Repaying Her Blood

Chapter three: Change of persona

Marissa

"I wish you would come back to me. Mum thinks I can't tell but I know that she gets bad dreams too. Who knows, maybe they're worse than mine?"

"Gracie, you didn't say-" I paused to inhale more wonderful air. "That we would be doing cross country."

"Sorry," she panted. "I saw netballs!"

I gazed across at the few miles we had to go before we finished and groaned. I studied the people in front and groaned even more. Of course Miles would be at the front along with the popular group.

I had no clue who they were but Gracie spoke about them a lot and I mean a lot. Every lunchtime she had something to say about them and it got on my nerves as well as Miles'. Especially Miles' though. I mean he was infatuated with the girl.

Even though I wasn't the type of person that based my opinions off of what others said, I, however, couldn't help but be a little wary of them all. I had heard that trouble followed each and every one of the boys that Gracie had gossiped about.

"Miles is so lucky," Gracie whined. "The gorgeous boys I was on about are right next to him. He doesn't know what he is missing out on."

I stared at her with a blank face. "He's not gay that's why. I'm pretty sure he is interested in girls."

"But I bet those boys could turn any boy gay and any lesbian straight," she muttered, grumbling a few incoherent words under her breath.

"I get it you're infatuated with them all, but why? Although they may be quite attractive, I've heard what they get up to is dangerous. Why get involved?" I explained, choking for air.

"I'll tell you later," she exhaled with sweat dripping from her forehead.

Nodding, I kept going as far as my tired legs could take me.

†

"Miles, I'm being serious. Those boys you ran with are very important to me. Why didn't you just talk to them and get me onto their radar?" Gracie moaned.

"Because..." Miles paused.

"Because?" Gracie questioned, rolling her hazel eyes.

"They're dangerous, Gracie. I don't want you getting involved with them," he breathed out. "What if you got seriously hurt? Then it would be my fault."

With one last cry of rage, Gracie stomped off and out of the canteen, leaving Miles and I gaping like a fish.

"You get it, don't you?" Miles looked over at me. "I won't let her have any connection with them. She means too much to me."

"I bet she does." I smirked, patting Miles' shoulder.

"What does that me?" Miles scoffed, glowering at his empty yogurt pot.

"You're going to have to figure that one out by yourself, bud." I smiled, ruffling his caramel hair.

After that, I decided to go look for an extremely irritated Gracie who most likely was sitting in the toilets on her own. She seemed a little upset about her not being able to interact with the boys, but it wasn't Miles' fault.

Besides, Miles had a much more plausible reason. He just didn't know it yet.

"Gracie," I hummed, searching the toilet cubicles. "Come on, Miles didn't mean to upset you, you know."

It just happened to be that the last toilet cubicle was locked so I crouched onto the floor and spotted a familiar pair of shoes.
I mean they weren't converse or vans or anything else because we weren't allowed decorative shoes like that. Annoying school policy.

"Oh come on, Gracie. Don't be like this," I prodded her shoe.

"Like what?" She muttered out.

"A drama queen."

I heard a few metal clangs before the door slowly opened. Her doe, hazel eyes were studying the ground intently, which was probably just a reason to not look me in the eyes because I was absolutely certain the wet, muddy floor that had crumpled tissues stuck to it wasn’t all that interesting.

"I'm not infatuated with them, Marissa," she replied after a few seconds of silence.

"Then why make a big fuss, huh?" I nudged her teasingly.

"You don't understand. I know this may come across as rude to you but I've been feeling like this for a while, so here it goes..." she huffed. "I want to socialise more and make new friends."

"That's not a crime, Gracie." I shook my head, moving the tendrils of blonde wavy hair out of my peripheral vision.

"I want more friends," Gracie admitted. "Friends that take risks, you know. You and Miles are kind of alike and just take the safe route all of the time."

I frowned. "So you mean you want friends that break the law and cause trouble. Are you mad?"

"I knew you would say this," she chuckled with no humour laced in her voice. "Always prefer to be simple, don't you Marissa?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" I furrowed my eyebrows, narrowing my eyes at her.

"And oblivious." She rolled her hazel eyes.

"I'm oblivious? You're too busy stuck up the popular people's arses to realise that maybe there is someone out there who likes you for you. You completely forget to acknowledge that sometimes your friends are having problems themselves!" I yelled, having enough of her attitude.

"Marissa, you've changed. After Lorna died, you lost your risky personality. It's like once she went, your whole persona changed." She pursed her lips. "The Marissa I knew back then has completely disappeared."

My heart squeezed at my sister’s name and I could feel a hard ball of grief rising up in my throat.

"Or maybe I just grew up ," I answered bitterly, storming out of the toilets.

I really thought we were ok. I mean does Miles think the same thing too? Have I changed?

Tears pricked my eyes as I trudged down the corridors. The tears constantly blurred my vision even when I tried to wipe them away.
I suddenly crashed into somebody, but I stop to check who it was as I raced down the hallway to my favourite place- the library.

If I was at home, I would have sobbed to my cat who would have ignored me anyway.
Even though my cat only responded with a few meows, I still felt dependent on him. At least he couldn't go blabber to anyone. He was a goddamned cat.

With a sigh, I found comfy-looking bean bag at the back of the library and threw my whole body onto it. Pulling out my favourite book to read from my bag, I flicked the page and let my imagination go wild.