Her Secrets

3. Crush

Mia was sitting in her biology class barely hearing a word from Mrs. Ellis as she stared at him. Her crush, who sat in the same row just a seat in front of her. She watched as he intently doodled inside his notebook. At least that was what she assumed he was doing. Who even takes notes anymore? She occasionally did but as the end of senior year approached, graduation four months away, she was hardly trying at this point. Not that she really did try hard after drowning in the pain of losing both her sister and parents soon after.

"Mia!" The teacher called out pulling her out of her thoughts.

She quickly locked eyes with the gray haired biology teacher before she spoke up, "yes?"

"I asked you a question." She responded obviously irritated.

"I must have missed it." She answered as she listened to the quiet chuckles of her peers.

"Well Ms. Torres what's new?" She replied before shushing the class.

Mrs. Ellis was an old scraggly haired woman, she was her fathers teacher, her brothers teacher, and then of course Mia's. If she wasn't mistaken the only Torres member she liked was Asher. But that's just how he was: likable and kind. Mia couldn't help but wonder what things would have been like if she didn't have so much loss she was drowning in on a daily basis. Everyone expected her to get over it because it had been a couple years. But no amount of time could heal the ever growing hole in her heart.

Her biology teacher went onto the next student as Mia went back to zoning out. A couple seconds later, she was taken out of her thoughts but this time it was by him.

"I'm convinced she's some type of witch." He whispered lowly.

She didn't exactly know his name as he only moved here a week or two ago. Actually no, she knew exactly when he arrived. 5 days ago; January 15. She didn't remember the date because she was some kind of crazy stalker.

Most dates in January were naturally easy for her to remember. All she had to do was figure out if it was before or after her sisters death anniversary, she'd remember.

She glanced around only to notice that he wasn't exactly talking to her. Instead he was talking to another classmate, one that sat next to Mia. When she noticed that she quickly turned her attention to her empty notebook. She stayed like that for the rest of the period, occasionally listening in on students conversations but mostly listening to her own loud thoughts.

"Mia, what is going on?" Ms. Ellis asked.

She looked up only to realize she was the only one left in the class.

"Sorry." She replied quietly as she shoved her notebook and pencil case into the backpack that sat beside her on the floor.

"No, Mia. I need to know what's going on. I want to help." She said.

Yeah right. Mia thought. Her own family didn't seem to want to help her through her ongoing devastating life why would she even begin to believe a teacher would want to help? She was underpaid and didn't even seem like she wanted to help, only humiliate.

"I'm doing fine." She replied as she slung her bag over her shoulder and left the classroom.

She walked straight to her locker where Liliana was waiting for her. "There you are. I've been waiting for like ten minutes." She sighed dramatically.

"It wasn't that long." She said opening her locker to grab her lunch.

"I don't know why you don't just keep your lunch in your bag." She said pulling out her own lunch from her bag.

The thing about Liliana was that no matter what she'd always wait for Mia before she ate. It didn't matter how long it took for Mia to get out of class, she'd always wait regardless of the time. And lately, it seemed as if Mia ran late to her classes or lunch more often than not. Still Liliana never questioned her. She knew she was struggling and she wanted to be the person there for her because no one else seemed to.