Different

Chapter 27

When we were approaching the nurse’s office we heard someone’s foot scuff against the tiled floor. We both turned round, it was Luke. Courtney frowned at him. I just turned back around pretending not to be interested. Before we got to the door Courtney slung her arm over my shoulder and started pretending to limp again.

The nurse let us in and pointed at some seats for us to sit on. Luke followed us into the room. Great. The nurse explained that we’d have to wait since she was already looking after other people and disappeared into the next room. This caused Courtney to sigh dramatically, which Luke rolled his eyes at.

Courtney was laughing at her phone. ‘What?’ I asked, curious to know what she was looking at.

‘Oh my God, look at this, Jen. Vannie sent it to me.’ she said showing me her phone. It was a video of Courtney and Kacey running into each other and falling. ‘Look at how her arm fat jiggles and her double chin bounces on the way down.’ she kept replaying the video and we were both laughing. ‘Oh my God. I would die if I was that fat!’ I said between laughs.

‘I know right.’ we carried on laughing at it. The more we repeated the video, the funnier it was.

‘Aww no, my battery is dying.’ Courtney said slightly frowning at her phone. She put it away in her pocket and when we looked back up we saw an angry looking Luke staring back at us.

I looked to Courtney, since I’m not good at any kind of confrontation. I know it was a bit mean to laugh at Kacey like that, but you can’t deny that it was hilarious either. It’s not like we were being mean to her face or anything!

‘What the fuck are you staring at?’ Courtney snarled, wrinkling her nose like she always does when she’s mad. Before he had chance to reply the nurse came back in. She turned to Luke and asked him what was wrong. ‘Um, hello? I was here first!.’ Courtney whined. The nurse sighed and turned to Courtney instead. ‘I think my leg is broken.’ Courtney said in a sad voice, pouting slightly. The nurse started pressing on Courtney’s leg. ‘Owwww.’ Courtney whined dramatically.

‘It’s definitely not broken.’ the nurse said. The phone started ringing in the office. ‘Just a minute' the nurse said walking off.

‘So what were you staring at, freak?’ Courtney said in a bitter tone.

‘Just leave it Court.’ I said.

‘No, I’m not gonna let some loser look at me like that! He shouldn’t have even been looking at me in the first place, creep!’

‘Who’d want to look at you?’ My jaw literally dropped open, so did Courtney’s. No-one spoke to her like that! Especially not one of the quietest kids in the school!

Courtney stood up and stood over him, trying to intimidate him. ‘Don’t. You. Ever. Speak to me like that again!’ she raged at him. He was trying to put on a brave face and look uninterested, but you could still see a small glint of fear in his eyes. It made me feel really bad. I just wanted to hug him and tell him that Courtney was a bitch and forget that this ever happened, but I knew I couldn’t. The nurse came back in the room and saw Courtney standing. She plastered on a fake smile. ‘Oh, your leg seems to be better now. Isn’t that great? Now you can go back to class.’ Courtney’s eyes dropped for a second before regaining composure and she stalked out of the nurse’s office and I followed after her.

We were walking round the corridors to nowhere in particular with Courtney ranting on ‘who does he think he is talking to me like that?!’ I zoned her out and just nodded and agreed with her, it was easier that way. I felt my phone vibrate against my leg. As I read the text my stomach sank slightly.

from Luke

I thought you were different.

A few minutes later I got another text. I felt sick after I read this one. Absolutely awful. My heart was heavy in my chest and my stomach was in knots.

from Luke

you’re just as big a bitch as the rest of them