Healing Myself

Precious

It's lunch period and the school cafeteria is completely rushed. It was a good idea that we had already planned sitting out in the courtyard when we came in this morning. It was open and we could keep an eye out from here.

I was sitting between Gabriel and Luke on the bench. We were sitting pretty close as the bench was small, both of their long hair brushing my shoulders on either side.

From what I'd gathered in our first half here at school, which was unsurprisingly uneducating for me, the guys wanted me flanked on all sides at all times.

I was surprised one of them wasn't standing like a sentinel behind me right now. But as the rest of the guys sat around on the grass in front of us in a circle of sorts, making it our own sanctuary, they clearly had a view of what was happening at my back as well.

"Here," I passed out the two containers that contained the sandwiches I'd made this morning after taking one for myself.

"When did you have time to make these, Aggele?" Silas asked with curious brown eyes as he chomped down on one, passing the container to Victor.

Once I woke up from my latest trip of personal hell, which consisted of my late stepmother taunting me with all the ways I had been the one to kill my love, my automatic reaction was to busy myself so I could forget about it. Obviously, I couldn't tell the boys that, so I said the next best thing,

"I woke up early and then couldn't go back to sleep. So I figured I'd make us some lunch."

"Although you didn't have to, thank you for this. I'm not sure how long we would've had to wait for food with those vending machines." Kota adds like the gentleman he is.

"It's no big deal." I try to wave it off but then the rest of the guys are thanking me for lunch as well.

Don't blush. Don't blush. Don't blush.

I try to take the conversation a different route. "Back at Palm Springs, I used to make food for a lot of people. The football team used to sneak from my lunch so overtime I just started making a whole lot more so everyone could eat in peace."

"You were close with their football team?" Nathan asks. He doesn't seem happy with the notion.

"Yeah. I was. Everyone's really nice there." I added the last bit so he'd know they weren't like the kids here.

No sooner had I finished what I was saying, that a voice called out, "Is that you, Rocky's girl?"

I whip my head around to see none other than Rockford, or as he likes to call himself-quite literally-Rocky.

"Hi, Rocky. I didn't know you'd enrolled here." I said as I gave him a smile.

Flashback time. Yay.

It's my first day at school and I'm sitting close to the corner of the cafeteria with Leon and Dylan on each side of me during lunch period. I don't think they usually sat in the corner, especially not with Leon's personality, but I was happy that they did so today for my sake. I'd thank them with muffins later.

Someone was poking me in my side repeatedly and I looked toward my right to see Leon practically jumping out of his seat. "How's it been so far? Do you like it? Do I need to beat someone up?" He looked awfully delighted as he finished the last question.

I looked at Dylan for a moment and only saw encouragement in his eyes. So I told them both.

About how nice the teachers were. How I understood everything they taught. How the height of the desks made me feel like a little person. To which, Leon had ruffled my hair and replied, "You are a little person, Pixie."