How To Save A Life

2. between the lines

Some sort of window to your right
When she goes left and you stay right
Between the lines, of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came
__

"You're kidding!" Cassie laughed and grew her head back at the funny story, not trying to hide her amusement.

"I wish I was," Matt chuckled, eating another spoonful of his ice cream. "But I swear to god, it was -4 degrees, he was butt naked and the old lady threw the rock straight at him!"

The pair burst out laughing once again, the tale getting funnier with each second they thought about it. The ice cream parlour was empty, but that made sense considering school hadn't finished yet.

Both of the teenagers had a free period, so Matt offered to drive them into the city and buy ice cream so they could talk again in a... Happier environment.

Cassie had become less defensive over the past few days, and neither of them had brought up the fight at the coffee shop. It wasn't worth ending a possible friendship.

The two were sharing old stories from their childhoods and talking about weird incidents that happened at parties or just on ordinary days. Of course, Matthew was the only one who went out to parties and did crazy things so it was mainly just him talking and amusing his new friend.

Cassie ran a hand through her blonde hair as a familiar ringtone blared out. She sighed and answered it, not wanting to end the conversation she was enjoying.

"Mom? What's u-"

Shouting could be heard from the other side of the phone, and Matt felt uncomfortable as he watched the girl's face go from excited to upset and disappointed. He could roughly make out words coming from the phone:

"School called"

"Skip class"

"Late"

"Detention"

Confused, he checked the time on his watch - 2:35pm. Matt let out a groan when he realised that they had lost track of time, and free period ended over half an hour ago. There was an important English test for him at 2pm, and Cassie probably had an important class too.

The small girl wiped a tear from her eye as she hung up the phone and rushed to pack their things away. She threw the half-eaten ice cream in the trash and waited for Matt to do the same.

The car ride back to school was silent, and it hit Matt that even though his parents wouldn't be too mad, this wasn't a normal thing for Cassie to do. Her parents probably expected more, and he doubted she had ever missed a class before, let alone leave school to get ice cream with a strange boy.

"Look, I'm sorry." He broke the silence and glanced over at the fragile girl in the passenger seat. "I'll explain everything to school, even your mom and dad if I have to. This was my fault."

She simply frowned and looked down at her lap. Her hands we shaking and Cassie struggled to calm her voice and stop tears from pouring down her cheeks. "No it's not, it's my fault. I-I shouldn't have come, it was a stupid idea." Her voice shook. "I'm so stup-"

"Stop that! Don't put yourself down over a mistake that we both made. It's gonna be fine, kids skip classes all the time."

As the car pulled into the school parking lot, it had barely stopped before Cassie had jumped out and ran towards the building. The boy sat inside and watched her go in, angry that he had got her into trouble again.

"Fuck, I messed up." He whispered to himself and walked out of the parking lot and into school to finally get his punishment.

******

Not edited/proof-read, also I'm writing this at 10pm in about fifteen minutes so I know it's probably terrible! My stupid ipad decided to update and I lost all of my notes, so my chapters got deleted :/