The Wallflower of Parkview High

Chapter Forty Six

The next few days were probably the longest ones in my life. Minutes seemed like months, hours seemed like years and the whole day seemed to take ten centuries.

"Ughhhh..." I groaned, burying my face in my hands; Alicia turned to look at me.

"You alright?" she asked and I made a small noise in response.

"I don't know..." I murmured.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I-It's..." I started to say but trailed off. Would she want to hear about Zander right now? If I told her how worried I was for him, would she get angry and abandon me? After all, she and Zander weren't exactly on friendly terms with each other. But then again, they didn't hate each other...

"Noah, are you okay?" Alicia asked, "Do you want me to take you to the nurse?"

"No!" I gasped and she raised her eyebrows. I sighed and averted my eyes from her gaze, instead looking at the ground.

"I-It's about, um, it's about, Z-Zander." I finally said. Alicia was silent and I internally debated running away from her and to the bathroom, locking myself in one of the stalls and having a good cry. When Alicia was silent like this, it wasn't a good sign. Had I ruined our friendship forever? I was so close that time when I saw the text between her and Zander so I'm pretty sure mentioning Zander right now would be the nail in the coffin.

"What about him?" she asked and I bit my lip. Great, she was already mad at me.

"Um, well, I-I'm, um, very w-worried about h-him." I stuttered, my voice wavering so much that I sounded like a crying mess. Alicia put her arms around my shoulders and I couldn't help but cuddle up against her.

"About when he was suspended, you mean?" she asked and I nodded.

"Oh, well I can see why you're worried about him." Alicia told me and I looked at her in shock.

"Y-You're not m-mad?" I exclaimed.

"Not at all. Why would I be mad?" she asked and I sighed.

"Well, you don't really like him-"

"He's fine," she told me, "It's just that he can be a rude, arrogant son of a bitch sometimes and well...yeah."

"Oh." I said, looking back down at the ground. I vaguely noticed the hesitation at the end of her sentence and it kind of bothered me. Why had Alicia been so hesitant? Usually she was so sure of herself that this little bit of hesitation was so out of place for her. Was she holding something back from me? Did she not want to tell me something about Zander?

At this point, I honestly didn't know and I didn't even want to know since that would just mean digging myself deeper into something that was already horrible as it is.

~~~~~

"Only three more days, only three more days..."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Letting out a squeak of surprise at the sound of the voice, I turned to look at who spoke.

Sure enough, it was Damien, looking at me all confused. Of course, my eyes widened as soon as I saw him. I didn't expect anyone to talk to me right now, let alone have that "anyone" be him of all people.

"Y-Yes?" I asked, cringing at how much I stuttered. Why the hell was I even acting like this? After all, it was just Damien. What sort of damage could he possibly do?

"Are you alright?" he asked, a genuinely concerned look - or at least I thought it was - on his face. I internally debated lying to him and saying that I was alright so he could go away but at the last second, I shook my head.