Ruin Me

56. Support me

 "Start talking," Mina slammed her tray of food down on the table opposite me, "now!"

 Seeing her half furious and half concerned expression I instantly felt guilty, it was Wednesday morning, my first day back in school after the incident, the boys and my dad had made me take the past two days off school to lie in bed. They'd wanted to keep me out for the whole week but I put my foot down, I wasn't spending another minute uselessly lying in my bed having everyone fuss around me when I was completely fine. In all that time I hadn't contacted Mina though, I'd seen the tons of texts and voicemails she'd sent me but had been too exhausted to explain the tale again and unable to think of ways of avoiding the truth of what actually happened. I just wanted to avoid having to lie to her for as long as possible. 

 Mina had obviously heard what had happened though, everyone at school had and I'd spent all morning bowing my head to avoid meeting people's intrusive stares and hearing constant whispers trailing behind me as I hurried from class to class. The rumour going round was that there had been a shooting at Kings Bridge but the true facts were very much still private. As rumours usually worked very little of what I'd heard was actually true, I'd even heard a girl in my History class whisper to her friend that she knew 'absolutely for sure' that a boy had gone crazy and shot his maths teacher because he'd set too much homework. I didn't bother to correct her but merely sat staring at the front rolling my eyes in disbelief. I did feel bad that I'd left Mina at the mercy of these rumours though, she must've been going mad wondering what had happened especially as I wasn't in school. I didn't know how I was going to explain the story of my moms killer to her, that would only put her in danger. It was unfair that I couldn't tell Mina the truth for her own safety but by doing that I was pushing her away at the same time.

 "I'm sorry I didn't reply to any of your messages," I started with, hoping she could hear the sincerity in my voice, "things have been so insane at Kings Bridge at the moment, with the whole situation you know ...," my voice trailed off as I tired to sort the story I would tell her out in my head.

 "No I don't know, I've heard so many crazy theories I don't know what to believe, is it actually true that someone got shot?" Mina blurted out then took a breath to shovel a forkful of food into her mouth, "and is it true that one of the boys was the shooter?"

 "Yes to someone getting shot, no to the shooter, it was some crazy guy who came into Kings Bridge, nothing to do with any of the Kings Bridge boys," that at least was completely true, not the whole truth but enough to satisfy her.

 "Oh my god," her hand flew to her mouth in horror, "who got shot? Please don't say one of your guys."

 "No," my mind pondered over her words 'your guys', "it was my dad actually, he's fine now. They let him out the hospital yesterday and he's resting in bed. He got shot in the side of the chest and they all say the damage was minimal, nothing important got hit. He's going to make a full recovery."

 "Jesus Cara," Mina's hand stayed over her mouth and her eyes bulged wide as she tried to comprehend this, "I'm so sorry."

 "It's okay, I mean it was really scary at the time but he's fine which is all that matters," I nodded trying to convince myself of this fact more than her. 

 "Still that's your dad Cara, and he got shot," Mina couldn't seem to get over this fact and just shook her head minutely, "wait, you didn't see it did you?" All I needed to do was nod for her to suck in a long dramatic gasp so loud people several tables over glanced our way. "You mean you were in the same room as the gun man?"

 "Yes," I found myself lowering my voice to a whisper. 

 "Cara!" Mina's whole face became a picture of shock, "that's awful. Are you alright?"