The Real Me ☾| Zalfie |

Chapter 8.

Zoe://

After about 5 mins of walking, with our hands still joined, and chatting about school and our childhood, we finally came to a huge oak tree at the back of the woods.
He smiled at me and pointed up. I did as instructed and stared up towards the top of the giant tree.
Infront of us was a small tree house, right at the very top. It had a decking on the outside and a small window.
"Alfie, are we going up there?" I whispered,
"Yeahhh" he grinned,
"And... How are we going to do that?" I smiled,
"Up the ladder of course" and with that he started to run round the other side of the tree and, obviously, I followed.
It had stopped raining by now but we were freezing, soaking wet and desperate to be in the warm.
So I began to stumble up the wobbly old ladder.
******
After about 20 mins of me trying to climb up the ladder, we both flopped onto the wooden decking at the front of the tree house.
We both just later there, out of breath from climbing up the wobbly ladder. He turned towards me and grinned. I automatically grinned back.
I felt so safe with Alfie. He knew about the real me, and I trusted him with my secret. Every time he smiled at me, or just looked at me, I felt butterflies inside.
"Zoe?" He questioned,
"huh... Yeah... What? ... Sorry!" I muttered,
"You just completely zoned out!" He laughed,
"Sorry" I giggled softly,
I suddenly felt a drop on my nose and immediately twitched my head to the side and another one fell into my ear.
"Quick" he gasped, grabbed my arm and pulled me into the cosy room.
It was about 3 meters long and had about 6 fluffy brown beanbags at the back. It had a beige carpet floor and it had a window on the side where you could look out and see the whole forest that we spent so long walking through. On the right hand side, opposite to the window, there was a small cooler bag and another storage bag next to it, food, I'm guessing?
"Do you like my pad?" Alfie grinned at me.
"Your pad" I laughed, "yeah, I do as it happens, I love it!" I smiled back at him.
"Good, take a seat!" He smirked, pointing to the beanbags.
"Okay..."
I sat down and stared at the wall infront of me which surrounded the door.
Every single gap in the wall was filled with Polaroid pictures of graffiti and cities. I gasped, "Alfie, wow".
"Oh so you like these do you?" He smirked, looking proud of himself that he'd impressed me.
"I loveeee them" I whispered as I studied every single picture.
"What types of Polaroid pictures do you take?" He questioned.
He obviously noticed the camera around my neck.
"Cute scenery, old villages, flowers and things" I spoke, whilst still staring at the photographs.
"Your so different to when your at school zoë"
I creased up my face as I knew that he knew my secret self now.
"It's alright, you clearly act different at school" he guessed,
"My sister, she told me and my brother Joe to be popular otherwise you would get bullied and life would be hell so we stuck to it, but she's in Bristol now with her boyfriend."
"Being unpopular isn't too bad you know! But it's okay I won't tell anyone."
"Thank you" I smiled,
"One question zoe"
"Go for it" i cheekily replyed,
"Am I allowed to talk to you at school?"
"Alfie..."
"It's okay, just meet me here after school or at the library" he questioned,
"Okay" I replied, I felt incredibly bad but it's true. If he knew what it was like, being popular, he would never have even asked. But he didn't and I couldn't help that.