Met Online

Chapter 15

There are cries coming from a stall in the girls' bathroom and for once they are not mine.

"It's alright," someone says in a soothing voice. I'm guessing they are in the middle of calming down whoever is crying. "You'll be okay. You know you will." I feel like I'm intruding on their privacy, but I can't help the fact that I really had to use the bathroom and now I'm stuck, because as soon as I flush and leave my stall they will know that I was here, eavesdropping on them. "He's an idiot, you know that. He's done this before, but you know that he always comes back to you. You know why? Because you're too good for him to give up." I envy the sad girl. Not because she's crying, but because her friend is there for her and doing her best to comfort her. It reminds me of Taylen and I, before she started acting all weird. "It's probably just pregame nerves. I bet he's regretting it already." The girl who's talking does her best to calm her crying friend, but nothing seems to work on her. On the contrary, her sobbing seems to escalate with time. "It will be okay, Sam." What? Samantha is crying? I'm speechless.

Just as the panic starts to spread through my veins, at the thought of me being stuck in here for the rest of the day with Sam, the first warning bell for the fourth module goes off and Samantha's friend finally manages to convince her to dry her eyes and head towards class. I wait a few minutes to make sure that they're completely gone, before I appear from my hiding place.

I'm beyond relief to finally escape my temporary prison, but my relief is quickly being overshadowed by confusion. Why was Samantha, the emotionless ice queen, crying?

* * *

"Good afternoon class," our teacher greets our class as he sweeps through the door and into the classroom. "Today you will be working in assigned pairs today to fill out a worksheet. You will have to prepare and observe a specimen, which you will have to draw and describe for the assignment. Understood?" Our teacher starts calling names and students start to shuffle around the classroom, scraping their chairs against the floor as they get up to meet their assigned partner. I'm the last one to get assigned a partner, so I guess I should have seen it coming, but it still hits me like a ton of bricks: "Cassidy you're with Justin."

"What? No!" I exclaim before I can stop myself.

"Is there a problem Ms. Williams?" my teacher asks me with a raised eyebrow. The whole class is staring at me and I can feel the blush rise in my cheeks. How embarrassing.

"No. Not at all sir," I assure him.

"Good," he tells me before he turns towards a pair of students asking him for help.

Reluctantly I gather my things and get out of my chair. As I cross the classroom to the table where Justin is sitting, I prepare myself mentally for the verbal abuse I'm surely about to be exposed to. I want to run as far away as possible, but there's nowhere to run or hide and even if I tried everyone would know that Justin was the reason, thanks to my little outburst.

"Hey," I mumble quietly, as I take a seat in the chair next to him. He doesn't reply nor does he look up from the table, which he has been staring at for quite some time now. He looks defeated; like a wounded soldier returning from a lost war. The tension filled silence is eating at me from the inside and out and I feel compelled to break it. "Are you okay?"

"What's it to you?" he asks and I detect a hint of suspicion in his voice.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"It's fine," he tells me. The fact that he doesn't completely shut me down makes me feel like he's granted me permission to continue the conversation.

"Rough day?"

"Rough week," he admits.

I keep my eyes on the table, focusing on preparing our specimen glass, but I can feel his eyes resting on the side of my face. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"It's stupid," he sighs. "It's just ... there's this girl that I like and she's been ignoring me for a while now. I don't know why though and it's been driving me insane to not know what I've done wrong."

"Maybe you didn't do anything wrong," I shrug, as I follow the instructions on our worksheet to clip our specimen glass onto the stage of the microscope.

"What?" he asks and I instantly regret my comment.

"Nothing."

"No, keep talking," he tells me. "Please?"

"Maybe it's just the circumstances, you know? Like maybe the timing is wrong," I try to explain myself to him, without giving myself away. I do it because I can't get that sweet message from yesterday out of my head and because, despite what he's said about me and done to me in the past, he doesn't deserve to be kept in the dark like he has been. "But what do I know, right?"

"Maybe," he sighs. "I just wish she would tell me."

"I know it's not my place to ask, but don't you have a girlfriend?" I ask, glancing at him sideways.

"Had a girlfriend," he tells me, catching me off guard. "I broke it off with her this morning." That explains why Samantha was crying her eyes out this morning; she was heartbroken.

"Because of her?"

"I guess. I don't know," he shrugs. "It just felt wrong being with Sam when I'm constantly thinking of being with someone else."

"I see."

"I just can't get her out of my mind and it's driving me crazy. I can't eat, I can't sleep and I can't focus on anything but her. I miss talking to her. She makes me happy, you know?"

"I think I do," I admit. His words warm my heart. I can feel the blush creeping onto my cheeks and even though I know that talking to him is like playing with fire, I can't help but pray to God that he's talking about me.

"Justin, Cassidy; more working less talking." Our biology teacher sends us a sharp glare from behind his desk, silencing us immediately.

"Are you coming to the party tomorrow night?" Justin asks a few minutes later, interrupting the silence between us. I glance at him. He's answering a question on the worksheet we should be working on. We still haven't properly started on it.

"What?"

"The party after the game. Are you coming?"

"Uh." I want to confess to him that I'm not invited, but I don't want him to think any less of me than he already does. "Parties aren't really my thing; they never really turn out that well for me."

"I remember," he chuckles quietly, at the memory of the last party I attended. "Just think about it. It could be fun," he shrugs, and then he starts adjusting the lens on the microscope. I'm at a loss for words. Did Justin Bieber just invite me to a party?

I want to say something, anything, but our biology teacher beats me to it: "Justin. Cassidy. Work."

Justin and I work in silence for the remained of the class. We take turns observing the specimen in the microscope and drawing it on the worksheet. Justin is the first one to leave when the bell rings. I follow close behind as I contemplate my next move. By the time I reach my locker I know what I have to do: I need to find Taylen.

//AN: I'm in love with all of your comments, so please keep them coming! You are all so incredibly sweet and I'm so beyond blessed to have you all as readers on this story. Stay absolutely amazing!!xx//