Heart's Games

Heart's Games| Chapter 20: Case Has Been Closed

Chapter 20: Case Has Been Closed

The bell rang. Students shouts began to give life to the corridor. I stood up, not really focusing on the steps I took.

Heart's beats...heart's beats.

That was all I could think about. My head was aching a bit.  I was killing myself: wondering, thinking, trying...that would be the death of me. Maybe the lyrics were coming out more naturally this time, but trust me when I tell you they weren't my worries at that moment.

I kept on giving steps. I had lost Jerome, Fanny, Claire and Grace somewhere in the crowd of people. Tyler Stevens wasn't following me. Everything was odd. I felt lost. Even more lost than I did the day I got here. People's chatters echoed through my head. Looks could fool you. Lorena Adams looked so happy. She gave away that award-winning smile like if everything was perfect in her life. But was it?

"Katherine!" Tommy's voice was suddenly all I focused on. He had a hand holding the sling of his backpack and the other waving goodbye to one of his friends. "Is everything alright? We haven't exactly talked."

I smiled at him, finding my balance once again. "Things are going alright, Tommy. There's no need for you to worry."

"I was just...I was...confused," he said, scratching the back of his neck. I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"Confused about?"

"It's just that...I was wondering about the note we found that night. The night of the Star Jam. What did it mean? Who wrote it? Was it just a coincidence with everything that happened?" He looked like if he were almost too afraid to ask, but he found that ounce of courage to ask it anyway.

I didn't know what to answer. I couldn't lie to Tommy. Well, I could, but lies were all that had been my defense lately, and I didn't feel like if I had to defend myself from Tommy. "Don't you trust me?" I asked, a hint of offense in my tone.

"I do!" he quickly budged. "But I was just...I was...I was just wondering, you know? Everyone has the right to wonder."

And if Tommy thought like this about me, I didn't want to know what other people thought.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Seriously, Jerome. It worries me," I added once I finished telling theentire Tommy story.

We were sitting by the lunch table, eating the spaghetti, but I didn't even know where I was standing.

"You can't blame anyone, Kate," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"You have no idea what I thought about you when we first met. You look so different...so mysterious," he said, squinting as if to study me.

"Excuse me?" I scoffed.

"You're a suspicious looking girl, Katherine. And everyone sees that."

It didn't take time for the comment to dawn on me. It just took reason. What was there about me that was so suspicious? Big brown eyes? Thick lips? Boring and normal brown hair? There was literally nothing I could see. But maybe they all saw big brown eyes that had spent their night letting all the tears out. They saw thick lips that had to testify a crime and had been used countless times to lie. Maybe they saw the brown hair that was pulled every time I went through a panic attack, like if it would have actually made a difference.

"You already know what I hide, Jerome,"  was all I could reply. He cocked a brow.

"Do I?"

If I would have had an answer to that question, I wouldn't have said it, because the girls came right that instant. Which was okay with me, because I didn't.