FicWad

2.

Aoife woke that morning to find her parents silent listening to the radio their faces consumed by a deep grey fear and worry. Aoife’s little brother Jamie was busy making a toast fort for his scrambled eggs. Aoife sat by her parents “what’s wrong?” she asked in low tones (she had a feeling this conversation wasn’t suitable for Jamie’s ears). Her mother turned to her and almost inaudibly explained that “that nice Laura Naughton girl” had gone missing. Aoife snorted. “Nice” was an interesting adjective to attach to Laura Naughton but she decided not to open that Pandora’s Box with her parents. Chances were Laura was on an acid trip with one of her scumbag boyfriends in the woods so concern didn’t exactly overcome Aoife but she said nothing. She simply nodded sombrely picked up an apple and her school bag and headed for the door.

Another day in single sex catholic hell lay ahead of her as she walked the 5 minutes down the road to her nun run secondary school. Maybe with the Anti Christ gone AWOL..... Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad she thought. Not bloody likely shouted the angry voice of realism in the back of her mind. The day past in a blur of insults from all remaining angles and mind numbing school work. The most unfortunate thing about Aoife’s life in St. Christine’s was none of her incredible friends had been sentenced to life in this shithole. They all went to the mixed school over the road while she was trapped in what her parents considered a “more suitable learning environment”.

Well that was a joke if they thought that constant abuse was less distracting than boys and hormones they were cataclysmically wrong. Plus even if they were worried about boys it wasn’t like any boys ever really paid attention to Aoife well except for Sean... and she was pretty sure she had built that up into something it wasn’t in her head. They were friends yes but she was friends with people like Daithi and he looked at her like he looked at his mother, all the guys looked at her that way but something she thought she saw in Sean’s eyes was different. Something that resembled the love she felt for him but then again she had a pretty wild imagination. No matter what she and Sean meant to each other she knew one thing for certain: He’d be in the woods after school waiting for her to sit down beside him and that was really all she needed to know. If he was waiting there with some roses and a vow of eternal love well then she wouldn’t complain but it was more likely that she’s morph into a shark than have Sean throw himself at her.

Not that she was unattractive (contrary to what she might have been told in school on all too regular basis). She had deep blue eyes which were close to black in some lights, her skin was lightly tan and fundamentally flawless her hair hung in loose waves around her face, sandy brown and brushed to within an inch of its life. She was small with surprisingly long legs built like a catwalk model with no visible curves and dusky pink lips. Ask anyone outside of her ignorant little town to describe her and the reply would have been stunning but Aoife didn’t see it and everyone else had been brainwashed not to. As Aoife walked steadily out of the school fighting back tears from another day she pushed her mind away from thoughts of the day’s insults: Mutant. Freak. Loser. Lesbian. Emo. Bitch and onto thoughts of her time with Sean in the woods. She reached the edge of the forest and ploughed straight through the gaps in the trees. Her docs may be considered clunky but they made the forest walks a lot easier. The calf length skirt however caused some minor issues, but before she knew it Aoife caught sight of the tree. Their tree. The tree where a few short years ago she had met Sean for the very first time and where they had been coming ever since.