Special

The Truth

Emily was waiting for him just outside of the classroom. With his head in the clouds Matt had managed to be late for school for the third time that week and it was only Thursday.

"Hey, Emily," he greeted her. It was strange to see her standing outside the classroom. In this regard she was like Daniel. She wouldn't miss class for anything and she certainly wasn't the type of student who would get thrown out of class for misbehaving. "Why are you standing here?"

"Waiting for you," she snarled and in one swift move pushed him against the wall. She did it surprisingly quietly considering that sound travelled exceptionally well in the empty hallway. "What on earth were you thinking?"

"What do you mean?" he asked honestly confused for a second but then remembered one thing she could be angry about as his brain sifted through the moments where he had fucked something up.

"You are going to blackmail Dan," she hissed and glared at him.

Matt shook his head. "No, no, I won't. Emily –"

"Did you really think that was going to work?" she cut him off. Her eyes were filled with anger and her knuckles turned white as she clenched her hands into fists.

"Emily, please, let me explain."

"No, I don't think I will. You are done. Stay away from Dan. If I see you anywhere near him again I will beat you up myself."

Matt had no doubt that she could do so without breaking a sweat so he felt like shuffling between her and the door to the classroom to stop her from walking away wasn't the wisest of choices but when had he made any wise decisions lately?

"Emily, you don't understand," he whispered and gestured for her to follow him into the farthest corner of the hallway where there conversation was less likely to be noticed in the classrooms. He had no idea how she figured out Joe's plan but it didn't surprise him that she did.

She stood in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest and her lips pressed together forming a thin pale line showing her still burning anger. "You have five minutes to make a case for yourself."

He rubbed his hands nervously. "Okay, thanks for being so generous with the time."

"Four minutes thirty seconds."

"Joe came up with this. Yes, he wants to blackmail him. I told them that they are going way too far with this but they wouldn't listen to me."

She squinted her eyes at him and it made her seem even scarier.

"I like Daniel. Genuinely. I never wanted to bully him."

"Then why did you?" she hissed.

He looked down at his shoes avoiding her. "I think you should ask Dan about that. I explained it all to him but I'm not sure if he would be okay with you knowing about that."

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"What? No, of course not."

She just raised an eyebrow at him.

"Okay, so basically his parents didn't want me to play with him any more and because of that I got angry at him. I didn't know how to stay away from him so I just wanted to tease him a little so that he would want to stay away from me. Makes sense?"

She frowned and huffed. It didn't seem like she was particularly happy with his explanation.

"It got out of hand later when the other two joined in. I fucked up."

"Yeah,  you did."

He looked at her for second. Her eyes were still cold and it didn't seem like he was getting her to believe him.