Break the Distance

Chapter 9

Sunday, 21th of August 2016

Wellington, New Zealand

Richelle Smith's pov

I wake up from the alarm of my phone. I groan and turn it off. About to fall asleep again I get a message. '10 bucks, due date tomorrow,' I read and with it is an picture of an assignment. My eyes are hardly open since I'm basically still asleep, but I'm able to read it.

The text is from Dan, he's one of the reason why I'm able to dance. Dan lives in the same street as I. I literally know him since we were six. Wouldn't consider him a friend, just another fellow student who occasionally happens to know my name without being in any of my classes. The job I have to earn money is making others homework, not simple assignments, no those big ones when you've to write an essay.

Those ones which teachers like to give and students hate to make. Dan isn't an exception. I'm pretty sure he would rather get kicked off the football team instead of making them. Yes he's on the football team. Typical right.

I feel kind of used since he kind of knows how much I need the money. A few years back I would get a lot more for it, but since he knows I'll do it anyway because I really need the money, he gives me a lot less. Money is money and I need it all.

Actually it isn't only Dan. It's Dan and is Clan. He buys them from me and he resells them to his friends. They're with five to be exactly, but I'm pretty sure he sometimes sells them to random others too.

For a higher price than for what he bought them of course. Maybe I should just start a kind of handle with him, I don't have the connections and he doesn't has the brains.

Somewhere I don't really mind that my brain basically gets used since my dad expects me to focus on school 24/7 anyways and I just don't need so much time for my own school work, but it does really piss me off when he gives me one day to fix it, like this one. Today isn't the first day he hears about it... give me some time too.

I look at the picture and smile slightly, I can do this in my sleep. Something for biology, one of my favorite subjects.

I check the time and see that I also have some i********: notifications. It's 9 am. Last night I couldn't fall asleep and even after I put my phone away I didn't sleep for another hour.

With my eyes still half closed since I just woke up I go to i********: and see that I actually have an private message. That's kind of weird, I basically don't have any friends except for Katie and Hannah and they would just w******p me.

My jaw literally drops to the ground when I see from who it is. I instantly start to smile and my body starts to shake. 'What a beautiful quotes! Thank you so much! The last one is so true.' I read.

He actually read them. Noah Williams, a guy living on the other side of the world with a perfect life. He read my random messages. He even sent something back. I smile and get the warm feeling I was afraid for inside. A warm feeling I instantly fall in love with.

Yup, this makes me like him even more. Pure the fact that he's so kind to stranger makes me smile.

I lay in my bed imagining for a while what it would be like if we really would have a conversation. Where would we talk about? Maybe there will just be awkward silences. Those times when you both don't know what to say and then someone comes up with the excuse 'I've to eat', or something obviously not true like that.

Who knows, maybe my love for him completely disappears. Or maybe I start to love him more, while he doesn't love me at all. I just decide to send him something back, a quote of course. There's just something about quotes I love and I love to share them. Or actually, there's something with song lyrics which is so powerful. All the quotes come from song lyrics, they're way less cliché but can mean at least as much. I just love how much they say and can mean. I don't care if he sees them.

'All I want is to flip a switch before something breaks that cannot be fixed,' I send. I want to flip a switch, the switch of loving him. I don't want to love him, but I'm loving him more and more every day. There will be a day on which I'll break, I know some things just aren't supposed to happen. That day will probably be the day on which he appears somewhere with an girlfriend, I'll break down more than ever before.

I think it's safe to say that I'm afraid of my own heart, but to be honest, who isn't?

After I sent it, I take a quick shower and dress myself. On my way to the kitchen I quickly look into my dad's room, he's still asleep. The door of Brandon's room is open too, but he isn't in there, not a big surprise.

I eat some of the food I got from Katie's mom and start my homework. Well, not exactly mine, I was already done with mine before the weekend started. I'm starting with Dan's biology assignment.

It takes me almost 2 hours to finish the assignment. My dad still didn't come down, and Brandon didn't come home either. He's brother of the year, every year again.

I grab my bag and some money and go grocery shopping. Doesn't think Brandon will do it any time soon, and if nobody else is going to do it I'll do it. In the end we need food.

Normally I love helping my dad where ever I can since I want him to know that we're doing this together. I'm 17, I feel responsible, unlike my brother, but even though I love helping him, grocery shopping is one of the things I hate the most. People always look at me like I'm some kind of poor kid. Well maybe I am, but that doesn't mean they've to look at me like that.

Back home my dad is still laying in his bed. I read Dan's assignment once again to make sure I didn't make any mistakes when the door to the living room flies open and Brandon walks in. "What are you doing here?" I snap at him. Honestly he can just go, I don't see him as my brother anymore, he left us in so much s**t so many times that I just don't care about him anymore.

"I live her," he says, but I can barely hear it. He's slurring his words. "Are you drunk again?" I ask him.

"No," he says slurring those words too. Yea, he's drunk again.

I don't like it when he's drunk, he becomes aggressive and it happened before that he beat me. "Can you go?" I ask him trying to stay calm even though I'm starting to panic. "No," he says, "I'm hungry." "Dad and I already ate," I say stubborn even though I'm lying.

"I'm sure there's something for me," he says and walks to the kitchen falling against the wall a few times on his way. I stay in the living room and a good 5 minutes later he comes out of the kitchen, without food. "I told you," I say, "there's no food." "Then give me money," he says and walks slowly towards me. His eyes are widen and focused on the ground, he really has a hard time not falling against something again.

"I don't have money," I say. "I'm sure you do," he slurs. I'm not even lying, I don't have money, tomorrow I'll get 10 bucks from Dan but other than that I'm just as rich as a brick.

I see in his eyes that he's getting angry again. Not only in personality he's the opposite of me, also in how he looks. I am small and look vulnerable and he's tall and big, and when he's angry it looks like he becomes even bigger and smaller.

He has that look in his eyes which makes me feel helpless. "Give it to me!" he shouts. "I don't have it!" I say and I feel tears coming up. That's the moment where he even walks closer and his fist hits my jaw. I fall on the ground and burst into tears. Brandon turns around and walks back to the hallway. I don't dare to move until I hear him slam the door and then I let out a sigh.

My face hurts like hell. I stand up and walk to the kitchen to get something cold for on my jaw. When I see that the table in the kitchen is empty I start to cry even harder. I laid the money left from grocery shopping on the table. It was pretty much 30 bucks and now it's gone. Brandon took it.

Still crying and with the wet towel pressed against my jaw I walk back to the couch and sit down. How did my family ever end this messed up?. " Richelle," my dad yells from upstairs, "what was that noise ?"

"Oh nothing," I yell back, hopefully he doesn't hear that I'm crying. "Okay," he says, "can you be quite, I try to sleep." "So you're not going to make diner?" I ask him disappointed. It's around 8 pm by now.

"Oh eh no," he says after a little silence, "I'm sorry." I wait for him to say more, but that's it. No good night, no 'there's food in the kitchen, nothing. I don't have a chance anymore fighting against the tears.

I could easily just make myself something to eat, I'm not that bad in cooking, but I'm not hungry and my jaw hurts. I decide to go to bed and hope that tomorrow everything will be better.