Heart Out [Michael Clifford]

8. Then

CHAPTER EIGHT:

It was Friday morning. I was dressed and ready for school in my uniform. I sat in the kitchen and had a quick breakfast. Maria came down the stairs, followed closely by Jacob. I rolled my eyes when he kissed her on the cheek and left for work.

"Morning, Maria." I said with a mouth full of cereal.

"Morning, Lexi." Maria said, getting herself a bowl and making cereal. I hated it when she called me that. My full name was Alexis, but everyone called me Alex, because hardly anyone knew that that was my full name.

"I'm just waiting for a friend to get here so we can leave for school." I explained.

"Blake?" She questioned.

"No. Michael."

"Michael?"

"He's this quiet guy who just started hanging out with us." I explained. Just then, my phone vibrated with a text that had just come in. I looked over at my phone. It was Michael telling me that he was waiting for me outside. "Gotta go." I said to Maria.

"Have a nice day at school." She said. I nodded.

"Morning." I greeted Michael. He only waved. "Brad lives about two streets from this one." I explained. Michael nodded. We started walking.

There wasn't much conversation during our walk. He was extra quiet in the mornings, but I suspected that something was wrong. Michael usually listened when I was blabbing on about whatever it was that I felt like talking about. I always knew that he was listening, because he would nod, smile, laugh and frown while I spoke. But this time, he was starring at his feet, and didn't seem to notice that I was even there.

"Michael?" I said, stopping my movememts. He continued walking. "Michael?" He stopped then, but didn't turn to me. "Michael, what's wrong?" I asked, stepping closer to him. He said nothing, and still wouldn't turn to me.

"I'm fine." He mumbled.

"You're not." I said. I put a hand to his shoulder, and he flinched. "We don't have to go to Brad's right now. Wanna go back to your house, or mine?" I offered. He said nothing, only turned around and walked in the direction that we had come from. I followed closely behind him. I assumed that he was walking back to his house, but then he stopped in front of mine.

I opened the front door, to find that Maria had the music on and was cleaning the kitchen.

"Lexi?" She was clearly confused about my sudden return.

"This is Michael." I said, pointing to him. He waved half heartedly.

"I thought you were going to school?" She wondered.

"We were. But Michael is really upset about something, and I want to talk to him about it. I would assume that he wouldn't want to be in a crowded place while he's upset." I explained. She stared between us, and then motioned for us to go upstairs. I could feel her eyes on us, but I was more concerned about Michael.

"Keep the door open!" She yelled from the bottom of the staircase.

I led Michael into my bedroom, keeping the door open as my mother had requested. He was stunned at the way the room was decorated. There weren't any posters, or pictures of famous people on the walls, but there were hundreds of pictures of people that I had come across in life. There were countless pictures of Maddison, Casey, Brad, Blake and I at parties, concerts and little adventures that we had gone on.

Next, Michael took a closer look at my camera's. I told him not to touch any of them. He smiled instead of laughing, which reminded me why we were there in the first place.