I walked into the canteen and was about to meet with Gray and E. I looked around but they weren't at the usual table so I sat with a few of my weirdo friends. One of those weirdos is Alex. Which is perfect because we're practically sisters now. As I was walking over to where she was sitting, a guy came past me and wrapped his arm round my shoulders. I shoved him off of me.
"Hey beautiful." He said, smirking. God, how much I wanted to punch his face.
"Die in a hole."
"That's rude. You should kiss me to make up for it." And he grabbed my ass and leant in. I pushed him backwards and he tripped over his own feet. I looked down at him.
"You disgust me." I continued walking but stopped when I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and saw him again.
"Can you just fuck off?"
"Can you just fuck me?"
"It's not funny anymore. Stop."
"I know you love it secretly."
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know you want my dick inside you."
"Ew. Leave me alone now." I tried to keep walking, yet again. This time, he grabbed my wrist - stopping me from getting any further. Ethan came over to me and grabbed the guys arm to break his grip apart from mine. He then lead me away while Gray picked a fight with this guy.
"She told you to fuck off. Now leave her alone."
"What's it to you?"
"She's a friend." I noticed him curl his hands into fists.
"Oh sorry did I offend your bitch?"
"My bitch?!" He yelled and tackled him onto the ground. Gray was taking severe hits to the face and when I tried to break them apart, E held me back. I was powerless and all I could do was shout. I was begging them to stop it and when Gray finally looked up at me - he stopped. He got up and reached out a hand to help the other guy up, the guy hit his hand away but Grayson ignored it and walked over to me. He apologised for lashing out but he 'needed to protect me'.
The 3 of us walked over to our lunch table and ranted about certain professors and certain subjects and certain students.
We then got bored and decided to play truth or dare. In the canteen. In front of the majority of the school. Interesting. We did Rock Paper Scissors on who goes first. I lost. My go first. Yay. I didn't want to choose truth though incase they asked something about my family or E asked about the hockey game or...
"Dare." Gray looked shocked at first but then simply smiled.
"I dare you to stand on this table and do an acapella performance." Gray dared me. Acapella is singing without any instruments. Fun. I used the seat as a step and stood on the table. I looked down at E and asked him to choose a song. I was now standing on the table singing 'love is an open door' at the top of my lungs. I'm already in the weirdo clique so nobody thinks it's anything unusual for me to be doing this and I'm also friends with the hottest students around so people aren't gonna say shit to me. I asked E to choose now and he chose truth.
"Well I already know everything about him so, Billie, you can take this one."
"What's your biggest regret?"
"Not taking chances."
"That's not very specific."
"Fine. There was this girl, a while back. I liked her and I never told her. She missed school for a whole week and then passed away."
"Oh my god... Ethan that's awful. I'm so so sorry." I leant forwards and gave him a hug. He rested his head into my neck and cried into my shoulder and it's the first time I'd ever seen him like this.
After lunch, on the way to our next class, Grayson explained how she passed away... she'd gone to a really dark place inside her mind and her parents didn't notice but she confided in E and he wasn't sure what to do or say to her. She later crashed her car into a tree due to drunk driving. Ethan blames himself because she was drinking to leave her mind and he didn't do anything when she told him about it...
The bell rang signalling the end of the day and I caught up with Ethan because his lecture was only a couple rooms away from mine. We didn't know where the others went so we just walked back to his dorm and talked a little on the way there. When we got there, we sat on his bed and I made us both a glass of water. I put the glasses on his dresser and I looked into his eyes and finally said what I wanted to say the whole time.
"E, Gray told me what happened and please listen to me..."
"No. It is my fault and you can't convince me otherwise. I could've helped her, I knew."
"Ethan there was so much pressure on you to be the only one who knew that. Trust me, it's not your fault."
"You're a liar." He was tearing up a little so I held his face in my hands and wiped under his eyes.
"Ethan, I want you to listen to me right now. None of this is your fault. Ok?"
"But it is, it just is. You don't understand!" But I do... I didn't know if I should tell him but I really do. I thought about it and, while I was thinking, I pulled him into a hug as an attempt to calm him down.
"Ethan I want you to listen to me. I understand."
"How? You can't fucking understand. This whole conversation is pointless."
"Ethan listen!" He went silent and looked at me in shock and confusion.
"Fine I'm fucking listening."
"Good. I understand E. I know what was going through your head. It's not your fault that you didn't tell anyone. It's so much pressure to be the only one who knows. And you can't tell, can you?"
"No you can't. You can't say fucking anything because they know you're the only one that knows anything and when people higher up start asking her questions and treating her like she's fragile and broken then she'll know you spilled and..." he sentence drifted off and so I continued for him.
"And she'll hate you for it. And so you can't. See E. I get it."
