Undone [Completed]

Undone: [Seventeen] [Part Two]

Seventeen - II

For all my ‘awareness’ and ‘being careful’, I couldn’t help but gasp.

“Max?”

Trouble in paradise? How does he know? Not unless…

All at once, I couldn’t breathe. My heart rate had escalated and my throat was dry and my stomach felt like it had been excavated out of my being.

“Max?” he repeated again, looking at me concernedly.

I couldn’t speak. He was watching somehow, wasn’t he?

He was there! It was probably going to make things harder to explain, but I had to look about the corridor for a minute – where was he?

There didn’t seem to be anybody around, that is, nobody suspicious – just some girls across the other end, a couple walking by us, another group of guys and girls a little closer. A couple of them had their cell phones out, but…I didn’t know them. A few faces were vaguely familiar, but that was all.

Could he have gotten plastic surgery?

No! Don’t be ridiculous.

The hairs at the back of my neck were still standing up, and the chill was difficult to shake off.

“Max!”

Somehow, that served to snap me out of it. Enough to get out a few words, at any rate. “J-I-I’m fine. It’s-”

“Don’t you dare say it’s nothing.” Nick had folded his arms across his chest and was looking at me critically. He took a step closer to me and I instinctively shoved the phone into my pocket. “What happened?”

Breathe in, breathe out. It helped a little. I shook my head. “No, I-it’s Jake.” I had let a ‘J’ slip out, I was at least that oriented.

“What about him?” There was a faint trace of anger in his voice. “Did he do something?”

I shook my head again, brain racing to come up with some plausible excuse. “He-he got into an accident.”

“What?”

“Well, not exactly a full on accident, but he was almost knocked down by a car. He got away with a few scrapes and bruises, but he’s fine.”

Nick relaxed. “Oh. He’s okay.” It sounded more like a question.

“Yeah.” I replied shakily. “He’s fine, and I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I just freaked, you know?”

“I can imagine, but, uh, why’d you start scanning the room?”

He didn’t sound overtly suspicious, and I felt myself breathe; truly breathe. I shook my head. “I did that?” I didn’t wait for him to tell me that I had, “Oh, I didn’t realize. I don’t know, just the panic or something set me off.”

“Hm, alright.” He didn’t press.

I couldn’t just stand around though. Not there, not with Nick. So before another conversation could be initiated, “I-I need to go now though, kay? Talk later.”

*

I was breathing heavily.

My sprint away from Nick, because that was what it had turned into, hadn’t been long or intense, but my head was pounding and I was inhaling and exhaling loudly. 

Is there trouble in paradise?

How did he know? How could he possibly have known?

There was one other explanation that I could think of – he was in contact with someone from school. It was definitely more plausible than him having gotten released within a year instead of twelve and having gotten plastic surgery, not to mention admission back into this school, but I didn’t like that alternative.