Divided

- Chapter Five -

The weekend had passed and Tia had spent all of it in bed, upset about the events that she took part in on Friday. Eventually the weekend had come to an end and it was time for school on Monday.
Tia was worried about going back, not only would she have to deal with Jordie, Jamie and the other eshays... but also Tobias and Hannah.
Tia had cut contact with Hannah over the weekend, when she needed her most, she had ditched her to hang out with another friend. Tia was not okay with that.

Back to school on Monday and Tia is upset about the party – and at Hannah for ditching her! She did not feel like talking to anyone during school today, but it could never be that easy. Tia walked into school, her thoughts felt inflamed with anger by what Hannah had done to her, of course she expected this sort of thing from the eshays, but not her closest friend. 

When Tia walked into school, she noticed Hannah chatting with James. Hannah turned her attention to Tia and waved. Tia chose to ignore her and just walked straight to class. 

Tia got to class five minutes early and just sat at her desk, her hand in her hands on the table. The siren sounded shortly after, and the class began to fill with many not-so-eager to learn students. Unluckily for Tia, Jamie just so happened to be in this class, along with Tobias. 

Tia was about to learn just how much more cruel he could be. So much worse than she had initially thought. As soon as he walked into class, a malicious grin was formed onto his face, recalling the events of Friday night. Tia tried her hardest to just block out Jamie and his hostile attitude, with minimal luck. The class had all noticed what he was doing, and all of them just chose to by stand let it happen, including Tobias. 

The ridiculing comments were ongoing; and didn't stop for anything or anyone. Jamie and his mates were in a frenzy of laughter. With around fifteen minutes to go, Jamie's insults were still at bay. The teacher had mostly given up on the class and was allowing the bunch to do their own thing. 

Jamie turned to Tia, making a mockery out of the situation she had endured with Jordie.

"PLEHHH" he mimicked, as if he was pretending to spit into Tia's face. Though many of his friend's were still laughing, the rest of the class was not. 

Many knew it was too far, many were confused as they had not seen what went down. Tia could not take the cruelty anymore and rushed out of class with tears streaming down her face. Once she left to class, the eshays made a couple of unkind jokes at her extent but mostly just went back to doing their work. It had caught Tobias' attention that it was more to hurt her than it was for the entertainment of fellow peers. He tried to shake the thoughts and get back to his work, but why was he feeling bad when she did in fact show up without an invite. Was he feeling, guilt? Sympathy? Tobias wasn't one to overthink when it came to social interactions but this had caught his conscience.

Meanwhile, Tia was sitting on one of the blue benches placed around her school, she had her head in her knees, trying to camouflage the fact she was in complete and utter despair. She made sure to sit somewhere that Hannah would not think to look. 

It was recess and Tia was still dwelling in her sadness, while she was sitting there, she heard a masculine voice, "Can we have a chat?", Tia could recognise that voice whether she wanted to or not, it was Tobias. 

Tia looked up, "What do you want? To make a fucking fool out of me once again?" 

Tobias sighed, "No."

Tia fixated her gaze to the school oval which was in the distance, she did not want to visualise anything that was Tobias Cameron. Tobias could tell Tia wasn't wanting to engage in a face to face conversation so instead of continuing to test his luck by standing in front of her, he sat down beside her.

"Listen, I just wanted to apologise for kicking you out."

Tia was caught off guard, did Tobias just say sorry? She turned herself to face him,

"You're sorry?"

"I'm not going to say it twice."

"What made you realise?" Tia asked him, not expecting a genuine answer.

"I get that what Jordie did at the party was fucked up, but Jamie trying to re-enact it was just untame! I wasn't sure what to do at the time besides get you to leave, I didn't want drama at the party, but the fact they kept going on about it, clearly you aren't the one at fault."

Tia's heart skipped a beat, platonically of course. She never had received an apology for the undomesticated acts that the eshays committed, let alone from Tobias. 

"Thank you for apologising" Tia said, a small smile forming across her cheeks, "It means a lot to me."

"I'm just doing what I think is right" Tobias insisted.

The two made small talk for a little while, much to Tia's disbelief. She had never seen this side to Tobias before and she was slightly adamant to accept it.