Super Secret

Chapter 2- A Text

Nothing was said at school the next day.

Obviously.

They had each returned to normality for a while, completely erasing each other from existence to 'enjoy' school life for a short period of time.

It was lunchtime, and each of them was situated at different ends of the canteen, as usual.

Susan could be seen on the far left, sat on the lap of her jock boyfriend, Nathan Scott, surrounded by a big group of obnoxiously loud teens, all howling and laughing along at any little thing that came out of Nathan Scott's mouth. Susan made it pretty clear she was uncomfortable by the way she shifted on Nathan's lap but forced herself to laugh along all the same.

Eleanor was found on the right in her usual corner of sports-obsessed pals. She had her arm propped up on the table so that she could balance her chin on her palm. She looked bored. Ellie noticed how she would secretively roll her eyes at any remotely funny remark made by those sat around her.

And Ellie, of course, was found alone. Which was nothing new.

Sat by the bins, near the back of the canteen, grudgingly shovelling her lunch into her mouth despite not feeling hungry. Her eyes were fixated on the clock at the opposite side of the canteen, watching each tick pass, longing for lunch to come to an end. Or school itself.

Sometimes Ellie hated being alone, it gave her more time to spend with her thoughts. And thinking about her thoughts scared her; especially when she was in two minds half the time. She'd think about things she didn't want to think about. Like how her Dad was probably leaving her soon.

It was no secret that her Mom and Dad didn't get along. She would return home to loud spats in the kitchen, where sometimes, her Dad would get violent and throw cutlery or glass in frustration.

Ellie made it her number one priority when she would get home to bolt upstairs, lock the door of her room and plug in her music. She would blast it as loud as it would go, just so she could block out the shouts and violence from downstairs for a couple of hours. She'd dance around her room, listening to Queen to wait it out before getting ready and leaving without a trace to go meet Mr Colour and the others for their new mission.

The missions were always a nice distraction though, but never enough.

Her mind was constantly plagued with the angry shouts and cries from her parents at each other's throats. That, her school exams that were right around the corner, and her sexuality- which had quite frankly- become a questionable mess.

Ellie knew she had been different for a while. It was the little things. Like when she went to the movies, she would find herself wanting to date the female protagonist rather than the male ones, or her slight obsession with Katy Perry when she was younger, where she thought she liked her because she wanted to be her and have what she had, but Ellie soon realised that in the end, in reality, she wanted to be with her. Let's just say she didn't listen to 'California Gurls' for a while after that.

And then came the crushes at school. It started in seventh grade when James Bolton, a shy, timid boy in Ellie's class was rumoured to have a crush on her. It quickly spread throughout her whole class where she would get giggling girls coming up to her asking her what she was going to do and whether she liked him back. But truthfully, Ellie had eyes elsewhere. Instead, she found herself liking Ursula Ivanov, a girl who would sit next to her during classes and would slip notes for her to read during lesson time. Ursula was Ellie's first real friend at school. And wanted to keep it that way until she realised- she was falling slightly in love with her.

She ended up breaking it off. Ellie didn't want her feelings for Ursula to destroy their friendship and let her sexuality be spread around the school for her to be humiliated. She couldn't take that. Ellie settled on a broken heart over one that would be exploited in shame by the whole school. That's why she stayed closeted.