She Was All Alone (A short story)

Chapter 2: Everybody Has Secrets

About a month after meeting Aleah and Ian, I learned quite a few things about them.

1. Ian smokes weed. (That wasn't very surprising, considering he was skinny as fuck.)

2. Aleah and Ian are cousins (That's why they're so alike on the inside, but yet they look so different on the outside.)

3. They were really good friends. (They were the first people I had let my guard down with since Ruth, Michele, Charlene, and Josh.)

4. I liked Ian. (How stupid to let these feelings happen, when it would never happen: me and him.)

I wasn't used to this feeling. Having friends? I thought that's what normal people had. But me? Nobody ever likes me or takes any interest in me. These people were different. I had to know them better.

And I actually did learn a lot more, one day, at lunch. Something that I should've done something about, but I just couldn't.

I was depressed about mistakes I had made in the past, I couldn't live happy with them. Aleah noticed this, as she always does. She was really good at that. Reading people. Her more than her brother.

"Let's take a walk," she said, nudging me and nodding her head toward the empty courtyard.

I hesitated, knowing that it might force me to confess what I was upset about, but got up and walked along her side anyways. I looked anywhere but her eyes. And instead tried to focus on the mosaic art that had been done by Art 2 students last year. But, even though I wasn't looking at her, I could feel her gaze. I wasn't getting out of this one.

"So what's the shit?" She questioned, breaking the silence.

"Nothing much."

She responded with an impatient look that let me know she wasn't buying it.

"Can't I have secrets, I bet you don't have any." I replied, attempting to shift the focus from me to her.

As soon as I was done talking, she darted her eyes away and looked down at the grass next to the sidewalk, and there was something wrong. I knew.

"Hang on. What's your problem?" I asked, eyebrows knitting and my eyes focused on hers.

Her beautiful blue eyes were clouded with misery, then guilt, hate, and finally, a neutral look of giving up.

"My mom, Ian, and I have problems." She muttered it under her breath so I could barely hear her.

"What kind of problems?"

"..."

"Aleah, you better tell me right now."

"....we fight..."

"How?" I asked immediately.

"Sometimes she slaps me, kicks me, or just throws things at me." She chuckled a bit at the last bit.

"What?!" I breathed out the word.

"It's not that big of a deal she just-"

"It IS THAT BIG OF A DEAL. What the fuck does Ian do about it?" I demanded, leaving her looking like a deer caught in headlights.

"They fight.."

"He hits her?"

"Only to defend me," she whispered, guilt troubling her eyes.

I didn't know quite what to say to that. A son fist fighting with his mother? What the hell do you say to a thing like that?!

So, "Oh." Was all I managed to get out.

"Yeah..." She said, looking at the ground, seeming bored.

"Well, we don't want to worry Ian, do we? Let's get back!" She says it so cheery I snap my head to look at her with complete disbelief. She was acting like nothing just happened.

While I was thinking and staring off into space, she had managed to arrive back at where we meet to talk to Ian, laughing and smiling.

So that's how no one ever discovers what's going on. They're good little actors.