FACADE

Chapter 23: Past Life

After dad, the next person I needed to talk to was Sheebah as I felt the girl knows more about me than I could ever imagine. I decided to wait on her outside her class, ahead of lunch, so I could spot her without hassle since she has proved to be invisible over time.

      I could recognize her very well given that I had seen her twice and could remember her face vividly from the past. Furthermore, I had left class with the excuse of going to the toilet about three minutes to recess and instead headed for her class.

 Standing not too far from the door I waited till the bell rang for lunch and pretended to be passing by. Unfortunately, Becca was one of the first set of people that came out and on sighting me was about to call out when I hastily hushed her with my hand and pulled her to my side.

 I guess luck is not on my side today, I thought as I faked a happy expression and pretended as if I had come for her.

 "It's been so hard to see you nowadays, thought I might as well wait outside for you" I lied as we made our way to her locker.

 She despises the food they served at the cafeteria, so she usually ordered takeout from a famous French restaurant. I on the other hand do not have any problem with the food since I wasn't picky and rather even thought the food they offered were better than the past.

 Becca scrunched her face in disgust when she saw me take a bite of the beefburger and I shrugged. It wasn't like I had a choice, my mom hasn't been cooking for the past few weeks and our help had taken a two days leave to take care of her sick son, Junior dislikes homemade food and since I had no knowledge on how to cook, I had no other option than to put up with the awful food in the cafeteria.

    In fact, I saw nothing wrong with the food except that the beef was a little overcooked, and I didn't mind, so I kept chewing. I might have made Becca lose her appetite because she was now holding her French fry looking absent, and I noticed she was lost in thoughts.

 "What is up with you?" I asked out of concern but when I got no reply, I knew she might not have heard me, so I snapped my fingers in front of her face, trying to get her attention.

 "Ooh sorry what did you say?"

I didn't bother to tease her, since I saw she was not in the mood, so I repeated myself.

 "What is up? You seem off. You sick?" She quickly shook her head before dropping the fry and sighed. I immediately knew it was serious.

 "It's my dad. He's at it again." She said briefly and we both knew what she meant by that.

 Becca's dad is a renowned actor and Becca's mom is well... His mistress. Anytime the husband and wife duo get into a disagreement, her dad would always take his anger out on her mom, getting violent with her till she passes out or lands in the hospital.

 Becca had tried to encourage her many times to get a restraining order, but her mom was just too infatuated with him to do such, in fact Becca thinks her mom was the main cause of her abuse, since she never voiced the slightest of complaints, even sometimes being too compliant to his every attack.

 "It's going to be alright" I tried to comfort her but I myself knew I wasn't doing a good job.

 On hearing my words, she grinned and heaved a sigh before pulling my cheeks.

 "What would I do without you" and then everything went back to normal. She passed me her fries and snatched the burger from me.

 "The way you eat it makes it enticing"

I tried to collect it back, and she stopped me with a finger outstretched. I was distracted for a moment, and before I knew it she had already stuffed the burger inside her mouth and we both stared at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing.