My Revenge Obsession

Chapter Fifteen [Part Two] - Can You Hear Me?

 Heading back downstairs, I called out a goodbye to George and received a vague grunt in response. Something was up with him, but I didn't want to pry. Despite obviously still being close friends, I felt I should leave the pressuring to Lisa; if he needed me he would ask.

The sun ducked behind a cloud as I stepped outside the Foster house. I walked to the end of the drive and then jumped onto my board, wrinkling my nose against the cool breeze it was thrust into. Swerving round a corner, I kicked myself forward, down towards the High Street where I noticed Bex waiting at a bus stop. Small though she was, she wasn't exactly inconspicuous wearing a sunny yellow t-shirt and red plaid skinny jeans. Her studded belt was loose on her hips, her head bent as she looked at her phone.

After checking no cars were coming I jumped a curb and skated across the road towards her.

"What's up, plastic cup?" I asked, skidding to an abrupt halt in front of her.

Bex looked startled momentarily and then immediately relaxed after registering it was only me. "I think it's 'what's up, buttercup', y'know."

"Yes, but you don't like butter."

"You're so thoughtful."

"I try. Why is it you don't like butter again?"

"It's too buttery."

I nodded understandingly. Without me even asking where she was headed, Bex turned away and started walking along the pavement in what I knew to be the opposite direction of her house. Assuming she had also been making her way to Jake's, I quickly fell into step beside her. She began telling me about a book she was reading that seemed genuinely interesting, but my mind wouldn't stop wandering back to George, wondering if he was okay...

"Sorry- have I interrupted a pensive skating session?" Bex enquired with almost a hint of derision.

"Certainly not," I told her truthfully, shaking my head both in answer to her question and in an attempt to disperse the cloud of George. "I came over to you, remember?"

"Right, right..." she answered.

We had almost walked the length of the High Street, ready to go over the crossroads and turn off towards the rows and rows of houses.

"My little brother's learning to rollerblade at the moment." Bex told me, eyeing the skateboard under my arm. "It's not going very well."

"Are you teaching him?" I asked.

She snorted. "God, no. I never did any of that stuff. I only learned to swim because they made us during primary school."

There was no bitterness in her voice though I thought I could feel her wishing to be more angry about it. Bex had told me a lot about her childhood, about things she felt she'd missed out on. Apart from one kid who went to my first school, I'd never had any direct contact with adopted children. I had no idea if kids in the same situation treated it with the same nonchalance as Bex did. I didn't know if it was normal not to blink an eye at a black couple having a Korean baby- neither myself nor my classmates had even noticed with little Andy. It hadn't seemed strange to us then. Why would it? A married couple had a kid- big deal.

I was getting mixed up and lost in my head, switching from one thought to another, saying potentially offensive things in my mind and then silently correcting and explaining myself... to myself.

"I'll teach you how to skate." I stated, as if planting myself in a promise would somehow make everything else line up.

"Thanks, but I don't want to break my arm."