Is Life This Hard? by Taylor Schwickrath (best beach reads txt) 📕

Chapter 1
Stop thinking.


Emily Bronze speed-walked towards math class, her first period, holding two binders in her hands. Comparing her complicated life with her school life, 9th grade wasn't all that easy. Neither was her life at home. Not to mention her father that never came home last night. Sending two text messages to your dad didn't really help Emily know all the information that she needed to. And while Grandma was out shopping, and her Grandpa working hard on the night shift left Emily and her older 17 year old brother Steven all alone at home wondering where their father might be. Emily was already worried enough about her up-coming math test due the following day, which is now today. Math would have to be her worst possible subject, that neither her or her brother could find out. With Emily's mother passing away when she was only six years of age from a drunk driver, she didn't really have anybody to count on, other than her brother. Emily didn't really rely on her father, knowing that he couldn't do much you know, besides staying out all night and coming home drunk.
The bell rang as soon as Emily sat down in the hard, navy blue seat, along with the white and silver desk attached. She set her binders near her black backpack next to the desk. Mr. Hennings, her math teacher, sprung up from his blue cushioned rolly chair, and began to write equations on the large white board. Emily didn't pay attention though, because her focus was on the vibrating cell phone in her back pocket. She waited until Mr. Hennings stopped staring at her suspiciousness, and she quickly took her phone out, and looked at her text message. It was from her boyfriend, Scott. He told her to look out the classroom window. She did as told, and looked out of the large window on the right hand side of the classroom. There was Scott, waving at her uncontrollably, and then disappearing as Mr. Hennings and the other students started to look over at what the distraction was. Emily quickly put her phone in her backpack and pretended to care what Mr. Hennings had to say.
While Mr. Hennings was speaking, Emily started to think. Things between her and Scott have been going good, until Michelle Harbor got in the way. Scott didn't cheat, and they didn't break up, but Michelle was just getting in the way of everything that they had plans on doing. But she really couldn't blame it on Michelle, because her and Scott have been close friends since 7th grade. But that didn't mean that they had to talk ALL THE TIME. They were probably hanging out RIGHT now, since they both decided to skip school today because "they are sick" and "can barley walk straight." He would OBVIOUSLY want to spend time with her, rather than just waiting 7 hours for "the love of his life."
Emily wasn't really jealous of Michelle, but you have to admit, if you're boyfriend would rather hang out with someone else than you... you'd be pretty pissed. And like Emily didn't have enough to worry about. She was the only person that knew what Steven was actually doing tonight, and not staying at a friends house. He was out buying drugs. With his new gang...There wasn't much that Emily new about gangs but that they were not very good news. She was incredibly worried about the consequences that Steven probably would have to pay if anyone found out what kind of trouble that he gets into almost everyday. But at least Steven is there for her unlike somebody she knows.
By the time that Emily was done thinking about her problems, it was almost time for the period to end. Mr. Hennings was still talking, and the other students were still not paying attention, and the boys were still texting Emily like crazy asking if her and Scott and her were still together. "Yes!" she kept replying, and "Aww, man." they kept saying back.
Knowing that Emily was probably the most popular and pretty girl in King High School, she wasn't surprised that every boy was dissapointed to know that she was still unavailable. But, she couldn't blame them thinking that they weren't together after the huge fight they had over the weekend on facebook, then soon on the phone. First, it wasn't that big of a deal, but then Scott just made everything worse. He just kept bringing it up, and bringing it up.
The bell rang, and it was time to leave this stupid classroom, and meet one of her best friends, Katherine Hummel at their lockers.
"Hey. Math boring again?" Katherine laughed as Emily walked up to her. "YES!" Emily replied. "But at least I entertained myself by thinking about what happened during the weekend."
"What?" she asked.
"Well...it's really a long story, but I guess I'll share." Katherine nodded, and let Emily begin.
"So, i was talking to Marcus, my ex, on facebook, and then Scott found out and asked me why I was talking to him and I said because I wanted to...I guess I had an attitude with him, but then he got like really serious. I could tell that he was starting to get jealous, and I just ignored him because he was making a big deal out of nothing and I got mad because he was getting mad at me for talking to him, when it wasn't anything. He's obviously just a friend becuase I broke up with him. Not the other way around. So, me and Marcus stopped talking and then me and Scott started having a fight on facebook, then I called him and then it started getting worse..."
"Well...what did you guys say?" Katherine asked.
"Okay...well...I started to say that it wasn't a big deal, and then we started argueing about it. But after a long pause, he said he was sorry."
"So, you guys are cool now, right?" Katherine asked, twirling her long, dark brown hair.
"Yeah...but he skipped school today. With MICHELLE."
"That one girl I see him hang out with all the time?"
"YEAH!" Emily said, getting upset. "They've been friends for like 2 years, but that shouldn't matter. They hang out WAY more than we do."
"Have you talked to him about it?" Katherine looked concerned while she put a couple books in her locker.
"Well...yeah, but he hasn't really taken it to heart. Like, he just brushed it off his shoulder." Emily put up her straight, long dirty blonde hair into a ponytail, and gathered her books for her next class.
"Oh...then you should talk to him about it again, im sure if you keep bugging him about it, he MIGHT listen to you."
"Yeah..." Emily wondered off into her own world, wondering about what Scott and Michelle might be doing.
"And he REALLY should understand from his over-reaction about Marcus. That's just stupid what he did." Katherine turned to face Emily. "Just talk to him. If he really loved you...he'd listen. Hey, I gotta get to class. Bye." Katherine and Emily hugged, and went off to their next class.


