Secrets and Lies ||mildie/sillie||

Chapter 12

"Is someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on?!" shouted Sadie, through her own tears that had started to fall.

"Yeah, come on, let's go sit down" said Noah, softly. They sat on a soft patch of grass, the days had been hot so the mossy grass was dry and comfortable.

"Where do we start?" Gaten asked Noah and Caleb.

"I guess when we met Millie?" suggested Caleb.

"No, I think before that" said Noah. The others nodded, gesturing for him to continue. "Well, we've all lived here most of our lives, except Millie, she moved here later from England, obviously. But I'll get onto that...anyway, let's just say we were never the coolest kids in school, in fact we were probably the opposite of that" he said as they chuckled. "We were your typical nerds, loved nothing better than a 10-hour Dungeons and Dragons session at the weekend, ham radios, you know." Sadie nodded, not quite believing that these were the same people being described. "Yeah, well, we obviously used to get picked on, a lot, but that's life, right?!"

"So, what happened?" she asked.

They laughed a little, "Millie happened" said Gaten. "We were all sitting in science in middle school and the principal came in with the new kid, this scrawny little girl, really long hair, glasses, and when the teacher told her to stand in front of the class and introduce herself she had the funniest accent."

As Gaten was talking, Sadie saw Finn help Millie to her feet and walk her over to where they were sitting. Finn sat first, patting the ground next to him and looking at Millie expectantly. She complied and sat close to him, resting her head on his shoulder, his arm around her back. Sadie felt pangs of both jealousy and disappointment as she met Millie's eyes when she briefly looked at Sadie. She lowered her head straight after, and Finn pulled her closer.

"You were saying?" said Finn.

"Yeah, Millie's first day at school, remember? Your eyes lit up, we'd never seen such emotion from you for anything other than some art or other nerdy shit" he said, laughing. Finn smiled, something Sadie had rarely seen.

"Yeah, I started making kissy noises at him...until she walked straight over and gave him a massive hug, saying 'hey Finnie, I've missed you!' " said Caleb, doing his silly version of Millie's accent. "Then Finn laughed and shot me down, 'she's my cousin, idiot'  he told us."

Sadie's eyes opened wide, her mouth dropping slightly. She looked over at Finn, his arm protectively around Millie's shoulder. "Her cousin?" she asked, wanting them to confirm what she'd heard. "But...I thought..."

"You thought they're boyfriend/girlfriend? Have you ever seen them kiss, gaze into each other's eyes, behave in any way that would indicate they're together?" Noah asked.

Sadie thought hard, and Noah was right, all she'd ever seen was them hugging, maybe holding hands, and even then not a lot. "I...no...I just assumed..."

"You assumed exactly what they wanted you to assume, don't feel bad, everyone else assumes it too, it's all part of the act we play" explained Gaten, seriously.

"What act? I really don't understand."

"Look, we were all nerds, rich pickings for the school bullies. But what they didn't count on from then on in was that Millie could be a complete badass when she wanted to be. Yes, she was skinny and small, wore glasses...and was a girl...but she can fight, man you do not want to get on her bad side" said Gaten. "The first bully to try, James, ended up with a broken nose. He cornered me and Noah before school by our bikes, wanted all our money, and then started to beat us anyway for fun. Millie saw and beat the shit out of him. A few days later a different guy, Troy, was picking on Caleb, basically being a racist fucker. Millie had heard from someone what he'd said, she waited for this guy at lunch and ended up breaking his arm."

Sadie looked incredulous, "didn't she get in trouble, like suspended?"

"Nah, that's the genius thing, nobody wanted to own up to this little girl beating the crap out of them" said Caleb, laughing.

"Honestly, I still don't see where this is going" said Sadie.

"She gained a reputation, we were left completely alone as people knew exactly what would happen if anyone hurt one of us. It was great, we were like a family, still are, we tell each other everything, no secrets."

"Yeah, no secrets, we all agreed" said Noah, "so, when I realized I was gay, these were the people I told, no judging, they just accepted it and moved on...in fact I don't think they batted an eyelid" he said proudly.

"So...when I told them the same thing, again, they just accepted it" said Millie, quietly, her head still down. Sadie looked over at Millie, her words replaying in Sadie's head 'I know how you feel...trust me'

"We even went with them when they came out to their parents," said Gaten. "I think it helped, seeing that they had friends that knew and supported them, that it wasn't a big deal. Noah's parents were ok after the shock wore off, Millie's mom was more worried, but she knew we'd be there to protect her."

"Well, for Millie's 15th birthday she had a party, us and a couple of girls from school. Millie was always really nice and tried to include people who didn't have many friends for whatever reason" said Caleb, looking at Millie fondly. "Looking back now, I think we set her up for a fall, we'd been so accepting of her and Noah, she thought her new friends would be too. She told them, and they genuinely seemed ok about it."

"School on Monday seemed fine, nothing unusual, till lunchtime" said Noah. "Me and Millie went to sit next to her friends but they basically told us to fuck off, they didn't want to be seen with a couple of fags. James, Troy, and some of the other mouthbreathers turned up behind us, dragged me and Millie out and gave us a beating...I mean, Millie's good, but not against so many..."

A silence descended on the group. Sadie couldn't help but look at Millie who was wiping her tears away with her hand. She noted the sadness in her eyes and hated it, hated that someone so amazing, so beautiful, could be made to feel that way. She was kind and selfless, she'd even tried to comfort Sadie through her pain when she'd had worse herself. Sadie realized the boys were exchanging uncomfortable glances with each other, "what? There's more, isn't there? I mean, just one beating wouldn't cause...this..." she said, motioning to the group, sitting in the park in the middle of the night.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*