Forever

Chapter 7

I met up with Austin after 4th period with a huge smile on my face. "I'm guessing y'all are a thing now?" he joked when he saw my expression. "Yes!" I squealed. We high-fived and I accidentally used my right arm so when my hand made contact with Austin's, I pulled away quickly and winced again. "Marie, are you ok? What happened?"

"I'm fine. I just got shoved to the ground by a group of seniors and when I tried to catch myself, I put too much weight on it." I explained.

"Oh alright. You sure you're fine?"

"Yes! Now come on, we need to get to class." I laughed.

It is now lunch, so I walked to the line and waited for my food. While I was waiting, I overheard a group of Nick's friends further up in the line talking. I couldn't hear the whole conversation, but I could pick out a couple of things, Guess what?... yeah, she actually said yes... now Nick has another victim... the group bursts into laughing. I didn't even know she talked! Another burst of laughs. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they were talking about me and what happened this morning.

"Don't listen to them." I heard a familiar voice say as I feel someone embrace me from behind. I turned around and saw Nick's fit body and gentle expression. I turned around and hugged him back. "I know, I've been bullied all my life so I don't really care anymore," I dismissed. I walked forward go catch up to the line, grabbed my tray and set a hamburger, bag of tater tots, and a water on it and headed to the register to pay. I handed the cashier my money then started to walk towards the table Austin and I always sit at, but Nick stopped me by giving my elbow a slight tug.

"Why don't you sit with me? We are dating, right?" Nick said, as if trying to make me feel obligated to sitting with him and ditching Austin. "I mean he will probably sit with his girlfriend and not even pay attention to you."

I jokingly rolled my eyes, but hiding my slight annoyance. "No, actually, they don't sit together at lunch. He likes to talk to me and I like talking to him."

"Alright fine. Just remember that I'm your boyfriend, not him," he gestured to Austin.

"Of course, Nick. There's a reason I said yes to you." I walked over to him and gave him a kiss on his cheek and he returned it by grabbing me by my waist with one hand and laying his other hand on my neck. I smiled. "See you." I turned around and walked to our table, with no sign of Austin yet.

I decided to wait for him. I ate my burger and drank my water, but saved my tater tots because Austin loves them.

The bell rang to dismiss lunch, and Austin never showed up. I set the tater tots to the side while I threw away my trash, grabbed the leftover food and headed to Austin's locker.

I know his combination because he once got his jacket stuck in it and wasn't able to unlock it himself.

I unlocked his locker and set the food in there with a note:

Hey Austin,
You didn't go to our table for lunch and I know how much you love the tater tots, so here ya go. If you want to come, I'm going to Starbucks after school. If you do, meet me at my locker when the bell rings.
Thanks,
Marie

I set the tater tots on top of the note on the middle shelf. I closed the locker door and headed for my last class of the day.

The bell rang to dismiss school as I was packing up my things, slinging my small backpack over my shoulder and heading out the room door.

When I came out the door, I saw Nick waiting for me with tater tots. "Hey beautiful," he greeted me with a hug. "Hey! What are those for?" I looked at the food. "Oh, these are for you." He reached them out and I took them from his hand. "That's sweet, but why?" "I saw you didn't eat yours at lunch so I followed you and saw that you gave them to Austin. But I know that you love these things, so I saved mine for you." He smiles. "Aw, that's so sweet of you. Thank you!" I turned towards him and raise onto the tip of my toes to hug him around his neck and him returning it by hugging me around my torso.

"By the way, I didn't see Austin with you at lunch. I thought you said you were going to sit with him. Did you lie to me on purpose to not be with me?"

"No, of course not!" I exclaimed. "I honestly did not know that he wasn't going to show up so I'm meeting him at my locker."

"I'll come with you."

"Okay," I replied.

I thought I heard him say I'm going to give him a piece of my mind, but I could be just hearing things, so I kept quiet.

We arrived at my locker and I leaned against it. I pulled out my phone and started to scroll through my social medias. After a couple minutes of waiting, I looked up and didn't see Nick, or Austin, for that matter. I looked down at my phone again and texted Nick "Hey babe, where did you go and why didn't you tell me?" Then I went through my contacts and found Austin then texted him. "Hey Austin. Where are you? I haven't seen you at all today except for this morning. I hope your okay." I was about to turn off my phone and head out of the school, when a notification popped up on the top of my phone. It was a text from Nick: Hey babe sorry I bailed. The boys wanted me to hang out and it didn't seem like you cared that I was there. "I'm sorry I made you feel that way. Of course I care that you are here. Be safe," I replied. I turned my phone off, then headed out the large set of double doors to exit the school and head for my home.

I passed Austin's house then paused in my steps. Should I check on Austin? I asked myself. I decided for it, so I turned around and headed up the driveway to his house. I saw his car was there, so I walked in. "Oh, hi Marie," Mrs. Whiley greets me. "Hey Mrs. Whiley. Is Austin home? I need to talk to him." "Yeah, he is up in his room. Is everything okay between you too?" I sighed and shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. It's like he's trying to ignore me," I reveal. "Oh honey I'm sorry about that. You can find him in his room. Please keep me updated." I nodded and thanked her before heading up their large stairwell and walking to his room.

I knocked on his bedroom door and waited for a couple moments before Austin answered. Once he saw it was me, he shut the door but I stopped it with my foot before it fully shut. "Austin, we need to talk," I pleaded. "Please."

"Fine, come in." He opened the door fully and I stepped in and sat on his bed with him sitting down next to me.

"Okay, I'm just going to get straight to the point. Why have you been ignoring me? Did I do something wrong?"

"No, you did nothing wrong," he said point-blank.

"Okay, so why are you avoiding me?"

"I'm not," he said with a slight tone of guilt in his voice.

"Yes, you are Austin. You didn't sit at our table at lunch. I don't care if you want to sit with your other friends, but I would like a heads-up because I basically blew off Nick at lunch to sit with you." I accidentally raised my voice, so I took a deep breath. "Listen, please just tell me the truth."

"Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Yes."

"Okay. You know how you told me about the situation with your dad?"

"Yeah," I replied, urging him to continue.

"Well somehow, she found that out and threatened to post on all her social medias about it if I continue hanging out with you."

"So you are just going to listen to her?"

"I honestly would rather stop talking to you than that be revealed and have you think I spilled those beans."

"Well did you?"

"No of course not. You know I would never do that, even if we aren't friends."

"So you were just trying to protect me?"

"Yes! I hated not talking to you and avoiding you but if I had to do it, then I would do it."

"Yeah, I understand. So are we good?"

Austin jokingly thought about it."Mmmmm, yeah we are good." We laughed and joked around until it was late at night when I had to head home for the night.