That's My Sister ➼ tas

Chapter 28

I walked into school the next day, having arrived home from London last night. The group were rather quiet on the train home, but I assumed that was because we were wiped out from the trip. We never got to see Taylor yesterday as she had some last minute commitment come up, and I could tell the girls felt rather let down by that. Nonetheless, I mentioned a party at mine next weekend and their moods brightened.

It was coming up to the end of lunch hour, where I had unfortunately had to stay behind in class to catch up on the homework I didn't complete in time. I had received no texts from Poppy about lunch plans so I assumed she was also busy. As I entered the cafeteria, however, I saw my group sitting out our usual table, but continued to make my way to my locker. I wouldn't have time to sit and gossip now today.

"Is it true? Did you and Aiden actually go all the way in London?" I shut my locker door to be faced with Becca, a girl from school who was notorious for spreading gossip.

"What, no!" I answered, shocked. "Who told you that?"

Becca didn't look as if she believed me, but replied, "people have been talking about it since first thing this morning," before bouncing off.

I turned back to my locker, unsure as to how to process the information. I was used to people talking about me by now, from my sibling reveal to the days after our crazy parties, but suddenly there was gossip about me that wasn't true. And I didn't like it.

"Have you been telling people something happened in the hotel on Saturday? Remember, when I needed to rest after the paparazzi attack but you wanted to kiss?" I confronted Aiden as he approached the lockers. His friends went awkwardly silent and began backing away from us, though remained within hearing range.

"Kiss? What are we, 12? No, I've actually been telling people the opposite, about how you acted all confident and chickened out at the last minute. They all assume something happened because something usually would have," Aiden sighed, his face expressionless. "I mean, we're teenagers, we're supposed to have fun when there's no one around to supervise us."

"So you thought best to let people continuing thinking we did more than I was comfortable with? For the sake of having people talk about you?" I was taken aback. What happened to the nicer boy who wanted to hang out with just me on the weekend?

"I can't influence what other people choose to talk about. But whatever, I need a girl who's more mature. Not someone who can't even learn from the confidence held by their celebrity sister."

"So you're breaking up with me?" I questioned back, ignoring the new faces that began turning in our direction.

"Breaking up with you? We were never officially together," Aiden scoffed, slamming his locker door shut and walking off to class, his friends close behind.

I felt a stab of pain in my chest, and had to bite the inside of my lip to avoid breaking down. I sneaked a glance out the corner of my eye, to see the girls coming over, and everyone else hastily pretending they didn't just witness what happened and proceeding to leave the cafeteria.

"That was a whole mess," Poppy began, studying her nails before making eye contact. "Imagine, having the hottest guy in school try it on with you and you reject him? That's just a tad embarrassing, that is hard to look past even when you're popular. The limelight you have is totally wasted on you, babe."

"Yeah and when you two disappeared at the party? You never denied doing anything with him when we all so obviously assumed you had, which is totally not cool," Kimberly added looking me up and down.

"Yeah, that wasn't cool. Going further with a boy is about maturity, and you're definitely lacking it." Poppy couldn't stop herself from laughing at the end of that sentence.