He Was A Ten

I Have a Talk With My Friends

A/n-I am so so sorry for the delay. I've been pretty busy with school starting and I kept running into writer's block while writing this chapter. Eventually, I was able to come up with this. Hopefully, you'll enjoy. I promise the next chapter will be longer to make up for it.

We made our way to Science and Alice immediately made some comment about Marcus' sunglasses, but I wasn't really paying attention. I noticed that Hattie still wasn't here. Not unusual, although usually she didn't miss the beginning of school two days in a row.

"Um, Paige. How are you going to write with your wrist in a cast?" Alice asked as our teacher walked in.

I cursed under my breath. I hadn't really thought of  that. I guess I was just going to have to use my left hand.

"I can write her answers down since we sit right next to each other," Marcus offered. "We can figure out something better for tomorrow at lunch."

"It's fine Marcus, I can just use my left hand."

Marcus looked impressed. "You can write with your left hand?"

"Well, no," I admitted.

"Then let me write for you for today."

"Alright, but just for today," I agreed.

"I wish I dislocated my wrist," Alice muttered softly under her breath. I just rolled my eyes.

I was about to make a comment when the teacher said, "Alright, everybody calm down. Let's get started with the lesson."

I sat there trying to listen, but my mind kept wandering. My arm itched from being in the stupid cast and my shoulder was starting to feel sore from the strap. 

I thought I was about to fall asleep when the door slammed open and Hattie walked in, breathing heavily.

"Sorry," she panted. "I missed the bus."

"Glad you could join us Ms. Forest," Mr. Tairo said. "Please take your seat next to Ms. Darrow and have her fill you in."

As Hattie took her seat next to Alice, I noticed something about her.

Hattie, for the first the in her life, was wearing sunglasses.

I wanted to ask her about it, especially after finding out why Marcus was wearing sunglasses, but class had started up again, and Mr. Tairo didn't appreciate people talking over him. I was going to have wait.

"Ms. Woods, eyes on the board please," Mr. Tairo demanded.

"Yes sir," I sighed, trying to refocus.

When class finally ended, I tried to catch Hattie as she went out the door, but by the time I finally got my stuff together, she was long gone. Stupid cast.

Well, there was always lunch.

Thankfully for Marcus' hand, the rest of the morning we didn't have any assignments on paper.

Hopefully I didn't have any paper assignments the rest of the day.

After Algebra, I packed up my things and head to the cafeteria. I didn't see Hattie there yet so, I just waited. Marcus sat next to me.

"What's up Paige?"

"Nothing. Just waiting for Hattie."

He looked over at me and then back at his lunch. Soon, Alice arrived with her lunch, too. She started talking to Marcus, something about the dance I think, but I was busy watching the cafeteria door waiting for Hattie.

After waiting patiently for 40 minutes, the bell rang for lunch to end, and for me to go to world studies. I sat there for a few moments wondering what was wrong with Hattie. Was she sick? Did she have an appointment that I had forgotten about?

"She almost never misses lunch," I mutter to myself while getting up to go to 5th period. "God, I hope she's okay."

At least she's in my English class, she can't skip that, right?

When I arrived in World Studies, Cindy was waving me over to the seat right next to her.

"Hey Cindy," I said sitting down "What's new?"

"Nothing much, you?" she replied in a happy tone. She seemed really pumped up about something.

"I haven't gotten to talk to Hattie all day," I replied with a frown.

"Oh... hopefully she'll talk to you soon" She smiled.

"Hopefully," I muttered while sighing.

"You'll never guess what I did last night," Cindy told me, still smiling. "I found this really cool article about where Johnny Bones could be living now. They say that he could very well being living somewhere in our area. Isn't that a great idea for our essay?"

"Yeah, sounds great," I answered distractedly.

"I'll send you the link so you can read it during class.

For the next 35 minutes, we sat there, working on our project. Cindy hummed while waiting for me to finish reading the rest of the article. I couldn't focus, I had Hattie on my mind, plus everyone was talking so loud. Cindy humming right next to me didn't really help either, but I was too lost in thought to tell her to stop.

When the bell rang, and I still hadn't finished the article. Looks like I was going to have homework. 

I walked into English, I immediately spotted Hattie sitting in her usual seat, as if nothing was wrong, like she hadn't just skipped lunch.

"Where were you?" I asked coldly, my stressing and frustration bubbling to the surface. "You weren't there during lunch. Are you avoiding me or something?"

Hattie looked at me with wide eyes. "What? No! Why would I be avoiding you?"

"Well, then where were you during lunch? And why are you wearing sunglasses, in fall, to school?" I demanded. 

"Jeez, girl, chill out," Hattie said, looking at me concerned. "I went to go make up some work for Science that I missed during lunch. I guess I forgot to tell you guys."

I sighed, my anger vanishing. I was still annoyed that Hattie had made me so worried over nothing and she still hadn't answered all of my question, so I wasn't about to forgive her just yet. "Why are you wearing sunglasses?"

"Why do you care?" Hattie shot back defensively, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Because Marcus is wearing his to cover up a black eye," I told her. "I'm worried about you Hattie. I've been waiting all day to ask if you were okay, and I seem to keep missing you. It's really stressful."

Hattie's gaze softened. "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to worry."

"Why are you wearing sunglasses?" I pleaded softly. "Are you okay?"

Hattie sighed, and took off her sunglasses, revealing a black eye, just like Marcus. "I ran into Chase and Marcus yesterday, after the whole hospital fiasco. They were both fighting with each other, and I was pissed because you're a terrible liar and I thought that Chase might've been the one who got you sent to the hospital, so I joined in."

"You guys shouldn't have done that," I said. "You guys got hurt because of it."

"You think we have it bad?" Hattie snorted. "You should've seen Chase. Marcus had to carry the sucker home and he didn't make it to school today. Which, is probably more because he's a wuss and an egotistical jerk rather than the beating we gave him, but still."

I rolled my eyes, but I was grinning. Yeah, Hattie sounded like she was perfectly fine. "Well, I'm just glad you're not too badly hurt."

Hattie smiled. "Yeah. Me too."

A/n-Again, sorry for the wait, next chapter will be up much sooner. Thanks for reading!