The Silent Deceivers

Chapter 15

The Truth Is Discovered

 It took all my strength to push the door shut with my body. I walked over to the sofa and sat down avoiding eye contact with both of them. My head was on fire. I knew one day I was going to have to face this situation but I thought I would have a little more time to prepare my argument. How was I going to dig my way out of this one? I certainly didn’t need it at that precise moment, I had enough to deal with. After endless minutes of silence, I finally gathered up the courage to speak.

“David?” I cleared my throat. “What are you doing here?” I asked careful to mask the surprise in my voice.

“I came to see if you were ok and find out why you’ve been pushing us away. We’re worried about you.” He said. “I guess we know now.”

“Why do you care all of sudden? Do you think you’re still her friends?” Roxy questioned him. I quickly hid a smile as she put inverted commas around the word friends.

His eyes darted across to Roxy, and the death stares were reborn once again.

“Stay out of this Goth, it’s got nothing to do with you?” David roared, his temper rising.

“Don’t talk to her like that!” I cried.

“How dare you defend her, after everything they’ve done?” David’s voice shook with anger. “I understand that what happened is very tragic and it’s affected you greatly but have you gone mad?”

“You don’t know anything!” I shouted back at him.

“Need any help?” a voice came from behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw David slowly start to retreat backwards. I turned to look and standing behind me were Connor and Aden. Aden walked over and positioned his body protectively in front of Roxy and Connor came and sat down next to me, placing his arm around my shoulders like David was some sort of criminal. Then I remembered in Aden’s eyes he was.

“I can’t believe you!” David spat at me. “Are you friends with them? Are you going out with him?”

“Yes to both of those questions.” Aden replied before I had a chance to think up a reasonable explanation.

“What?” He exclaimed.

As if to re-enforce Aden point Connor kissed my forehead and then went and stood next to him, again protectively in front of Roxy; much to her annoyance. My eyes followed him and as soon as he turned around to face my direction my expression went cold. I glared at them. How was I going to explain that?

David stood there, breathing heavily. His hands were clenched into fists though his face was expressionless. I could tell he was fuming because his body started to shake ever so slightly, not visual to those that hardly knew him. David was special like that, he had the ability to make his emotions unnoticeable whenever he was in public. I wish I had that talent. Before I knew it he had stormed across the room. He thrust open the door and pushed his way through the crowd of the other care kids that had gathered around outside the door. There’s no privacy in this place. I forgot about that. The door slammed shut behind him so hard that it made the glass rattle. I didn’t even give it a second thought, I knew I had to follow him. As my hand engaged with the door handle I felt another hand grab my shoulder and whirled me around. Connors eyes searched mine, desperation displayed greatly. I reassured him that I wasn’t going back to my old group, that they didn’t understand the ‘new’ me, and then I turned to face Aden. I told him that I would not betray the gang or its secrets but what I needed to do was make David agree to some kind of deal to avoid him coming back and to protect the other kids. I rushed to the front door. To be quite honest in that moment I didn’t really care about Abby or Grace, they hadn’t contacted me since my second day living at Oakley.