Broken Until Him

Chapter 24 ~ Hidden

"I think every word that comes out of our mouth has an hidden meaning. That's how the human nature works, we imply things because we are too afraid of saying them clearly.

We hide behind words that have double meanings, we hide behind actions that don't reflect our personality, all of this in order to hide our true self and appear as a different person.

We hide things until we realise people discovered what this about, until we know how they feel about it. And once we saw their reaction, we let it all out, showing what we kept to ourselves.

Our whole life is just a game of hide and seek. We hide things for other people to seek, whether it's a secret or just unspoken words we are not ready to share."

"Nice car," Nathan says with a smirk as he opens the driver's door.

"Stop making fun of me!" I exclaim with a smile, unable to keep a straight face when he is near me.

I step out of the old white Ford and grab my bag. Nathan closes the door with a little too much force, making the whole car grates. He looks at me with worry and raises an eyebrow, and I can't help but laugh.

"That's all I could afford," I tell him and lock the car.

"Are you sure it's safe?" He asks with concern. "I wouldn't want you to lose pieces of your car while driving," he adds before taking my hand and walking towards the entrance.

"It's fine, but if it does and I get into an accident, I'll ask Hannah to make some room for me," I laugh and suddenly find myself pushed backwards.

Nathan has stopped a few feet away, my hand still in his. The frown on his forehead and his mouth slightly opened indicates that he didn't get the joke. Or he really thinks me driving this car is unsafe.

"I was joking," I reassure him, letting go of his hand to circle both arms around his neck.

"That wasn't funny," he retorts, frowning even more.

"Deep down you know it was," I say and he shakes his head.

The frown has disappeared, but his eyes are still filled with worry.

"Will you let me take a look at it after school? I'd feel better knowing everything is fine," he asks.

I stare at him, and this time I'm the one who's frowning.

"You never told me you were an expert in cars," I say, surprised he never mentioned it.

"I'm far from being an expert, I just know some tips I've learned from my father," he casually says, like if him mentioning is father wasn't a big deal. "And you don't know everything about me, I have some hidden talents you'd be surprised to know!"

Nathan hardly talks about his past. Just like me, he focuses on the present rather than what happened in his life. The few times he mentioned his father were when he told me about his little brother's cancer, and now. I never question him although I want to know everything about him. I know it is a sensitive topics, so I just wait for him to talk about it whenever he feels the need to. Just like he does for me.

As soon as we step in the hallway, a tall guy walks towards us, a wide smile plastered on his face.

"Hey, Nathan! What's up? It's been a while!" He says, his deep voice covering most of the noise.

"Hey, Alex! Yeah, I've been kinda busy lately," Nathan replies.

I instantly feel bad for monopolizing most of Nathan's spare time. I don't want him to spend his days with me only, I mean I do but I don't want him to lose his friends because of me. I know he doesn't see it that way, he told me multiple time he would rather spend his whole days with me than with his friends. But still, he shouldn't have to choose between us.