A Harsh Reality | ✓

Chapter 25

Noah

I bumped into Mandy at the club. She had her brown hair tied in a ponytail, which ended in newly dyed pink ends, and her piercings were all gone, except for the small silver stud on her nose. She was wearing a baby blue leotard under black shorts and an open black hoodie. A matching blue bag was slung over her shoulder and her feet were adorned by white sneakers. Next to her was a tall brown haired guy, his green eyes locked on Amanda.

"Sorry," I muttered under my breath. I really was not in the mood to socialize, since Zoey's last visit to the doctor had gotten me down. She needed to be in the hospital for a week or so, they wanted to have her there to give her some medicine and stuff.

"It's okay," Mandy replied.

"I'm Sam," the guy next to her said and stretched his hand towards me.

"Noah," I shook it with my own.

"Anyways," Amanda said, "I better get going to practice, do whatever you like, I don't know." She turned to Sam before walking over to the gymnastics gym. Guess she didn't really care about this friend of hers.

"And I better go practice basketball," I stated and turned around towards the court.

"Mind if I tag along?" Sam asked, "I don't have anything better to do anyway."

"Sure," I shrugged. We walked in silence towards the basketball court, which was empty as usual. "You do know how to play, right?"

"Yeah," he replied as I grabbed an orange ball from the rack after unlocking it. I tossed it to him and then grabbed another one for myself. I started bouncing the ball around on the wooden floor as I left my backpack on the floor. Sam followed me with his own ball.

"So, where do you know Amanda from?" he asked as I threw the ball into the hoop.

"School," I replied, "You're from California, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cool," I stated before pointing out, "She sometimes talks about her old friends, but she never mentioned you before."

"I doubt she would," Sam said as he threw the ball into the hoop, "I'm kind of her ex." I stopped in my tracks before bouncing the ball again. This was the guy the rumors were about, the rumors that made Amanda look like a control freak.

"Oh."

"Yeah," he said, "Things didn't end well between us." I sighed, not really wanting to hear what happened between them. If I was going to be told about it, better be Amanda the one who told me.

"That kind of explains why she sometimes is untrusting with guys," I replied bouncing the ball around the wooden floor as I walked around the court, Sam following me.

"I came here to try and fix things between us," he explained, "But I came too late, she already has a boyfriend."

"Yeah," I said, "Jack."

"That's him." I remembered the bored look Mandy had in her face when I had bumped into her, pure anger and hate hidden well behind that look.

"So," Sam stated as he threw his ball into the hoop, "Do you know him? I mean, do you know Jack?"

"Yeah, why?" I stopped bouncing and looked at the brown haired guy in front of me. He looked back at me with his green eyes on my blue ones.

"Maybe you'd like to warn him about Amanda," he said then, "She is not what she seems." What the fuck was he talking about?

"What do you mean?" I asked. He stopped bouncing the ball.

"Amanda's cool and everything, but that's just a facadę." He paused. "You might already know what I'm talking about, only if you are close enough to her." I did know what he was talking about.