another side

chapter eleven

The next time we were in school everything was a lot less painful. Avoiding Nate wasn't as much of a task because even when we did see each other we didn't talk. June hopped between him and Levi and I, but Levi refused to leave my side. He kept pestering to know why I had asked him to lie for me. I just said later later later like an endless mantra until it eventually shut him up. When I saw Carmen she was always alone. She was able to smile at me, so long as no one was looking. She had actually broken up with Aaron. He was moping by his locker and hitting on her friends who she had also got rid of for a while because they were hanging on him for dear life, trying to see who's ass would get tapped next. Little did they know, he and Meryl had already been screwing for months. She just sighed and filed her nails as she watched this go on. She had already shared him once. She didn't give a shit.

I, on the other hand, gave a lot of shits about the concept of sharing my girlfriend. I was very happy not to have to. I no longer had to feel the knife twisting in my stomach every time I saw her with him.

In English we sat with our arms on the table, touching just enough to send shivers up my spine but not enough for anyone to notice that we were doing that on purpose. We whispered to each other discreetly, taking the most joy anytime he gave us a pair discussion because then we were able to exchange words freely without anyone thinking much of it. I was in another world, looking into her eyes in a daze as I mindlessly muttered something about Robert Frost when there was a brisk knock at the door and in the doorway appeared Katherine. I noticed Mr Fry – noted militant atheist and opposition to anything remotely related to happiness, sunshine or rainbow - physically cringe when he saw her hovering there, like a menacingly positive shark.

"Yes?" he grunted.

"The office needs to see..." she looked at a slip of paper in her hands and acted as though she had never seen the name on it before. Weird, considering she had known us all our whole lives. "Sylvia Church."

I slowly got up, shooting Carmen a panicked look. She subtley shrugged back, looking equally as worried about whatever I was about to face. I hoped nothing bad had happened to my mum or anything. I knew that if I saw Maya standing at the office when I got there that it was bad news. If not, it was probably just some missing absence note, admin bullshit. I prayed for the latter.

I stepped into the corridor, looking over my shoulder at Carmen before I left who had shrunk sadly into her chair. There were only about fifteen minutes left of class and whatever was about to happen was dragging me away from her. I followed Katherine down the corridor as she hummed. I expected her to retreat back to her classroom, but she seemed to be walking the same way as me. To my surprise, when we got a fair distance from the classroom she turned around and stopped me from walking much further.

"The office doesn't need you." She stated.

I stared at her in confusion. "But you said-"

"Yeah. I lied." She shrugged. "I need to talk to you about something."

I somehow started to panic even more. I always knew that the innocent happy ones were the ones who were actually serial killers. I began to convince myself she would pull a gun on me. I tried to stop the mental images of my dad from flashing in front of me.

"Isn't it against the ten commandments to lie?" was all I could think to say. I then realised that this was probably slightly offensive and that if she was about to kill me that remark probably made it a lot worse rather than better. Shit.

"I'm doing this for the greater good." She said, smiling in her sickening way. Oh God, this really was the end wasn't it? The greater good... Did that many people really want me dead? With Nate officially no longer in my corner, probably.