Everything I Didn't Say

f o u r

FOUR

"OKAY, LET ME get this shit straight. I can't even ... comprehend what you're telling me right now. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named drove you to school and will continue to drive you to school for the next few months?" Jenna uttered, her jaw dropping in disbelief.

We were both sat at the back of our Geography class, waiting for the bell to ring signalling last period and then end of the school day. I hadn't managed to find Jenna until lunch and then we were joined by Link and I couldn't bring up Jared in front of him without having to explain who he was. So I'd had to stew in silence until sixth period which I shared with Jenna for Geography.

"He's not Voldemort, Jenna" I sighed, shoving my Geography textbook into my backpack, ready to go.

"You're the one who forbade me to ever say his name again after 'the Incident'?" her red nails made airy quotation marks in front of my face.

"Well, you can say it now if you really want."

"Fine, so Jared drove you to school?" she asked, stretching his name out long and loud to see my reaction.

I blinked at her. "You happy now?"

"No. Not really. I thought you said you wanted nothing to ever do with him again?"

"Yeah, and I meant it ... in the heat of the moment."

"Isla ..." Jenna sighed tiredly. "You weren't the one who had to take care of you after the Incident. It was me and you were - you were a freaking emotional wreck. I don't know if you can handle something like that again-"

The bell rang and we all scraped our chairs back hurriedly, getting to our feet. "All I was doing was getting out of a car Jen. It's not like that's a crime now" I said but even as I reassured her, it didn't calm the worry had begun to settle in my stomach. I wasn't going to get hurt again, was I?

No. I'd make sure I didn't.

"An older boy's car!" Jenna corrected, following me out of the door.

"Only by a year!" Oh god, why did I feel the need to defend him?

"As I recall, you were pretty torn about that small fact when you were fifteen" Jenna said meaningfully.

"Shh!" I hissed, shooting worried glances at people passing by us like we were invisible.

"They're not listening. Look, this is my class. We are continuing this conversation later Isla" she pointed at me sternly before disappearing into her calculus classroom. I watched her go before heading to my own room tiredly.

The drama block was at the very back of school, on its own separate corridor along with the auditorium. It hadn't been that big to begin with as our high school specializes in sports, rather than performing arts. We didn't even have a theatre until our teacher: Mr Bellamy threatened to sue. A huge auditorium was later added sheepishly.

Drama was by far my most favourite class. Ever since I was a little girl and my Mom took Xavier and me to New York and we managed to see Les Miserables on Broadway, I wanted to be on it. I wanted to play such an influential part as the heroines like: Fantine, Elphaba and Maria. I wanted to be a role model for little girls watching their first ever Broadway performance.

I entered my class and found a gaggle of girls (most of our class was made up of girls, there was about six or seven boys) crowded near the back of the room. Without even checking, I knew who they were swarmed around: Link, of course.

Rolling my eyes slightly, I made the decision of trying to make my way to the back to him. I settled on the idea of sitting in my normal seat instead. I didn't want to risk losing an arm or a section of my hair to the usual hormonal girls that flocked to Link.