Given Up

Chapter 43

The toilets were thankfully empty as I splashed some water on my face, trying to clean away the tear tracks. I looked into the mirror above: my green eyes were still a bit red but not too bad. I am not sure you could tell that I had been crying. I felt exhausted by the effort of it all.

I wasn't sure how long I had been in with Mr Green, but somehow now I felt both heavy and lighter. Talking about Mum, how she had been before and what had happened the day she died was really hard. Mr Green hadn't balked as I shared the details. He had just listened and let me cry when I needed to. I wasn't worried about how it would affect him like I was with Kate.

My phone rang and it was her.

"Hey Kate."

"Where are you? I went to your room and you were gone. Are you ok?" She made no attempt to hide her anxiety.

"I am at school."

"Oh..." She sounded surprised.

"I came in early to speak to Mr Green."

"Oh." She sounded stumped again. "Right. Good. Um....Are you coming home straight after?"

"Yeah, I think so." I replied.

"Great...hopefully we can...catch up then. Have a good day sweetie." Her voice was awash with nervous excitement.

I pocketed the phone quickly and walked back out into the hallway. The bell rang and doors opened; kids coming out for break time like they have been let out of jail. I headed in the direction of my gang's usual break meeting place. As I pushed through the doors, I could see most of them already congregated. My stomach turned over. I could just slip away and they wouldn't know I was here. But no, I was trying to do things differently this time, wasn't I? I took a breath and walked up to the tight circle of my friends.

I coughed and projected my voice loud enough to hear. "Hey."

Drew stepped back revealing me to the whole group. There was a collective pause before I was jumped on by Jax with his trademark bear hug.

"How are you doing?" Drew asked, as I peeled myself away. "I rang a few times...Scott said you weren't up to replying."

"Yeah, it has been a rough time."

Everyone nodded their heads with measured sadness.

"It doesn't seem real. Like when he was around, he always just filled up the space, didn't he?" Jax said. I felt my body tighten at the mention of him, I had been dreading talking about it with everyone.

"Lunch has been pretty quiet," Maddie added. "I still can't believe he is gone."

I dug my hands deep into my pockets, picking a spot on the floor to focus on as I tried not to let the flush of emotion fill my tear ducts again.

"You missed them doing an assembly about Diego. We sang songs." Tammy said.

"They were talking about him like he was this model pupil that they knew so well, when he had only been here a few weeks. You would have hated it..." said Drew.

"Probably," I nodded. "Is Cassie back in school?"

Jax's face dropped. "You haven't talked to her either?"

"No, he hasn't." I turned to see Cassie behind me: her face trying not to show she was upset.

"Hey babe," I moved towards her, but she crossed her arms across her body in a very clear signal that I should not try to touch her. I felt bad that I had just not talked to her, especially as she was recovering from her own trauma. The bell rang then and wordlessly she turned on her heel and left. I sighed and turned back to the group as they were picking up their bags.