Avalon

Chapter 4

The next morning when I showed up for school, Reese and his group weren't in the parking lot like they had been the first day. Part of me strongly wanted to know what was going on with Reese, what he was hiding, what he was trying to protect me from last night, but the other part wanted to leave it all alone. I didn't want to be bother with Reese and his drama during my senior year of high school. I already had to move schools my last year of high school, I didn't need anything else to make the year worse.

I walked into the school and found my way to my locker, where I also found Gabriella. I smiled at her as I started to unlock my locker, which I could actually use now that I had gotten all of my books.

"Hey, Avalon. So I came to a realization last night that I kind of blew you off, and I so didn't mean to do that," she said as she leaned against the locker to the right of mine. I gave her a small smile as I put two books a notebook into my locker.

"It's fine, Gabriella, I promise," I told her, giving her a shrug as I closed my locker and turned to face her.

"You can call me Gabby," she clarified before continuing, "and to make it up to you, I declare that we hang out today after school at your house?" she suggested. I tilted my head in thought for a moment. I didn't see any reason for her to not come over, and she seemed to want to be my friend. On top of that, I felt like Gabby was someone that Alice would want to meet too.

"You know, Gabby, I would love that. I'll meet you in front of the school when classes end? I don't have a car, but it's only a ten-minute walk to my house." Gabby smiled brightly when I had said 'yes'. Gabby would probably one of my only chances at a real friend in this town, and I needed that. With Alice being so far for my senior year, I really needed a good friend.

"Sounds great, I'll see you then." She turned and walked away, presumably heading to her first class.

The day droned on as usual. I went to my classes and took notes like I usually did. Grades were something I cared about, so I always made sure to pay attention in my classes, especially the harder classes. I passed by Hannah in the hallways, but all she did was give me a nasty look. It was as if she was jealous of me, but did she even really have a reason to be jealous of me? The answer was no. Throughout the day I had avoided running into Reese, but I wouldn't be able to escape the last two hours of the school. It didn't take me long to answer my question from earlier in the day, and had chosen to not involve myself with the drama that surrounded Reese. His friends might be okay putting up with it, but I won't be one of those friends.

It eventually got to my last two hours. I entered the library and walked up to the research area of the library, taking my seat at the same computer as I had the previous day. Two minutes later Reese walked in, a book in his hand and his bag on one shoulder.

"Hello, Avalon," he said with a warm smile as he sat down. I stayed quiet for a moment. While I had decided to be Reese-free, I had not decided how I was going to go about it. I could be mean and cut him off, or be civil and still have someone to talk to the last two hours I had with him. I must have been thinking about my choices for long because I suddenly heard Reese saying my name again.

I quickly snapped out of it and looked up at him. "Sorry, hey," I said as I started logging into the computer. I could just not give Reese the attention that I suspected someone like him wanted. I doubted he would bring up what happened last night unless I brought it up, but bringing it up would go against what I had decided. Thankfully I didn't have to say anything else to him since he had decided to end the conversation there. For the rest of the two hours I had focused on doing homework.

After school, I met Gabby outside the school. She was leaning against the brick building, playing on her phone when I walked out. "Hey, are you ready?" I asked as I walked down the front steps. She looked up at the sound of my voice, stuffing her phone into her jacket pocket. She smiled and nodded.

When we arrived at my house, I led Gabby up to my bedroom and tossed my book bag onto a chair in the corner of my room. "Welcome to my room," I said as I sat down on my bed. When I looked at Gabby, she was looking around my room, studying the pictures and paintings, even though most of what I wanted to put was still packed away in boxes.

"You know, I only live like a street away," Gabby said as she set her book bag down next to my desk and followed me to sit on my bed. I leaned over and turned a radio, that was next to my bed, on, just to have some background sound.

"Really? That's nice to know," I said, but before I was even done talking, Gabby was nodding.

"So, what do you know about Reese?" she asked. I furrowed my eyebrows for a second, but then I thought about how Hannah described Reese and took it as Reese being a topic that everyone talked about simply because of who he slept with.

"Not much. We have the last two hours of school together, but we don't really talk much," I replied with a shrug. She nodded, moving on my bed to lay down on her stomach.

"Good, you do not want to get messed up with him. He sleeps with everybody," she told me with a soft laugh. Part of me wondered if he had slept with Gabby and if she was going to be as jealous as Hannah was just because Reese had acknowledged my existence.

"Yeah, this girl, Hannah, in my homeroom mentioned it? She also mentioned that she had slept with him, and boy, was she proud of that accomplishment." I laughed, pulling out my phone to scroll through some of the social medias I had. When I looked on Instagram, Alice had posted a picture with some of our other friends. I smiled a bit as I read the caption, which said, "The Senior Activities have begun! This month, senior movie night! Missing my bestie, @AvyCar1221." I liked it and then brought my attention back to Gabby.

"Hannah is crazy, though. But a lot of girls like to brag about sleeping with him. I mean, it's like him choosing you to sleep with is an honor because he's hot, I guess, but shouldn't girls usually hate the guy that sleeps around? It's like he has some trance on them." I laughed at Gabby's reply, but somehow, I toyed with the idea that Reese really did put a trance on girls. He was hot, and when I say hot, I mean he was gorgeous. Not to mention what had happened last night led me to believe that he was hiding something bigger than sleeping with every girl in Franklinton.

"Hey, what're you looking at?" Gabby asked as she peaked over to look at Alice's photo on my phone. Her question was enough to snap me out of my thoughts of Reese.

"That's my best friend, Alice, from where I used to live. Our school does an activity every month for the seniors, and it started this month," I explained to her. She nodded and then smiled.

"Well, Alice seems really nice. I'm sure you really miss her." Gabby was sincere, and it only made me surer that we should be friends.

"Yeah, but everyone has room for new friends," I told her as I set my phone down on my bedside table.