Broken Record

Chapter 5

“Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I didn't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. And like that hole, I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time. ” -Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

The next Tuesday Nick stayed home from school. A flu had been going around and he’d been unlucky enough to catch it. But Samantha did go to school. She caught a ride with Luke. Well, Luke and three of his friends.

Samantha didn’t not like Luke’s friends, she just didn’t like it when she never had any time with him when it was just them. They never seemed to be alone anymore.

Not that they weren’t ever alone. They seemed to be alone a lot. But Samantha didn’t want that. She wanted to go to dinner, go on walks, do couple things alone with him. She didn’t want to think about being alone with him just yet. She could talk about his body to his friends but she was nervous to actually do anything with him.

Luke drove a BMW he had gotten for his birthday in July. Samantha didn’t understand why in the world a teenage boy needed a BMW but she didn’t complain, she really needed a ride to school.

When she arrived at school she was met by Meredith and Tobias, which was odd. She never saw Tobias much, other than when he was with Nick.

She waved to them and turned to Luke to say goodbye but he was already walking away. She shrugged it off, he had a big test today and probably had a lot on his mind. Meredith ran up to Samantha and Tobias followed sheepishly behind.

“Samantha! Where’d Luke go?”

“He already headed to his first period,” Samantha said trying to seem nonchalant.

“Hey Tobias,” she said, leaning around where Meredith was chattering on about something or other.

“Tobias?” She asked. He was too busy watching Meredith talk, even though she wasn’t looking at him. Finally he said,

“Hey Samantha. Nick told you he wasn’t here today?” He was still looking at Meredith with a small smile on his face.

“Yeah, he mentioned it.”

“Cool.”

“And it was so exciting!” Meredith finished. Samantha turned back to her and smiled like she had been listening.

It wasn’t that Samantha didn’t love Meredith and her stories, there were just so many of them. Besides, Tobias suddenly showing up with Meredith was more important than whatever story she had just told.

“So do you guys want to head to class?” Meredith asked, making Samantha turn her attention away from Tobias staring at Meredith.

“Uh, go on without me,” she said. “I have to go find Maddie so I can get my Calculus textbook back.”

“Why did she have it?” Meredith asked.

“She left it at her dad’s house and she’s at her mom’s all week.”

“Oh. So what are you going to do when you have your homework?”

“We’re reviewing all week in my class. She has a different teacher so it doesn’t matter.” Samantha shrugged.

“Mkay.” Meredith turned to Tobias with a smile. “I guess it’s just us then.”

“Just us?” Tobias said, his voice cracking at the “us.”

“Yeah, it’s just us walking to class,” Meredith said laughing. She waved him along. “Come on.”

“Okay!” Tobias said, not even bothering to wave to Samantha as he followed Meredith like a happy puppy.

Samantha rolled her eyes as she watched them go. He was already so whipped and he hadn’t even gotten her number yet. She wondered if he had even told Nick yet.

She found Maddie by the front gate of the school trying not to look too cold. Maddie was the one in their group that insisted on dressing cute all the time, which made her permanently cold during the winter.

“Hey,” Maddie said, handing over the textbook.

“Hey. You’ll never guess who was waiting in the parking lot with Meredith when I got to school.”

“Tobias,” Maddie said, not bothering to look up as she rummaged through her back pack.

“How did you know?”

“She texted me when she said she didn’t need a ride this morning because he was taking her.”

“Are they like a thing?” Samantha asked.

“Well yeah.”

“Since when!”

“Not long.” She put her backpack back on her shoulder and fixed her hair.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I figured you knew. Plus, they’re not really a thing yet. They’re just talking,” Maddie said.

“But you think they’re going to go out?”

“I’m guessing. He seems to like her enough.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Samantha said.

The warning bell rang and Samantha said goodbye to Maddie as she rushed to her locker to get ready for her first class. She couldn’t make this day worse by being late.

As she made her way through the crowd of people she saw Luke at his own locker talking to some of his friends. She really just wanted to go over and hug and kiss him but she didn’t. She almost waved when he looked her way but he didn’t seem to see her. She decided to just go to class.

She wished Nick had come to school today. He always knew how to make her feel better no matter what was bothering her.

She just missed him.

A/N: So you guys finally get an update! But I did still have trouble writing this so please don't blame me if you don't think it's very good. 

That being said, please give me some feedback! So vote and comment and anything else you can possibly do lol.

The song on the right is "Missing You" by Green Day, which I think connects to the last line of this chapter. Hope you all enjoy.

This is dedicated to yourstruly_red for all her help on getting this story ready. She helped me with the summary, the cast, and even with plot trouble I had with some of the chapters. It shows how great it is to have someone as crazy as you are helping you write lol. You guys should check out her story "Because We Fell" because it's great and I'm obsessed with it!

P.S. The photo on the right is who I have cast as Meredith, Grace Holley :)