of the semester and the list for the talent show was up. Fingers crossed.

KENNEDY HIGH TALENT SHOW

SEMIFINALISTS
-Drew Siam
-the A team
-Leah and Nate
-Jay and Scarlett
-The Reason
-Magician Mark and his assistant Tina
-The Sexy Pitches
-Squad Seventeen
-Morgan Fey
-Chris Harley
The semifinals will take place on the first Saturday night of the new semester. Buy tickets at the door.

I ran to find Scarlett at her locker and I told her the good news. Drew was through and so were we. We started making plans for a rehearsal and styling session after school when Kat came past and slipped us a note before walking up to Drew and planting a kiss on his lips. The note read: Drew asked me last night to join his act!!

That's our girl! Now all we need to do is figure out what we're going to do at the finals.

I turned to Scarlett. "So now we also need to plan our act, the roadtrip and revenge."

"Just another day in the life," teased Scarlett.

☆☆☆

Ring. Just ring. Let it all out and ring.

I was in last period, willing the bell to ring. Suddenly, the intercom crackled and the secretary's voice came out.

"Jay Wilde and Drew Siam to the principal's office please."

Shit. Wait, what did I do?

I catch Drew's eye and give him a questioning look. He seems to expect this as he is smirking and had already packed up his backpack. Drew just winked at me. Whatever, it's the last day of the semester anyway. Not much old Rivers can do with only ten minutes left til I was on vacation.

We walked to the office slowly, taking our time. We were walking past the lockers when bam! Drew had pinned me against the locker.

"So have I won the war?" he smirked.

"Not. Even. Close." I hissed.

Then he did something that I completely did not expect. Drew kissed me. And it was good. After three seconds I realised that I was kissing back.

What the hell am I doing?

Then, as suddenly as it had been initiated, the kiss ended. Drew stared me down. "You kissed back."

"Maybe."

He laughed. "I think maybe I have won the war."

And with that he waltzed off to Mr Rivers's office. It took me a few seconds to catch my breath and by then I was fuming.

How dare he just kiss me like that? I will fucking destroy him. I will hire an assassin to kill his family and then I will kill him myself.

Fuming and cursing and whispering threats, I stormed to Mr Rivers's office.