The Game of Hearts

23 // Be Honest With Me

Chapter 23 - Be Honest With Me

"Chasing, always chasing dreams.

Why'd you stick around, why'd you stay with me?

Why'd you fake it?"

"Everyone stop talking this loud because I can't hear what Ms. Terry is telling me!" Mr. Jones shouted with his strong voice. Me and Dylan had just arrived at the meeting point, the school's gate, in that Friday afternoon. Everyone had big bags with them, camping backpacks, etc. The trip was only for senior year, which made the other years very jealous and eager to get to the last year so they could do this kind of trips as well.

There were about two hundred students in Senior Year, so the school rented four buses with fifty seats each. Students would be randomly distributed by each bus and I just hoped I'd stay on the same bus as Dylan and Ellie so I didn't have to go all the trip to the nature reserve alone.

I had a camping backpack slung in my shoulders and a small bag in my arms. The director had told us we were going to sleep in the tents near some wooden houses that had kitchens and bathrooms we could use.

During the week teachers had established rules and organized the whole thing, and even though we knew we had to follow the rules straight, we were still very excited to go camping. Ellie and I had talked to our rowing coach, Mr. Yanks, and like Ellie had said, he didn't stay as mad as I thought he would be.

"Ellie's o ver there." Dylan spotted and we made our way towards her. She greeted us with her big bright smile.

"This school is so cool!" She exclaimed joyfully. "I can't wait to get to the nature reserve!"

"You know we won't get there in the next few hours, because not everyone is here yet and the trip still takes two hours long." I smiled, but on the inside I scolded myself. Why did I always have to ruin the fun of everything?

"Well, we always have Subway Surfers to pass the time!" Thankfully, Ellie didn't take my words the wrong away and instead took her phone out of her pocket.

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We spent the next hour playing games on each other's phones until we heard Mr. Jones say he would be calling the names to each bus. All students gathered around in a massive crowd while he called the names. Dylan and Ellie were the last ones chosen to the first bus. They both looked at me compassionately and I saw them disappear inside the first bus. I sighed, but then focused on listening Mr. Jones.

I finally heard my name being called in the middle of the list of the second bus and after putting my bags on the trunk of the bus I made my way into it. The seats on the back were already full so I sat near the window in the middle of the bus.

I leaned back on my seat praying to God someone nice would seat next to me. I was looking through the window so I got startled when a voice spoke next to me. "I believe this seat isn't taken yet."

I turned my face and saw Matthew smiling down at me. I rolled my eyes but didn't speak as I heard people at the back of the bus calling him to go sit next to them, but he just ignored them. Surprisingly.

It was so ironic that he made the bet to be even more popular and to prove to Aiden that he could break my heart and then when he was in fact working on winning the bet he would renounce his popularity only to win. I mean, he was doing the bet to be even more popular but now he was ignoring the popular people to be with me, which probably would cost him his popularity. After all, that's how popular people functioned.