Edited by the wonderful xxLiciaPinkxx

Chapter one - Loveless Love

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My parents haven't been divorced for such a long time but I can't say I didn't see it coming. I mean, everyone saw it coming.

There were the fights, the loveless conversations and stares, the mutual accusations of cheating and meaningless make up sex.

I wasn't that mad or hurt because of their breakup, I knew it was better for everyone. I only became mad when my mom found a new 'boyfriend'.

It makes me sick to my stomach to call him that. It always makes me think of a cute sixteen year old boy standing on your porch holding up a bouquet of roses, asking you to be his girlfriend. Something you don't want to imagine when the 'girlfriend' is a woman in her forties who happens to be your mom.

No longer than a month after the divorce had been made official, she came by, parading with her new toy. I mean, good for her that she found a new sex-partner but did he have to have a seventeen year-old dickhead as a son?

I never met the guy, not until a month ago when my mom decided their two month long relationship was stable enough to move in together.

Horrible, horrible mistake.

Although I wasn't a fan of the new situation, I made a promise to myself to give the man a chance. After all, he does make my mom happy. I also told myself that his son came with him, like a package deal. I tried to remain positive and saw it as an extra gift. Like when you get a sweet cookie along with the hot chocolate you ordered.

Sadly enough, he turned out to be more like the cold lifeless spoon that came along with it.

I remember the day we were moving in together as, what should have been, one big happy family. I also remember feeling relieved once I was able to shut the door of the tiny apartment we had been staying in for a couple of weeks. Stupid me felt relieved that I no longer had to stay in a place that wasn't larger than my old room, relieved that I wouldn't have to feel suffocated with every step I'd take.

You see, I was not the brightest nor was I able to predict the future.

I was the one who proposed that we should look for a real house, never ever did it cross my mind that my mom would think 'we' included her new baggage, my new form of suffocation.

She wasn't the brightest either.

I also wanted to give the son a chance, how bad could he be? It wasn't his fault that his dad fell for my mom's fake boobs, was it?

No offence to my mom, but she looks cheap. Like, really cheap. I can see her in the past, in her high school years, being a part of the Latoya Hernandez' group. The cheerleading sluts.

Or, as we liked to call them, the Sleers.

See what we did there? Sluts — cheerleaders? No? Oh, okay.

And when I say we, I mean Lana Campbell and I. We've been friends for quite a while now. Two silent, well-mannered, intelligent, sexy, cute and very modest girls.

We like to overthink stuff and brainstorm about the great 'what if' questions. The thing that makes our friendship as strong as it has become is our mutual hatred for girls like Latoya.

Hatred for the Sleers.

Actually, they're not capital worthy.

The day we, my mom and I, moved in with 'the (second) love of her life' and his heartless son, I wore a skirt. I remember that detail clearly because I never wore skirts.

That day my mom forced me. "Loren," she had said, "please dress up nice for once." She, unlike me, has always been a beauty queen. You'll never see her leave without make-up and regular jeans are not-done in her eyes.

Sometimes I doubted our genetic connection.

So, pretending to be a real lady, I wore a skirt. Trying to walk ladylike, I paraded down the stairs.

I had spent the entire afternoon decorating my room. The Rice-clan arrived hours after we did. By the time they came along, my mom had already prepared dinner and called me down, reminding me, once again, to act nice.

The only thing I knew about the man was that he was two years older than mom. No idea how old that was, she doesn't want to tell me her age. She says it's a detail when you look like she does.

Modest much.

My mom described the son as a nice young man with whom I'd bond well. We'd even become friends, according to her.

So there I was, parading down the stairs, focusing on the steps. Knowing myself, I could easily fall and embarrass myself.

And there he was, Geoffrey Rice. Or so I hoped, otherwise my mom would've turned into a creep.

The first thing that overwhelmed me was his appearance. Hot, sexy, yummy, he was it all. Left foot first, right one following smooth. Focus on the steps.

I sent him a kind smile, with slightly reddened cheeks.

He brushed past me, running up the stairs without giving me a single glance.

"Move your stuff!" he yelled after a few seconds while I was still standing on the stairs.

Not knowing who he was yelling to, I stared at the spot he stood seconds ago. I was so shocked that I was still in a daze when he returned.

"Move your stuff!" he repeated, followed by some of my clothes being thrown out of the room I claimed as mine.

"What the-"

"Loren! Geoffrey! Dinner is ready!" an unknown voice yelled from downstairs.

"This is not over," he hissed as he passed by me, shoving his shoulder against mine.

"By the way," he called over his shoulders, "don't ever wear that skirt again. It accentuates your nonexistent ass."

He seemed nice.

Still a bit taken aback by our first meeting, I followed him through one of the laminated hallways. The walls were painted dark blue grey whilst the doors were white. I could already imagine how my mom was going to put all kinds of the frames on them, filled with random pictures with absolutely no meaning.

Sometimes she went to the market, bought a frame and used the picture that was originally in it.

Mountains we never visited, visions we never saw, heck, even people we never knew.

She claimed to be a fan of art.

Yeah, the cheap photographers make amazing art, Mom.

Entering the dining room it came to my notice how hard the moving people had already worked. Apart from the decorative part, everything had been arranged.

The boxes were placed in the right corner, to another dark wall.

The laminate was also present in this room. Same for the the dark walls. It was beautiful I can give you that, but it's so modern and design like that I couldn't picture it as a warm cozy home.

