Beside You

An Uncomfortable Dinner

Hadley

I'm running a bit late on Tuesday so I don't see any of my friends before I go to study hall. When I get to the library I set out to attempt to understand Functions and Biology, as finals are only a couple of weeks away. I have my headphones in, so I jump when someone comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder.

"Hey."

"Oh my god, Ella, you scared the crap out of me."

"Sorry." She motions to the chair across from me, "mind if I join?"

"Go for it. But aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"Well, yes. Technically. But it was art with Mrs. Morris and she's so old and blind that she won't even realize that I'm gone."

"Okay, fair enough." I laugh.

"I was hoping that you might be able to help me with biology. I just can't wrap my head around Punnett squares."

"Yeah, sure."

Twenty minutes later I've managed to improve her understanding of Punnett squares quite a bit. I'm just finishing helping her through one of the problems when someone else comes up to the table.

"Hey. Ella, I was wondering if I could borrow Hadley for a bit."

She looks up at him. "Yeah, of course. We were just finishing." She gets up from the table. "I'll see you guys later."

"It feels like everyone is skipping class to see me today." I joke. "Anyways... class is over in a couple of minutes."

"Yeah, I know. We were let out of gym class a bit early and I had something that I wanted to talk to talk to you about."

I start gathering my stuff. "Okay, well can it wait until next period? Or lunch?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure. I'll talk to you at lunch."

"Okay, see you then." I give him a confused look and then the bell rings and I go to my locker.

Functions class passes without incident, aside from my general confusion. In Biology we have a pop quiz, but I think it went quite well. We spend the rest of the class preparing for a lab that we will be doing tomorrow.

When lunch starts I wait for Ryder at my locker, as he had asked me at the end of Math class. Most people have either already left for the cafeteria, or for those people who have lunch next period, have started to go to their classes. I'm pretty much the only one in the immediate vicinity. I look around to try and figure out where Ryder is, but instead see Maddi walking in my direction.

She stops once she reaches me. "Hey, are you coming?"

"Go ahead without me. I'll catch up."

"Okay, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I'm not sure if I should tell her why I'm going to be late, as I don't know why Ryder needs to talk to me. I decide that it's better to tell her, because I don't like keeping secrets from her. "Ryder just wants to talk to me about something."

"Oh? and what is this something?" Based on her tone of voice I can tell that she's thinking the same thing that everyone else seems to think.

"It's nothing like that," I complain. At least it had better not be, I think.

"Whatever you say," Maddi responds, before walking away.

Another few moments pass before Ryder enters the commons. He stops at his locker, so I walk down to meet him.

"You had me all worried. You ask for a mystery meeting, and then you don't show up." I joke.

"Oh, well sorry for keeping you waiting. I had to talk to my Physics teacher about something." He doesn't seem to know that I was joking, which just makes me more worried.