Night After Day

Chapter 2: Secrets

I walked over to my locker with a hot chocolate warming my hands. If I could just get there before-

"Hey Hayden! Get your blonde curly butt over here, right now!"

I sighed in defeat. Too late. My best friend Angeline Paten waved at me from one of the metal tables where we would always sit at break. Angeline was a pale kid a few centimeters taller than me who had blue eyes and black hair down to her waist which was currently expertly braided down her back. Basically the opposite of me, with my tanned skin, green eyes and messy blonde hair, so curly that I never actually knew how long it was. Angeline also had a sometimes funny but definitely always annoying sense of humour.

"What?"

"Jesus, look who's grumpy this morning, now give me a hand with the most dreaded force in the universe." She pointed at an open book of math questions.

"Angel, you know as well as I do that I'm the last person you should ask to help you with that."

My friend sighed. "Point taken, well then," she snapped the book shut and stood, flashing me a smile, "I'm not even gonna bother."

"Angeline," I glared at her, "we actually need to pass this year, it's not like you have an eternity to pass Year nine!"

She grinned and grabbed her pile of books, stumbling out of the way or a teacher. "I'm going to take my books to tutor, hurry up!" She walked away without looking back.

"I might be a while!" I called after her, "I'm going to wait for Riley!"

She waved signalling that she heard me, but not looking back.

I waved to one of my other friends, Annika, and kneeled down to open my locker, taking the books I needed and trying to clean it up at the same time. I was fighting a losing battle. Just then I heard a voice behind me, causing an avalanche of books to fall on my toe and a lump to form where I banged my head on the top of my locker.

"Hey Hayden... that kinda looked painful."

I stood, rubbing my head with a painfully amused look on my face. "Hey Riley. Thanks for that."

"Your welcome." She answered cheerfully. And I replaced all the fallen books back into my locker. Riley watched me struggle for a few seconds and I could almost feel her laughter as I shoved all my weight against the locker door. "Come on, help me." I grunted and she hid her smile as she kneeled down next to me. With a seemingly effortless push, she managed to hold it closed as I locked it.

"Well, that sucked." I sighed, standing up and looking at Riley for the first time that morning. She had shadows under her eyes and her hair was sticking up in a funny direction. I hid a smile. "Busy night?"

"You could say that," she muttered darkly and a shadow passed over her face. She quickly changed the subject, "did you study for the Science test?"

"You kidding? It's me! I ALWAYS studying for science tests."

She smirked. "Yeah Hayden, it's you. That's exactly WHY I asked."

"Your faith in my abilities is astounding."

"Maybe because you don't have any," she grinned, "to prove my point, what was it you said the other night. Instructions to study; take home study book, and watch a certain documentary called... what was it? Supernatural?"

I grinned. "It was very educational, vampires don't sparkle."

She grinned back and said. "Haven't you figured that out yet, seeing as we hang out with Angeline?"

We always called Angel the vampire, her skin was so pale it almost looked like it was glowing. I felt the mark on my arm twinge a little and I rotated it slowly. Riley saw the look on my face and groaned. "Oh no, I know that look, what happened?"

I hesitated, but this was Riley! If I couldn't trust her I couldn't trust anyone. I quickly recounted what happened early that morning and I wasn't sure what to make of Riley's reaction, shock maybe? I think that was what I was expecting. What I wasn't expecting was for her to grab my sleeve and yank it up to reveal the bandage that I had used.

"Do me a favor," her voice was darker than I had ever heard it in the past year that I had known her, "don't show anyone else that, don't even talk about it."

I frowned. "You can't ask me to keep anything from Angeline."

Riley sighed, frustrated. "Fine, well, give me three days and then you can tell her, okay? Three days."

"Um okay? Why is this so important?"

She gave me a look that made me feel like I really didn't want to know.