Hidden Treasures Series

Chapter Four

    The following day was Thursday, and nothing interesting happened during the school day. I bumped into Ricky during lunch period, quite literally. He'd apologized and had moved away from me before I could say anything.

    The brief encounter made me wonder why I wasn't doing everything I could to get him back. After all, we'd dated for almost two years. He probably still had feelings for me. There had to be some other reason that had caused him to break up with me.

    The truth was, though, that I didn't want Ricky back. Even when he and I were dating, I'd known that I wasn't in love with him or anything. He and I had fun whenever we hung out and it had been fun, having someone to call 'my boyfriend.' But he wasn't the love of my life, or anything.

    I walked into the courtyard with my lunch tray and sat on a bench. I lowered the tray onto the bench next to me. Birds were twittering in the trees and a gentle breeze blew across the courtyard. The day was truly beautiful. It was interesting, really, how people were confined to be either traditionally or untraditionally beautiful, whereas nature was just purely beautiful. Nature was beauty.

    I was so tied up in my thoughts that I didn't realize Zander was purposely striding towards me until he was practically a foot away. He casually took a seat next to me on the bench.

    I nearly choked on my piece of sandwich. Was he trying to make Tabatha angry with me? Was that why he kept coming around?

    "It's a pretty day, isn't it?" His tone was nonchalant, as if we ate lunch together every day.

    I narrowed my eyes at him. "It is," I answered.

    "I've always loved the courtyard. It's probably the only place in this entire school where I can be myself."

    "You should be able to be yourself anywhere," I muttered, glancing around us.

    He shrugged his shoulders. "I should be able to, but I'm not. Everywhere else, I'm expected to be someone else. On the football field, I'm expected to be a wonderful athlete, the next best thing since Tom Brady. In the classroom, I'm expected to have a passion for mathematical equations and English literature, when I couldn't care less about either." He braced his hands on the back of the bench and leaned backward. "The truth is, I'd rather just sit here and exist. Appreciate what's around me. I don't know."

    "I know what you mean," I said cautiously. "We have to wear a lot of faces when we're at school."

    "It won't change when we grow up," he said. "When we're adults, we'll have jobs and we'll be forced into being someone else for eight hours each day."

    I couldn't help but stare at him. I would have never guessed that he had such deep thoughts. Word around school was that he didn't have the best grades. This side of him was one that I'd never seen before. Too stunned to speak, I simply nodded in agreement and stared at the trees.

    Several times I felt his eyes on me, but I was too chicken to look back. He was sitting next to me and he didn't care who saw us sitting together. He was talking to me like a real person, without caring about our social status or what I looked like.

    He sighed and stood up. "I guess no matter what age we are, we'll always have to perform for everyone else at some point or another."

    "We don't have to," I countered, standing up to join him. "If we wanted to, we could just be ourselves all the time. Who cares about what someone else wants us to be?"

    A faint smile touched his lips. I'd rarely seen his smile, but he had a beautiful one. "Maybe you're right," he said, backing away from me.

    I said to his retreating back, "And maybe we don't have to date the head cheerleader just because it's a popular trend for the football quarterback to date the cheerleading captain."