My Beautiful King

Chapter Twenty Two

"See that girl over there... Yeah, the one with the really bad brunette dye-job... That's Ashley. I can't believe you don't know who she is!"

"Oh no, I recognise her now. She's the freak who got dumped by Zayn."

"Don't understand why he went out with her in the first place."

I sat at my desk, biting my hang nail like life depended on it. Mr Withers withered on about circle theorems and other crap I couldn't be bothered to listen to. I'd taken my day off and it was my first time setting foot in the school after mine and Zayn's argument.

Mum had tried her best to spruce up my image; my face was scrubbed of all make-up products, my top button was affixed, my scarlet tie reached just above my waist and my school skirt was tugged and forced to swing at my knees. But it was no use, the second I'd left the house my skin was once again coated in foundation, the first and second fasteners of my shirt became unused, my tie doubled in width and halved in length, as well as only a thin strip of my skirt appearing visible from underneath my blazer. And within my blazer contained a full pack of Marlboros and a green plastic lighter.

Some bad habits just couldn't be erased so easily.

"But you know what she did, right?"

"No, I don't quite understand the story. She tried to kill herself?"

"Yeah because she figured out that Zayn was losing interest in her because you know, she was so weird and clingy. Apparently, no one liked her but they all pretended to for him. And Zayn developed a thing for Becca-"

"Oh, she's so pretty! Zayn and Becca are the cutest couple!"

"I know right!"

One row and three spaces to the right away from me, Zayn was located, chatting animatedly with all of his surrounding minions; the one I thought was my best friend, the one I thought I'd made amends with and the one who refused to partner with me in science. Hayley didn't give me a second glance, but when she did notice my consistent ogling, her reaction was to simply shoot me a bitter glare.

It was hard to come to grips with the fact that not so long ago, she was sharing a beanbag with me in her bedroom, offering me cheese flavoured crisps.

Hayley leant her lips towards Becca's ear and whispered a stream of harshly vowel embodied words. Becca cackled loudly before facing me and pulling a ridiculously mocking sad pouty face. She kept a tight grip on her boyfriend's arm but Zayn didn't turn around. He was too busy explaining his new gym regime to Alex to even acknowledge my presence.

Maybe if he had noticed me, he would have given me a friendly smile and told Becca to back off? He might have even given me a break-up kiss that I felt that I was owed.

Who was I fooling?

"But anyway, when Ashley found out he didn't like her anymore; she tried to drown herself so Zayn would give her some attention. He's so sweet and so perfect, even though he didn't like her; he risked his life to save the crazy bitch!"

"No way! I mean, Zayn is HOT, but committing attempted suicide to keep him? Seriously?"

"Some people are so desperate that they actually have no self control. And the day after saved her, she kept babbling on about how they were going to run away with each other. Zayn was just like 'Ew, no way!'"

"What a freak! Why would Zayn ever want to run away with her?"

I stood up suddenly, hoping to walk to the front of the classroom and whisper to Mr Withers that I needed to go the medical room. At that moment, he turned around; face furiously exasperated and banged his overly used whiteboard pen onto his desk.