The Enigma of Romance: Sarina Matthews

chapter one: part four

Part Four: The Voice of a Fifth

"I told you. I wanna do more than just buy you breakfast."

"Don't worry, I got everything covered." He'd said. I didn't know how much he'd covered but I didn't want to skip school to find out. "Come on." Oh... damn. I breathed out heavily then followed-well, more like was dragged by Ryder down the hall. I didn't even know where we were going! I can't believe I trusted myself with this guy I've just met! Finally pulling my wrist out of his grasp after many attempts, I stopped.

"Wait," he stared at me, "where are we even going?" All I could do was stare at the floor not meeting his gaze and pull at the ends of my sweatshirt.

"Lunch." He answered like it was so obvious. He started walking again.

"The cafeteria's the other way." He stopped again.

"You really wanna eat their food?" He asked me. He had a point. The cafeteria's food was not ideal. "Didn't think so. Now let's go." He drew out his words when he pushed me in front of him. I didn't know him for an hour and he's already dragging me around. I was starting to regret letting him take me wherever he was taking me.

"Can you please tell me where you're taking me?" I sighed out after a while, I was getting tired of this wandering around the school. Slowly he turned around to face me.

"We're meetin' up with some friends of mine, at The Lounge." I knew that place. I've never been inside but all the cool kids at school hung out there. And by cool, I mean everyone but me. It was the modern equivalent to speakeasies during the prohibition but for underage kids. It was owned by some guy that paid off either the police itself or other people to keep its existence low key.

Wait, that meant we were ditching. Well, he wasn't ditching. Seniors had off campus privileges during lunch. But me, I couldn't ditch. Physically, I could obviously but you'd have to drag me by my ankles out those double doors for that to even happen. Nathan would kill me if he found out I left school. Especially if he found out I left school with another boy. He was very protective like that. What if something happens? What if some drunken idiots start fighting and someone got hurt. What if I got hurt? What if one of Nathan's friends were there? Oh God, that couldn't happen. They're probably there right now having a good time. If they saw me there they'd no doubt tell Nathan. I hate this. I overthink things and all of a sudden I'm hyperventilating over the thought of Nathan's friends maybe possibly seeing me there. I could feel my heart beating against my chest and record-breaking speeds. It was weird; I could only feel my heart beating, nothing else. I couldn't feel myself walking or breathing in fact. A small- but vigorous- headache started to break out in my temple.

"Hey, are you ok?" He asked at the exit of the school with a sincere look of concern on his face.

"I-I-I can't go with you." I stammered out timidly. My habit took over me and I couldn't resist with the ends of my sweater. I couldn't believe I was just ditching him. Well, yeah, actually I could. I was not the strongest link in the chain. I could barely hold myself together as it is. I just didn't want to risk getting caught with him. I've worked way too harder to get where I was and I wasn't going to throw it away for some stupid detention slip. I was turning around before he spoke again. I was praying he wasn't gonna make fun of me for being so melodramatic.

"Wait, Sara." Don't call me that. "Wait!" When I didn't respond he grabbed my wrist, the same way Nathan does, but gentler. Almost as if he knew how much it hurts. Quickly I turned to him pulling my hand away behind my back silently waiting for him to continue.

"I don't understand." He held a confused smile adding a chuckle.

"What's not to understand?"

"Why not?" Because we could get caught. Because we could get detention. Because that would ruin my record. Because Nathan would find out. Because if he did find out he'd- I didn't even want to think about how angry he'd be not to mention how he'd react.