The Girl With Many Names

▪︎ Chapter Twenty-Three ▪︎

"Woah, Harper, right on the floor of the boy's locker room? Damn, your game's tight" said one of the boys, making my face go red from both anger and embarrassment as I scrambled to get off him, he on the other hand, wasn't so embarrassed. He laughed. He actually laughed!

As I tried to get up, my locket which had fallen out of my shirt, got stuck on his shirt. Oh, come on. I tried removing it but I wasn't patient enough, so I kept fumbling. The boys kept on passing snide remarks and I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

I was able to force it out but then it burst open, revealing a small chip, like an SD card. Huh? What was that and how did it get in there? Last I checked, the locket contained only a miniature picture of my family and I, so where did that come from? I decided to ask my mum about it when I got home because I had more pressing issues to deal with at the moment, like saving what was left of my dignity.

Pushing that thought aside, I picked it up and placed it back in the locket, standing up. Blake also stood up, he seemed to have noticed the bad mood I was in, because the smile on his face had vanished.

"It's not what it looks like guys" he replied, scratching the back of his neck, but they didn't take him seriously. I sent him a deadly glare and stormed out of the room, not forgetting to send those jerks theirs too.

When I got out, I opened his phone and deleted the video but had to wait for him to come out cause I left my backpack inside. He came out soon after but I was so pissed at that moment. At myself mostly, for taking the decision to enter into the locker room in the first place, at Blake for making me take that decision and at those boys for passing those comments.

"I'm so sorry Dani" he said, walking out, my backpack and his in hand "I was just messing with you but I didn't expect things to turn out that way"

I grabbed my bag from him and started to walk away with him in tow.

"Please listen to me, I'm sorry" he pleaded but I wasn't listening. I was busy thinking of how I'd probably never be able to live that down.

Just then, the bell for the next period went and I made my way to my next class, I had not even noticed when Blake stopped following me.

* * * * *

"Hey Clo" I greeted as I took a seat opposite Clover at our lunch table in the cafeteria. No answer. I looked at her to see she was deep in thought.

"Clover?" I called, snapping my fingers in front of her face.

"What? Yeah? Oh hi Dani" she responded, looking at me, a worried look on her face.

"What's going on?" I asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

"It's nothing" she said, plastering a fake smile on her face.

"You know I can see through that smile right?" I asked, with a raised eyebrow "Come on, tell me what's going on"

"Alright fine" she sighed "My mum has been feeling a bit down lately, so she decided to get a check up done. She called some minutes ago to tell me that she's at the hospital and I really can't help but worry about what could be the problem. She had a diabetes problem some years back and it was really bad but somehow, she pulled through. I'm really just hoping that it hasn't found it's way back into her life"

By the time she finished, tears were streaming down her cheeks and it made me sad to see her like that. I had never seen her sad, she was always this ball of sunshine whenever she was around me. I was really bad at consoling people, most of the time, I think I actually make it worse but I really didn't like seeing her this sad so I gave it my best shot. Hopefully we'd still be friends after this.