To Be Honest

one

''Ellie? Are you listening? Ellie!'', Beth shouted and swayed her hand in front of my eyes to wake me up from my thoughts.

''Uh, sorry?'', I asked irritated, completely clueless what we were just talking about.

''You're kind of absent lately. I asked you something about Aidan, because I saw you two together yesterday and I was curious what he said to you," she explained and wiggled her eyebrows cheekily. I sighed, gulping slowly.

You're kind of absent lately, she said. I saw you two together, she said. My heartbeat became faster and my breath uneven, but Beth didn't seem to notice, luckily.

''It was nothing," I claimed, going a bit faster so I didn't have to look her in the eyes. We were on our way to school, just like every morning. As she lived only three houses away from my own and because we were best friends since basically forever, it was natural to walk together. But today was different. This was not just another morning.

I looked into her bright green eyes, wondering how she felt and how she could just talk to me like that, like nothing ever happened, and made me doubt about what I heard yesterday. Maybe I made a mistake and maybe it was not her.

I gulped one more time and closed my eyes for one or two seconds.

It was not a mistake. I could still hear their voices echoing in the back of my head, hunting me like a wolf and slowly killing me from the inside.

''Oh, I don't believe that. Could you please tell me? I mean, Aidan is probably the hottest boy of our school! How can you possibly stay so calm? I would go crazy of he ever talked to me!'', Beth squeaked and looked at me, so innocent with her pretty light brown hair, knotted into a ponytail. I remembered her asking me how to do a high ponytail because I always wore one and she liked it. After showing her a few times how to do one, she had mastered it quickly and now it suited her even better than me.

''I'll tell you later, okay? We have to hurry, or we'll be late," I said to change the topic.

''Aye-aye, Captain Hepburn!'', she said, saluting cheerfully and smiled brightly at me.

Why? I wanted to ask, but I gritted my teeth and quickly rejected that thought.

And instead of confronting her, I smiled, too.

*****

''Get out your homework, we'll begin with the lesson!'', Mr Winters announced, as strict as always. His attitude was extremely scary. I was never good at Physics to begin with, but when he began teaching us, I became even worse and I was sure that I would fail this year. All of my other subjects were fine, it was only Physics, or in other words, it was only Mr Winters that I couldn't manage.

''He's in high spirits today, huh?", the person next to me whispered into my ear. After taking a deep breath, I turned around and looked into a pair of deep brown eyes that I once adored, that I still adored.

''I guess so," I responded shortly, trying to crack a smile.

''Is something up? You seem different, " Scott asked me, looking a bit worried. My heart broke into millions of tiny pieces when I saw his concerned face. I quickly shook my head.

''No, it's nothing, I...I'm just afraid that I will fail this year in Physics, that's all," I answered and he nodded understandingly.

''I can help you studying, if you want to. How about today? We wanted to meet and to go to the cinema anyway,'' he reminded me. He and I wanted to go watching Divergent together because we were basically the only two people on this planet who hadn't watched it already. I remembered us watching the trailer on youtube again and again and being really excited about the film. Even though this was only a week ago, it seemed like a lifetime passing by. He always seemed so happy when we were together. I wondered when that changed. And I wondered why I never noticed.