High School at Laguna

Part 5

I saw him at the end of the hallway talking to her. They looked like they were having a normal conversation but I just kept thinking that it was about me. I couldn't stop thinking about what happened yesterday. I walked away from the scene and out the door.

"Smriti!"

I turned around after hearing my name. Gabby was running towards me. It had been so long since I had talked to him. He was panting by the time he reached me.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said looking up at me. "I had to tell you something but not now. Just drop by my house at 5 today?"

"Uh," I wasn't sure what to say. I wanted to talk to him again but I didn't know if I should be. "I'll try to make it."

He smiled and looked like he was about to hug me but he didn't. "Don't look back, just look forwards. You'll find the light someday, and when you do, don't lose sight of it," he said and walked away.

...

My screen flashed 5:00 by the time I had arrived at his house. I knocked on the door and Serena opened it. I looked at her surprised. What was she doing here? Was this another one of her plans to make me look like a fool? Was this planned with Gabby? I was thinking all of this when Gabby came up behind her.

"Well come in," he said moving Serena from the door.

Serena actually looked equally surprised to see me there. I walked past her and to the living room. Gabby and Serena came in after me and sat down.

"So, I know you're probably wondering what's going on but I just needed to clear some things."

I waited patiently for Gabby to explain all this to me. Serena also looked at Gabby keenly.

"Well let me start with Smriti, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for not believing you when you told me about Serena. I just didn't want to believe it because I didn't want to think of her as a bad person."

"What did she tell you?" Serena suddenly asked sitting up. She looked at me really mad. She seemed to be telling me to just wait until this is over so that I could see what she would do to me. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Gabby seemed to have noticed my discomfort because he suddenly got up and sat next to me.

"She told me about how you have been bullying her. She told me what you've been doing to her for the past 4 months." He said looking at Serena. "I just wanted you to know why I didn't believe you."

"You shouldn't believe her!" Serena got up shouted. "I have done no such thing."

"Stop it and sit down or I will call mom and dad." Gabby shouted getting equally mad.

I just sat there confused and waited. Serena looked scared at the mention of Gabby's parents; so she sat down and stayed quiet while Gabby explained things.

"You see I think that I need to introduce Serena to you again."

Introduce me to Serena again? Why?

"Smriti, meet Serena," he said, "my sister."

I stared at him in disbelief. Serena was his sister. Was that why she was after me and always knew what to do? Were they in this together? I backed away from Gabby.

"Wait, no it's not what you think," Gabby said reaching out for me. "I wasn't helping her bully you or anything. That's not why I didn't believe you. Smriti please just listen to me."

I stopped moving and just looked at him. "Fine."

"Our family has been having some problems for quite a while now. My dad wants a divorce from my mom and it's been in the process of being accepted for a while now. I had to deal with the stress of being sane and when you told me about Serena being a bully I kind of just lost it. I didn't want to believe that there was another problem I had to deal with. I wanted to believe that my sister wasn't the mean awful person you told me she was because she is like a pillar of niceness in the family.

She has been helping me keep sane here and keep mom and dad in good terms and I just couldn't believe that she was the one who was pushing you so down."

I looked over to Serena and saw that she was at the verge of tears too. "I still don't really understand why she targeted me though." I asked both of them hoping to get an answer. Serena just turned away form me but Gabby answered for her.

"Well I can't be sure but I think that she just didn't like how close you got with me and my family. I guess she just needed something to vent out her anger at and she did that on you. I'm really sorry for all that you went through. I didn't realize that through helping me at home she was also getting information on you to destroy you."

I tried to process all this information given to me. I was finally starting to understand why she was trying to hurt me and how she knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

"As for you Serena, I told mom and dad about this and they decided that they are going to send you to that boarding school you were looking at. They realized that the problems at home were making you unstable... again...so they decided to send you away while all this gets sorted out."

I looked over at Serena and saw that she was red with anger. I wanted to ask what Gabby meant by being unstable again but I kept quiet. I didn't want to enrage Serena because even after knowing all this I was still scared of her. I knew what she was capable of and I did not want her to attack me again. She slowly got up, walked up the stairs and slammed the door shut.