Breathe

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

*~*~*~*

"Hey!" I glanced up from my locker at the sound of Clay's voice yelling though the busy hallway before first period even had the chance to begin. I looked around until I spotted him heading towards Hannah's old locker, though it looked vastly different from how it had just a few days ago. The decorations and tokens that people had taped to it in memory of Hannah were gone, leaving the blue painted metal naked. And, to top it all off, there was a girl standing in front of it, struggling and failing to get it open.

"Oh, boy." I muttered, closing my locker as I saw Clay rush over to the locker, slamming his hand on it, startling the girl.

"Hey, what the hell? What are you doing?" Clay questioned the girl as I made my way over to them.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The girl apologized, startled.

"What the hell?" Clay repeated his question.

"I can't get it open." The girl said as I stopped by Clay's side.

"Why do you want to?" Clay asked.

"Because it's my locker." She told him, glancing at me as she did so. "I'm new, but I can't get the combination to work."

"Sorry. Sorry, I um..." Clay cleared his throat as he glanced around the hallway. "This locker used to belong to a friend of mine."

"Here." I held my hand out for the slip of paper in her hands. She hesitated for a moment before handing the slip over to me. I scanned over to the numbers before putting them into the locker, opening it with ease.

"Um, thank you." She thanked me as Clay walked away.

"No problem." I assured her as I hurried after the Jensen boy, worried about it. I followed him over to his own locker down the hall, leaning against the one next to his while he opened his own. "Wanna talk about it?"

"You made it pretty clear last night that you won't talk about any of this with me." He scoffed at my question.

"Hey," I grabbed his arm, making him look at me. "I know that this is frustrating for you Clay, but I'm here for you. I know that we've never been close before, but we both cared about Hannah. I'm sure she'd want us to stick together through all of this."

"I-" He cut himself off, shaking his head as his nerves played clear across his face. "I think I'm listening to my tape."

I bit the inside of my cheek at his words. Just yesterday he had been finishing up Marcus' tape. I knew that there was no way that he was on his own tape already, not with how long it was taking him to get through a single tape. If he thought it was his own though, that told me all I needed to know.

He was on Zach's.

"Look, I need to get to class." I shook my head. "But I'm here for you if you ever need to talk, okay?"

*~*~*~*

My head was rested in my hand as I sat in the cafeteria during lunch that day, moving the salad on the try in front of me around with my fork, though I didn't bother eating any of it. Tony was seated across from me with his own food, his attention focused on the book in his hands. I had a book of my own in my bag, but I didn't bother pulling it out, instead I allowed my eyes to flicker around the crowded noisy room.

I could easily spot Zach and the rest of his basketball friends sitting at a table together, all of them talking about something with smiles on their faces. It almost seemed as though nothing had happened these past few months, as if everything were right with the world and Hannah would walk into the cafeteria any minute to join me for lunch. But I knew that wasn't the case as Zach looked around from his friends, seeming to instantly spot me watching him. For a moment, I just stared at him, wondering how things could have changed so quickly.