Strong

Chapter Eight

Maria smiles, "Lexi is my best friend who also happens to be the class rep."

"Why would she be here this early?" He questions.

"Since she's the class rep. she has to organize all the activities for our grade. I'm usually here to help her," Maria answers.

"Ah, I see," Alex says.

"Yea," Maria replies, not knowing what else to say.

Suddenly, Maria cringes in pain and lifts her left hand, which is now covered in fresh blood.

"Ah, ow," she whispers.

"Oh my God what happened?" Alex asks concerned.

"I must've reopened this wound," she says half to herself, half to Alex.

"Well are you alright?" He asks while gently taking her hand to inspect it.

"Probably not."

"What do we do?"

"Well, I'm going to the girl's bathroom to clean up," Maria says while attempting to climb down.

She carefully sets her foot on the branch directly below the top most one that they had been sitting on moments ago. Maria hears a faint hum in the background.

Suddenly, her foot slips. As Maria slips through multiple branches, hitting her back on most, the only noise she could make was a gasp.

"MARIA!" Alex screams.

Maria can only see the faint outline of Alex's body as he drops to the below branch, trying to catch her before she hits the bottom.

She lets a scream escape her lips as a branch scrapes her face.

Alex jumps from his branch and reaches towards Maria's outstretched hand.

Their fingers brush against each other, but gravity had Maria by the ankle.

She crashed through a canopy of leaves and the only thing Alex could hear after that was a thud, and then silence.

***************************************

"Maria?" Alex asks waving his hand in front her face, "You okay?"

Maria snaps back to reality.

"What was that?" Maria gasps.

Alex drops his hand and asks confused, "What was what?"

"I...I just fell," she stutters.

"No...you've been sitting next to me the whole time, and suddenly you just went quiet," he says slowly.

Maria has a puzzled look one her face when she says, "But...it seemed so...real."

"Does this happen often?"

"No, this is the first time."

"If it happens again, let me know. I might know what's going on," Alex says.

"What do you think is happening?" Maria asks still confused.

"I don't want to say anything until I know for sure," he answers, "but on a different subject, we better get your hand cleaned up."

Maria slowly looks at her hand, as if she forgot it hurt, "Yea, but can you help me down, just in case I do fall."

"Yea sure," he says.

Alex takes Maria's hand and guides her the whole way down.

Maria says nothing the whole time, she was too busy shaking.

***************************************

"Where did you get that cut from anyways?" Alex asks.

Maria stands over the sink in the girls's bathroom washing off the blood as Alex stands and watches.

Silence.

"Is this one of your secrets?"

Maria continues to ignore him.

"C'mon at least tell me a lie," he says.

"Okay fine, I don't remember where I got it from," Maria answers, following his instructions to "at least tell him a lie."

"Worst lie ever 2015," Alex sighs.

"It's a large paper cut."

"You can do better then that."

"I slipped holding a knife."

"Okay that I might believe," he says.

Maria sighs and turns off the water coming out of the faucet.

As she is grabbing a paper towel, she turns to him and asks, "Why are you in the girl's bathroom again?"

"Free country," he replies simply, "plus school hasn't started yet so I don't need to worry about getting "caught" doing something "wrong" or something."

Maria laughs and throws the paper towel away, "Mm yes, but teachers are here this early."

His facial expression doesn't change as he says, "So? There is a very small chance one will happen to walk past as I walk outta here."

"Well I guess we will see soon," she says while opening the bathroom door and exiting into the hallway, Alex following shortly after.

Alex was right, the hallway is completely empty.

The clock hanging above the bathroom door reads 8:22 AM.

"Schools going to start in around forty-five minutes, whatcha wanna do?" Alex asks leaning against the wall, facing towards Maria.

She looks down, letting her wavy brown hair fall off her shoulders and hang limply beside her cheeks, and for the first time in a while, she smiles.