Chapter 2
Questions, questions.


By the time the day was over, Emily had gotten a total of 23 text messages from boys all around school. But they didn't know all the stuff that she was going through, or else they'd cut her some slack and just LEAVE her alone.
Her and her long-time close friend, Riley Homes were walking home together today, and thank GOD that Emily had something fun to look forward to. Emily felt something in her back pocket, and it was her Rouge phone vibrating. It was a call from Riley. "Hey." Emily answered.
"Hey. Meet me by the parking lot, kay?" Riley's voice chimed.
"Kay. Meet you there." They hung up, and Emily made her way to the King High School parking lot.
When she got there, she saw Riley over by a small black car, leaning against the wall.
"Hey!" Emily called. Riley saw and came walking fast towards her. Once they met up, Riley pulled out her phone and texted Emily and Riley's other friend, Crystal Roads, that they were on their way. Crystal's mom took her to Riley's house, while Emily and Riley decided to walk.
"So. You and Scott are good?" Riley asked.
"Ugh. I sware if I hear ONE more thing about Scott, I'm going to start pulling my hair out."
"Well, better start now, darling, you know everone's going to be asking. You two are like...the CUTEST couple. I don't get why you guys fight so much." Riley responded without recieving an answer about Scott.
"Well. It's not really fighting...just jealousy and arguing a lot." Emily started playing with her brown belt attatched to her light washed skinnies.
"And that's good? That isn't any different. I mean...don't you think you guys should just TALK about it together, instead of just fighting about it, and then forgiving each other?" Rileys wavy, dark red hair blew in the wind as they were walking across the 4-way stop sign, hoping not to get run over.
"Yeah.." Emily finally answered. "I guess..."
There was an akward pause, but thankfully after about 5 minutes, they reached the awesome, beautiful, 2-story brick house while just at the right time, Crystal walked out. "HEY!" she screamed, and ran across the porch onto the grass, and tackled Emily and Riley. "Hey!" they screamed back.
They all went inside, and went upstairs to Rileys large bedroom. Riley was sitting criss-crossed on her pink polka-dot bed texting, while Emily and Crystal were sitting on the floor, talking about the math test Emily took today. "I just realized that we actually didn't take it today." Emily laughed. "I was basically just daydreaming the whole time!"
"Oh. Well WE took a test in my math class. You lucky, lucky girl. I heard that we're taking the same test...it was pretty easy, though." Crystal spoke.
"Oh. Coool..."
"Hahaha, 'cool.' Soooo..." Crystal looked around. "I kinda wanna go swimming. How 'bout you guys?" Crystal looked at Riley, and Riley shrugged, then she looked at Emily and she said, "Sure, you have a baithing suit I can borrow?" she asked Riley.
"Yeah, sure, I have a blue one." she got up off the bed, and walked over to her white dresser, and pulled out a blue polka dot baithing suit. "Here." Riley tossed it to Emily, and Emily caught it.
"Oh, you and your polka dots."
"I like polka dots, okay?" They all giggled, and Crystal got up, and took a baithing suit out of Riley's dresser, along with Riley, and headed towards the bathrooms.


"Kay, here we go." Riley shouted to Emily and Riley.
"One!" Emily said.
"Two!" Crystal followed.
"Three!" they all said together, as they plunged towards the ginormous pool, splashing cool water all acoross the screen enclosers covering the pool area. They all giggled, and swam over to the shallow steps on the other end of the pool.
Emily heard a knock and turned her head quickly around, and saw Riley's mom, Marie. Emily softened.
"Hey, girls.