Forgotten

Chapter 4 ~ Conflicting Opinions

Thursday morning, I told Ri that I wouldn't be able to join her and the others this weekend for the movie and sleepover because I "had other plans". I promised that I would make the next one, and she seemed to accept that. For that whole day, I resisted the urge to tell anyone of my actual plans, but it was also what I most wanted too. I wanted to be with my girlfriends, gushing over the boys we liked, and being on par with one another. Here in Glendale, with a new group of friends, I couldn't do that. And that reminder made me miss my other friends even more than I realised, and so I resolved to catch up with them in the near future.

Friday lunchtime, only four of us sat at the table, as the others were all rushing to finish work due at the end of the day. Hannah and Elliot were busy making out, leaving Dover and I to awkward small talk. There were now less than two hours until my date with Harry. Everything in the meantime was torturous.

"It's a shame you can't come with us this weekend," Dover told me. "We always have a great time. Ri's stables, as boring as it sounds, actually give us some of the best nights of our lives."

"Uh-huh," I said awkwardly, and that pretty much exhausted our conversation.

Although he meant well, I really didn't want to talk to Dover. Put simply, I didn't like him. He was clingy and needy, even though I'd already declined his dating offer. He didn't seem to be like that with anybody else, and it just made me uncomfortable.

So I was overjoyed when my phone silently buzzed in my dress pocket. When I saw that it was from Harry, I grinned ridiculously.

       U might as well b an awkward 3rd wheel :P meet me at the canteen?

I didn't wonder why Harry wanted to meet me at the canteen, but I would rather meet him there than sit awkwardly beside Dover.

"I have to go to the bathroom," I lied, getting up immediately and leaving, not providing the opportunity for Dover to question me further.

I went the long way to the canteen so that it would look like I was going to the girls' bathroom. I raced through the corridors, looping back around to the canteen, where I found Harry sitting at one of the few tables with a small group of people from various year levels.

He saw me immediately, smiled, and then came to the doorway, walking me down the corridor away from the canteen.

"I know you were having oodles of fun with Dover and the extreme PDA, but I thought my offer might interest you more," Harry said with a smirk.

"And what would that offer be?" I asked happily.

Harry stopped walking, and so did I. "Want to ditch class and get going now?"

We were supposed to the date start it after school. After last period History. But it was Friday. This week had had its ups and downs. I just wanted it to be over. Skipping school would put me in Imogen’s bad books, and I knew that I really shouldn’t compromise my efforts to actually get through Year 12 again… but I just couldn’t ignore Harry’s infectiously happy mood.

"That is the best thing I've heard all day," I told him, smiling.

Harry smiled too. "Well there's a bus in twenty minutes. So we'd better race to the bus stop." The walk, I'd been told, was almost twenty minutes in itself. And my legs were shorter than Harry’s. We had to hurry.

Together, we raced through the corridor to our lockers. We were both terribly unfit and made fools of ourselves doing so, but I, being the non-smoker, had the advantage, so by the time I had managed to unlock my locker and started packing my bag, Harry was only rounding the corridor into the locker bay.