Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter 14

The school weeks rolled on, life at home became more different than ever. The atmosphere at school definitely changed as well. The student body kept their mouths shut about Zach ever since Tyson made that comment in class. I guess word got around pretty quickly about what happened. What else, Christmas was nearing.

There was a week left until December 25th, but everything at school made it seem like Christmas was tomorrow. Booming through the hallway speakers were festive Christmas carols, teachers were giving out candy canes, some of the students even sported their ugly Christmas sweaters as an annual activity. Lakewood High always seemed to be a different world, stranger than the other district schools. Every teacher - as usual - was being extremely friendly, even some of the more bitchy students, especially to the people they hated. It's like they had been brainwashed. Either they were planning a typical holiday prank, or they were getting in the holiday spirit. Either way, it didn't effect me.

The first morning bell rang - a dreadful noise - signaling that it was almost time for class. As I walked to my locker, I thought to myself, "Oh yay, history..." I walked past a few guy friends who were sitting on a bench. I waved at them all, smiling. I was happy to get the same reaction from them. I reached my locker, number 150, and began to spin the lock. I thought the numbers in my head as I turned the lock. 31...5...27. I popped the lock open successfully on the first try.

I grabbed my binder from the bottom of my locker, slammed the door shut - something I did occasionally - locked it, and walked down the hall to class. Dropping my binder on the table, I still had a few minutes, so I walked back out into the hall. I sat down on one of the hall benches with my friends Trisha, Britney, Serena and Ella. We sat and talked for a few minutes when the final bell rang. We all left for class. Me Trisha and Britney were in the same class, and we took our assigned seats. After the announcements and the national anthem ended, Mr. Mill began. "So today we continue our talk on the Great War..." I could already feel myself falling asleep...

After surviving through a boring seventy five minutes of history, and then another seventy five minutes of math, lunch time came. I walked over to Serena, standing at her locker, putting away her binder.

"Hey, I got ten bucks, wanna get some Chinese food?"

"Sure, just one second. Can you hold this?" Serena asked, handing me her jacket. While I held that, she dug around in her bag, searching for her wallet.

I gazed down the hallway absentmindedly, without noticing what I was doing, when I noticed two people yelling. One of them was Trisha, the other, a person in a black hoodie.

"'Not again...can I just have one normal day?" I muttered to myself, walking down the hall toward the argument.

"Look, I don't know where Abbie is!" Trisha yelled. I stopped when she said my name, all the while trying to get a look at the person's face, without scaring them away.

In a flash, Mariah - because I knew it was her - lashed out, and screamed, "Don't hide it Trisha! You know damn well where she is!" And she grabbed Trisha's arm, hard. That's when I ran toward them, yelling. "Hey! What the hell!" I grabbed Mariah's shoulder, turning her to face me. Her face was screwed up in anger, and she glared at me. Before I could dodge her, she punched me in the face.