Trust -|- An Elmax Story

II

Eleven

I turn around to see Angela, my other enemy. She's worse than Max, but that's only because she says mean things to me, which Max does not.

"Hey, Angela," Will says in a shaky voice. I could tell he was trying to sound strong. He steps out in front of me to protect me.

"Hi, Zombie Boy," Angela snarkily says back. I saw that Will was taken aback by that. It has been a while since someone has called him that.

"What the hell do you want?!" I scream at her.

"The baby of the family is learning her first words? How cute," she says. That hurt inside. I slowly felt tears forming.

"Don't let her words get to you," Will whispers to me.

"Leave them alone, bitch," a voice says from behind Angela. Angela turns around quickly to see Max.

"If it isn't the new girl. Were you adopted into this loser family, too?" she says to the redhead.

"Maybe they are my family. That doesn't matter. Now leave."

"Are you actually defending them?" Angela laughs at her. The next thing I saw was Max punch Angela across the face. Both mine and Will's jaws dropped. We could not believe what we just saw.

By then we had a whole crowd watching. Someone from the crowd yelled that a teacher was coming. Everyone scattered like a colony of ants. I heard steps getting closer by the second.

"Hey! What's going on here?" Mrs. Click asks in an angry tone. I turn around to see that she looks pissed.

"Max hit me!" Angela wailed.

"Alright. Go to the principal's office, Max, Angela, Will, and Jane," Mrs. Click sighs.

"Yes ma'am," Will and I both say simultaneously. I hear Max groaning behind me.

We all started walking to the office together. Max comes up next to me. I look away from her and try to ignore her.

"You and Will shouldn't have to go. You guys didn't do anything," Max says to me.

"Thanks to you, we were sent, too," I mumble back. I look over at Max. We make eye contact. Now that we're next to each other, I notice her eyes look more like sapphires than the ocean. There was a moment when it felt as if we had known each other for years.

"You just going to keep staring at me?" Max asks in a sarcastic way. I felt myself blush and looked down at the floor.

We finally made it the office, and we all walked in.

"Hello, Maxine, William, Angela, and Jane. I heard you guys were coming in today. What's up?" The principal, Mr. Cole, says. We all stand there in an awkward silence.

"Will and Jane were walking to their next class, and Angela started making fun of them. I heard it all and it made me angry that she was bullying my friends, so I told her to leave. She wouldn't leave and started bullying me, so I hit her," Max explains.

"Is this true, Angela?" Mr. Cole asks her sternly.

"No, she's lying to you. Jane, Will, and I are best friends. Isn't that right guys?" Angela asks us in an innocent voice.

"No. You were bullying us," Will states.

"Jane?" Mr. Cole questions me. I don't know what I should say. I want Angela to be in trouble but, I also want Max to be in trouble. Although Max did defend Will and me.

"M-Max is telling the truth," I finally manage to say.

"Angela and Max, you two will have to stay after school and clean the school for two weeks. Max, you'll have to stay in detention for a week after that. Will and Jane, you two don't have a punishment, but if you'd like to help Max and Angela get done with this sooner, you may help them," Mr. Cole decided as the punishment.

"Yes, sir," I say before walking out of there, not waiting for anyone else. I let my feet take me wherever they wanted. I find myself outside of school. I sit down crisscrossed, letting the cool breeze whoosh through my short hair.

I've always liked the outdoors. It's so peaceful and calming. The endless sky is always saying something to you through the clouds or stars. The trees loom around, storing a home for wildlife and giving us air to breathe. The wind is like a whistle, singing hellos.

I looked up at the sky. It was a very cloudy day outside, as usual. I like to think of it as the clouds saying hi every day. I smiled at them.

I hear the door squeak open. I look over and see the brunette bowl cut boy. He sits down next to me without saying anything. His brown bowl cut sways a little in the wind and his brown eyes shimmer. He looks majestic.

"Hey, bowl cut," I say to him.

"Hi, El," he responds.

"What brings you out here?" I ask.

"Ms. Owens wants you back in class."

"Yeah, I guess I have to go back to class, huh?"

"Or we could just stay out here until history starts?" Will looks down at his watch. "It's 11:54," he adds.

"Yeah, let's just wait for history." We sit in silence, waiting for six minutes to pass. I look up at the sky and notice that a lot of the clouds have left. The sun is out and shining now. Mike is like a ray of sunshine in my life. He's always there for me.

"Hey, Will?" I say, out of the blue.

"Yes?" he asks.

"Do you like anyone?" For a second, he almost looked stunned after that question.

"I do, but I don't want to talk about it. Sorry."

"Alright. That's fine."

We go back into silence. Not an awkward silence, though. It was a comfortable one. After a few minutes, Will checks his watch again.

"It's 11:59. We should go to class now," he tells me. He gets up and offers his hand to help me up.

"Alright," I say, taking his hand. He is much taller than me, being 5'9 while I'm 5'4.

We walk inside together, heading to history. We were almost there, but we bumped into a familiar face on our way there.

"Hey, watch where- oh, sorry, didn't realize it was you two," they say.