In The End, It's Us

02

"I think Xavier likes you."

Say what now? Okay, maybe my heart did skip a beat upon hearing that, but, a taken guy liking me? That's just.... wrong.

I gave Erine an "are you serious?" look. 

"Xavier? Like me? Are you crazy?!" I stared at her in disbelief. "He already has a girlfriend Erine! 

Erine just sighed. "I know that, it's just.... I don't really favor her." She looked away from the window and faced me.

"I don't really like her for my brother." She sighed and laid her head on the table. "I already had this bad feeling about her since the day Xavier introduced her to the family." Erine held her fork and started poking a piece of chicken, then swatting it around the plate as if it were a puck.

"And I don't think she likes me either." Erine mumbled

"Yeah but, you'll never know, she might actually be a good person. You can't judge her without getting to know her well."

"You're right, but my gut still tells me that I shouldn't trust her, something about her seems off."

"Well, I think that she's a nice person. Besides, she has a lot of friends and is pretty popular." I said

"They only tell you the angelic side of hers." Erine scoffed. "If word about her wrongdoings spread out, her friends will be dead meat." She implied 

"Did you know the reason why Mr. Jones left the school without a word?" She asked

"Didn't he leave because of personal issues with his family?" 

"No, what happened was he saw her steal Charlotte's artwork, and copied every single detail and concept. Mr. Jones was about to tell on her, but she stopped him and told him that if he tells anyone she'll blackmail him and ruin his career." Erine said with that "can't you believe it?" look plastered on her face.

"So.... I'm guessing that he told the principal?"

"And she embarrassed him in front of everyone during the moving up ceremony last year." Erine finished

"Her blackmail must be that bad for Mr. Jones to leave the school."

"What Mr. Jones did was right. Still, the principal was very unfair towards the whole thing. She didn't even get punished! Mr. Jones was told for trying to ruin a student's reputation by accusing her of such thing without proof. Like, what??" Erine made a face.

"No matter how hard he tried to make the principal take his side, he'll still side with her just because her father is the CEO of a very successful company and he's scared of losing his job if he punishes the CEO's daughter." Erine rolled her eyes.

"That's so unfair!" 

"I know right! And I also know that she's had a lot of boyfriends before, and that she used them for fame. I'm worried Alliah, what if she's only playing with Xavier just like the other guys? What if she breaks his heart? Cheats on him? I can't let her hurt him!" 

"Erine, I think you're just overthinking yourself."

"I'm being serious here Alliah!" Erine shot her head up.

Lyza and Bailee stood up after finishing their lunch. They looked at Erine and I, waiting for us to finish our talk. I figured that this conversation wouldn't end any sooner, so I signaled them to go ahead.

"But, as a sister, I should respect my brother's choice and not interfere with his life. If my brother's happy, then I'm fine with it. But I swear if she hurts him I'm gonna....."

Ringggg

"There goes the bell." I stood up

Erine stood up after me and followed me out of the cafeteria.

On the way out, we saw Emma Jones and her friends heading to the bathroom. When Emma saw us, she gave us a forced smile.

"Hey there." She said to me with no emotion at all. Then she looked at Erine.

"Erine."

"Hi, Emma." Said Erine, who also forced a smile.

We were about to walk past them when Emma suddenly placed her hand on Erine's shoulder, startling her.

"Where's Xavier?" Emma asked

"You guys haven't met up yet? I was thinking that maybe you guys saw each other already." Erine said in surprise.

"Well.... umm.... something came up and we weren't able t-to meet up. I was actually p-planning on looking for him..... right now!" Emma fiddled with her hair nervously and with both eyes looking around as if someone might show up any second.

Erine raised her eyebrow upon Emma's strange behavior.

"Okay then..... when you see him tell him to come home early, we're having a family dinner out." Erine said

"Okay." Emma took one last look at us before walking past us with her friends following from behind, glancling at us then started whispering amongst each other before looking at us again. 

Erine shot them a dirty look.

"I'm telling you, I really gave a bad feeling about this." She muttered.

"Just don't mind her and think positive." I comforted her. 

Erine nodded.

We went inside the classroom and joined our two friends who were laughing and joking around.

Everyone was just doing their own business. Some were just staring outside the window, or making paper planes and throwing them around the room, whispering and laughing amongst each other and just..... chilling. 

Until our math teacher came inside and banged on a sleeping classmate's table, waking that person up. Our teacher then gave all of us dirty looks.

"What are you rascals looking at?!! Go back to your seats, we're having two new lessons today! If you rascals still haven't sat down after a count of three that'll be three new lessons today!" 

Everyone groaned and went back to their seats, preparing to suffer another one hour and thirty minutes of hell.