The contrast between the dark grey colored tables and chairs and the floor had worked out nicely. The table was already set, the cutlery put down perfectly, a thing I couldn't stand.

Normally, I threw the silver down, not caring about whether the knife was supposed to lay at the right or left side because. In my head, that's what a home is for.

My "new dad" bought a bouquet of flowers for my mom. She placed the bouquet in a see-through vase before putting it in the middle of the table, next to a lighted candle.

Don't we look like one happy family?

I can assure you that we weren't.

Sure, my mom seemed happy with her new love and the man seemed to feel the same way about her. I still thought she was such a for making me move in with people I didn't even know.

Geoffrey didn't seem too happy either. He looked beyond bored, typing away on his phone.

"You must be Loren," the man in the suit said as his hand enveloped mine in a handshake. "You look lovely."

I found it rather ironic how he seemed to be the one that had to please me with his appearance, like I was the mom and he had to flatter me so I'd allow him to keep going out with my daughter.

Shaking his hand politely, I heard an annoyed voice snort.

"What was that, son?" the man asked him.

"You said she looked lovely," he replied not even bothering to look up from his screen.

"Yeah?"

"You always told me it was rude to lie."

"Geoffrey Rice!" his father replied in a threatening voice.

"Yes, daddy?" he mocked as if he was daring his dad to ground him.

"Be nice," was all that came. That's it? I thought. That's all he is going to say when his son called me ugly at the same moment of our meeting?

Oh joy.

"Let's eat," my mother interrupted things before they could get even more awkward.

We sat down. I sat next to my mom as the guys took their place across the table. Mr. Grumpy sat across from me.

The smell of my mom's homemade lasagna filled my nostrils and made my mouth water like I hadn't eaten in months.

"So what do you think of the house?" the man asked me. My mother filled my plate with the delicious piece of nature.

To be honest, I didn't want to answer. I mean, he can ask me what I think about it, just not when I'm eating.

You see, eating is my moment of joy of the day, and I don't like it being disturbed.

"She stole my room," Geoffrey answered for me.

"Oh, she's sorry; she'll switch to the other room this very evening. Won't you, sweetie?" My mom shot me a hopeful look, please don't be difficult is what she begged me with those speaking eyes.

"Sure," I replied, sounding as fake as possible.

During the awkward, that's the least you could say it was, dinner, Geoffrey kept on typing away on his phone.

His father didn't seem to make a problem with it. I did. And I know my mom did so too.

"Can you put away the damn phone?" I tried to remain calm, but his blatant disrespect (not to mention, his rudeness) really grated on my nerves.

"Why? Is it bothering you?" I caught a look of his eyes for a single second. Emotionless.

"Uh, yeah?" I replied.

"Sweet." More typing.

My mouth fell open at his rudeness and at this point of the evening I was already prepared to smack that smile off his face, even if I had to deal with the consequences.

Grounded for two weeks, I could live with that.

My lips were debating on which comment they'd make but got interrupted by my mom, who decided to be the intervening hero once again.

"Who wants dessert?"

"I don't." Geoffrey got up. "And make sure to move your stuff before eight or I throw them out the window."

With that he popped his earphones in his ears and left.

I bit my lip, preventing myself to burst out in front of his dad, trying to prevent myself from strangling him to death.

"You want some dessert, sweetie?" I hated it when she called me that because at moments when she does that, she was begging me to stay calm. If there was anything I didn't want to be now, it would be calm.

Or Geoffrey's father.

I'd be ashamed to dead. He, on the other hand kept eating his lasagna like nothing happened.

"No thanks, mom. I'm just going to move my stuff."

Force a smile. Put the chair down slowly. Walk quietly. Act like a lady.

Normally I would have stayed to help clear the table, like any other well-raised and mannered creature, but today, as proven, was far from normal.

Normally I don't move houses, normally I'm not moving in with strangers, normally those strangers weren't asses and normally I wouldn't have the urge to kill someone.

I pass the dark wall, the wall my mom would soon fill with frames. Normally I'd smile at it, thinking about my mom's weird habits. Yet again, today wasn't normal.

Staggering into the room that no longer belonged to me, I sighed and fell down on the matress. The bed still had to be placed, thank god I had no idea how I would've moved that out of here in one piece.

Sighing with every move I made, I started putting everything back in boxes. I picked up the clothes the jerk had dropped in the hallway before heading over to my new location.

This room was visibly less perfect. It only had one window which was directed to the street side. The other had two big ones with a sight on the big yard and pool.

This one was also smaller and apparently belonged to a child before we moved in here.

Great, now I'll even had to paint this thing.

On the bright side: I still have my walk-in closet.

Every girl's dream right?

After taking down some pictures I had hung on the wall, my mom walked in, holding my laptop.

"Jerald and I are going to catch a movie, here's your laptop. Have a good night!" Before I could even open my mouth she was already gone.

So much for bonding with my housemates.

I headed downstairs to find the DVDs. On days like this, I needed my cry movie over some hottie.

Charlie St. Cloud.

Brilliant.

Right after the car crashed and the tears started to roll, the annoying roaring of a motorcycle interrupted my peaceful night.

This better not be Geoffrey Rice.

Like I mentioned before, life isn't that kind to me.

There he stood in all his glory. Holding a cigarette. Chatting with the school bad boy, Dwayne Marshall.

That guy only meant one thing: trouble.

And if you hang out with him you could only be one more thing: trouble.

Oh joy.  

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