The Broken Ones

Chapter Three

"Dad I'm leaving now!" Alesia yelled.

"Alesia wait!" her father called after her.

Alesia had already opened the front door. She stood beside the open door as she waited for her father to reach her.

"Are you sure you what to go to Uni, today?"

"Yes dad, I have to go."

"You only have lectures today. You can skip them and watch the lecture online."

"If I don't do to the lectures I will never catch up on the work." Alesia reminded him.

"You had a panic attack yesterday," her dad pointed out. "You need to take it easy."

"Dad you are making a big deal out of nothing," Alesia told him. "I used to have panic attacks all the time."

"I know," her father told her. "Do you really think I would ever forget? You used to have about two a day. Do you have any idea how stressful that was as a parent? There was a reason you were given anti-anxiety medication. Do you need to be put on those again?"

"No. I'm fine," Alesia protested. "I had one panic attack, it doesn't mean I need to be put on medication again."

"Alesia, it is entirely reasonable for you to admit that you are not alright," Nelson told her. "You have a history of mental health problems, it is expected the certain things will set you off. Especially after what happened with Leah and Mackenzie not to mention your best friend died two years ago."

"She wasn't my best friend," Alesia told him, harshly.

"Alesia."

"Maya wasn't my best friend. She wasn't even my friend," Alesia said to him. Before Nelson could say anything else, she rushed out the door and slammed the door behind her.

Alesia ran down the driveway to her car. She opened the door and throw her bag onto the passenger seat. Alesia climbed into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut.

She turned on the engine and drove away.

As she drove out of her street, she began to cry. Alesia pulled over to the side of the road, she killed the engine and let the tears fall.

Maya wasn't her best friend. Alesia had no right to call herself that. She ditched Maya because she what to be popular.

The one person that actually gave a shit about her and she ruined it.

Maya had always been there for her. Ever before they were friends.

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"Those cards need to look beautiful," Mrs Jana reminded her class. It was the week before mother's day. She had instructed her grade three class to make cards for their mums. The little eight to nine years olds were happily making their cards. Mrs Jana had brought out the coloured paper, pencils and textures. Yet something didn't feel right.

Something was wrong, but Mrs Jana could figure out what it was. She walked in between the tables and looked over her students. Were they all here, she found herself wondering. She quickly counted the head of all her students.

There were nineteen. This was a class of twenty-three. One student was in Queensland with family. Two children were at home sick with the flu. There was one more missing child that was uncountable.

Mrs Jana looked over her class list. Twenty students had turned up to school this morning. So where was the twentieth child? Mrs Jana read the names of her present students to work out which one was missing.