The Calm before the Storm

Chapter 1   I woke up to the sound of my step-mother knocking on my bedroom door, letting me know I needed to hurry or I would be late for school. Mind you this is the last day and most people skip that last day, but my friends and I wanted to stay until the very end. This is our last year of high school and I wanted to soak up as much of my last senior day as possible. Yeah I know super nerdy but whatever, I don’t care.   So to tell a little about myself, my name is Waverly Cross. I am the only child of my father James Cross and my mother Elizabeth Moore-Cross. My father owns Cross Enterprises, they specialize in security for homes and businesses. My mom died in a car accident when I was 12 years old and it was just my dad and me for 5 years. Then he met my step-mom Claire Maine, for a step-mom she is pretty great. She never pressured me into calling her mom, she has always been nice, loving and caring towards me. She had 2 kids both boys from her previous marriage, but they live with their father and only come down for the summers. Their names are Kevin La Fonte and Syler La Fonte. Claire never took her ex-husbands last name or my dad's when they married, as she is the only heir to Maine Stream Airlines owned by her Father Mr. Charles Clyde Maine. He has always wanted Claire to take over for him, and insisted she always keep Maine as her last name for the sake of the business. Ok, back to more about me. I am 5'6 and about 125 lbs. still small and skinny but I have some mussel and try my best to stay toned so that I don’t look too skinny. I have black hair and bright blue eyes, something I get from my mom. The combination is a different than most people, no one that I know has my color hair and eyes. I take pride in being unique in this way. I have lightly tanned skin, so I am not pale but if I didn’t get some sun I could be. I also have freckles that run across my nose and checks just under my eyes. Which makes my blue eyes pop, because of this I don’t normally where make up. Most of the time I use natural looking lip balm and mascara to make my eyes pop even more and a little highlight. My hair is long and stops in the middle of my back. I keep it up in a high ponytail most of time if I don’t have it down in waves.   "WAVERLY, YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE" my step-mother yells down the hallway. I can hear her going downstairs probably to finish cooking breakfast. " I am coming!" I holler back to her, as I am struggling to keep my balance putting on a pair of low cut cons. I am sure if she had opened the door she would have laughed at me trying to balance on one foot to get the stupid shoe on. Sadly I lost my balance and fell face first on my bed, thank god it wasn’t the floor. I finished getting ready and headed to the closet to grab my overnight duffle bag. My friends and I are going to stay at my family cabin about 30mins from here. It is in a remote area with a lake behind it. We have had this cabin in our family for over 100 years and I love it. We have renovated it once  due to a bad storm that did some major damage. We tried to salvage anything of the original wood but were not able to. So dad redid the cabin to look just like the original 1 story, but with an added floor to make it a 2 story. This was for extra bedrooms/bathrooms and a lounge area, when we had friends or family over. The lounge area has a pool table, and foosball table with 2 couches and a tv.   I pilled all of my stuff I was taking on the weekend trip into my duffle bag and ran out of my room, just before my step-mom could yell again. I meet her in the hallway almost knocking her over. "Geez, Waverly. You scared the crap out of me. Now that my mini heart attack is over, you're breakfast is in the kitchen on the counter. Please at least eat the toast and you are definitely going to be late for school now." I smiled sheepishly at her, " Thanks mom, I will grab the toast and a bottle of orange juice  to take with me on the way to school. Sorry for not making it down in time to eat with you." I felt bad about that, dad was away until this afternoon on a business trip. He has been gone a week and I hate that she has to eat alone. I sigh mentally at myself for not getting ready sooner. " It's ok darling, he will be home in a few hours. I think one morning without anyone is ok. We all need our alone time every now and then. Now go to school. Have a great weekend! We will see you on Monday." with that she kissed my forehead and out the door I went with my bottle of OJ and my cheese toast. I hopped into my black GMC terrain and off to school I went. The last day as a senior, the last day of high school. Man I never thought this day would get here and so fast. Feels just like yesterday I was dropped off for kindergarten. Thinking of that memory brought a smile to my face, it reminded me of my mom. How I miss that smile and her hugs. Another mental sigh and back to reality, seeing my school parking lot in the distance.   