Prologue

A little bit darker and bitchier than my previous story - this time exclusively from Alice's point of view. If I get the chance, I will update when I can from Africa - it may be a little sporadic. I apologise in advance.

My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade


AUGUST 2005


I knew who he was as soon as I entered the kitchen. I’ve seen him around at school and I think he was in my Biology class last year, but I couldn’t be certain on that last one. He was one of the hockey guys – one of the ones that Dad coached. I wondered what he was doing here, it was the last week of August and most of the team are with their billet families. Shouldn’t he be with his too?

He looked too comfortable in our kitchen as he poured himself a coke, getting ice from the machine on the refrigerator and taking a seat at the breakfast bar. He leaned back in his seat, lazily running a tanned hand through his naturally blonde hair. My eyes narrowed at the sight of him – I have never really paid attention to him before, but sitting there so arrogantly with that smug smile on his face really irked me.

“Alice, come meet Jordan,” my mom said breezily holding her glass of wine. I held out my hand politely, pretending not to know who he was. I didn’t know the name but I did know the face. Smiling back at me, he took my hand and shook it firmly as he looked at me before he took a sip of his drink.
“Nice to meet you, Alice,” he said putting an extra emphasis on the last syllable of my name. He looked me up and down before smirking into his glass. He sure knew how to make me feel inadequate, and no one makes me feel like that.

“Jordan’s billet family moved away during the summer so he’s currently homeless,” Mom went on as I made myself a drink. “So he’ll be staying with us for a week or two, until we find him a place,” she went on. “It shouldn’t be hard, he’s a nice boy.” The way my Mom said those last few words made him sound like the new boy wonder who is single handedly going to make the Petes the winning team.

Ever since we moved to Peterborough my Dad has coached the Petes, the local ice hockey junior team which might be cool if I actually liked hockey. Almost every summer at the end of August we have random players moving into one of the spare rooms. Most only stay a week or two, enough to get them settled at school and in the area before they find a host family.

It’s not a problem finding billet families – they get money for keeping them and season tickets to all of the matches - a good deal if you like hockey. However there are always one or two who have stayed a little longer : four years ago we had Mike who stayed for close to three months before he got injured and his hockey career was over. He had gone back home but we still get Christmas cards from him as we were his ‘surrogate family’.

I hope this one finds a host family soon.