Lies

Chapter 9

When I woke up, my mind was groggy from how much sleep I had gotten. I looked at my clock and saw that it was almost eleven in the morning. I got out of bed and stretched fully, enjoying the feeling of my muscles stretching. I walked into my bathroom and took a shower to get ready for my day of nothing to do. My whole weekend was filled with watching movies and TV shows by myself, since Jenna was hanging out with Peter most of the weekend. Even though I hated to admit it, I was surprised that they had lasted even a week with each other. In school, they were the most known couple, and everyone knew about Peter's past. Peter still creeped me out, but I didn't voice my opinions to Jenna anymore. I had once more on Sunday night, but she had told me that she knew what she was doing.

I didn't want her to get hurt, which was why I was so reluctant about Peter. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and focused on what my teacher was saying at the front of the classroom. I had spaced out the beginning of class, which made it so I was almost completely lost about what she was saying. I looked over at Stuart, who was sitting in the desk next to me, but he completely ignored me. I kept looking at him until he finally rolled his eyes and reluctantly looked at me.

He whispered, "What?"

I whispered back, "What's going on with you?"

He sighed heavily and said, "There's nothing going on."

I gave him a look and he said, "It's nothing important. Trust me."

I gave him another look, but he looked ahead at the board.

I was about to ask him something else, but he quickly said, "It's just better if we talk after class so neither of us get in trouble."

I didn't hear any hostility in his voice, so I nodded and turned my attention back towards the teacher. When the bell rang, Stuart nodded at me and I followed him. We walked towards the lunchroom in silence, and he led me towards a table that no one else was sitting at. He set his tray down and I looked at him expectantly.

He sighed heavily and I asked, "How have you been?"

He shrugged and said, "Okay I guess."

"You guess? Why just you guess?"

He took a bite of his food and chewed slowly, trying to think of how to answer my question.

He said, "Well, I just thought that you and this Shadow guy were getting closer."

My heartbeat quickened when I thought of when I had met Shadow at the park, but I kept my face blank.

I said, "We've only seen each other a couple of times after he saved me. Nothing more."

"Only a couple of times? Aleksandria...no one ever sees him after he saves them. No one."

I shrugged my shoulders and he explained, "Obviously, there's something going on with you two and I didn't want to get in the way."

His voice showed that his emotions were different than what he was telling me, but I decided against calling him out on those feelings. I thought over what he said as I took a bite of food.

I said when I was done chewing, "There's nothing going on between us. I swear. It was just kind of...well he just needed...we only met once afterwards and we had to talk some things out."

"What things?"

I sighed and said, "Jenna had talked to a reporter about Shadow saving me, so Shadow was just concerned about his enemies coming after me. We only met so he could tell me not to talk to anymore reporters."

Stuart nodded, but I felt as if there was something Stuart wasn't saying.

I asked him after a moment of hesitation, "Was that the only thing that was bothering you?"