I pulled up beside Layklin and Tommy's truck, and Sloan's car on the other side. Tommy and Layklin are twins, and Sloan is like my sister. I have known her since elementary school, Tommy and Layklin moved here in our 8th grade year and we have all been friends since. They were all waiting on me as per usual. Yes, I am the last one to school, always late for everything.  "Well, look who decided to show up." Tommy says while I am getting out of my car. "As per usual, you are late again Waves! I swear it’s the last day and you're still late." this time it was Layklin giving me crap. "Gosh guys, I know I am late. I am going to be late for graduation and for my funeral. Might as well have that written on my tombstone." I sighed heavily, while making dramatic hand gestures to them all. "So if everyone is done dogging on me being late again, could we go inside and finish the day?" I said all this while walking towards the school entrance, not even looking to see if they followed me or not. Right after I walked in Sloan linked her arm into mine and stated asking about the cabin. "So about this weekend, are we really the only ones going to be there? I mean you know like no adults?" Sloan is so funny, she comes from a strict family they would never let her come if they really knew it would just be us 4 especially since Tommy is a guy. I chuckled at the look of excitement on her face to be away from her strict parents. "Yes it will be just us Sloan. Also my mom has already talked to your parents and assured them that it was supervised with adults, so they wouldn’t say no." I gave her a wink after I said the last part. My step-mom also thinks her parents are too strict. She always says if they keep it up when she goes to college, she is going to be a wild child. I couldn’t agree more, the excitement coming off of her today says it all. I should keep an eye on her this weekend just in case the wild side does decide to come out full force at the cabin.    Classes went by pretty quick, especially since they were all mostly movies and small activities to get the day over with.  I am pretty sure the teachers couldn’t wait for us to leave so they wouldn’t have to deal with us rowdy kids for the next 2 1/2 months. It was now the end of the day and we were all going to meet up in the parking lot and then head straight for the cabin. I bumped into Tommy on the way out. "Damn Waves, I could have seriously hurt you. Why are you running in the hallway?" Tommy was holding my shoulders since I lost my balance and almost fell when I bumped into Tommy. "Sorry, just really excited to get out there. You guys are going to love the cabin!" I said all this with a super huge smile looking off into the distance, like someone in a romantic movie gushing over her new love interest. "Well luckily it was me and I caught you before you fell on your ass. Also why are you looking like that? Did your crush kiss you or something?" That pulled me out of my thoughts, I looked back to Tommy. "Huh… what are talking about? And no that didn’t happen, also I don’t have a crush on anyone at this school. I was just thinking about the cabin and all the fun we are going to have!!" I said that last part with way to much excitement, smiling so big I think my cheeks would bruise. If that was even possible to do. Tommy just laughed at me, while throwing his arm around my shoulders and leading us out of school. He looked over at me, "So you don’t have a crush on anyone here at this school. So who is he and what school does he go to.? Stopping mid step I slip out of his hold and turn to glare at him. "Like seriously, that is what you ask me about? You know I don’t have a crush on anyone. We go to a school where all the guys think they are god's gift to women. Also even if I did have one, which I don’t, I wouldn’t tell you Tommy. That is my personal love life and is NO ONES business." By this time I have both my hands on my hips, glaring at him. Tommy has always liked me more than a friend but he will always be my big brother in my eyes. "Fine, geez I was just asking. Also kind of hurts you think that I am like those guys. I mean I don’t think I am god's gift to women. I know I am." Tommy gave me a smug look and threw his arm back around my shoulders again leading to rest of the gang in the parking lot.   Once we got back to our vehicles, we all stopped and took one last look at the place that had taught us so much in the last 4 years. Then again we were all happy it was over, at least high school anyway. College was a whole other can of worms all of us were excited and dreading to open. Sloan and I would be going to college after the summer break, but Layklin and Tommy both were taking the first semester off and then attending in the Spring. We were all going to attend Egon-Wright University in Washington. It was a 4 hour drive from Calypso where we live now. It was far enough we had our own lives and close enough to visit our parents. "So this is good bye, to be honest I am so glad it's over. If I had to sit through another one of Mr. Crawley's lectures I think I might kill myself." We all laughed at Sloan's dramatic statement. One thing though she was right Mr. Crawley is super monotone and makes really bad jokes, none of us have ever heard of and aren't funny. Just don’t tell that to Mr. Crawley.