Secretly Hidden

Chapter 4

My life at school continued once again. I sighed as I walked out of class and began making my way to the next.

"Hey Lexi" I turned around to see Amanda hurrying over to my side.

"Hey Amanda, how are things going?" I asked her and gave her a smile.

"Not too bad, getting ignored is better than getting bad attention."

"You're right about that," I muttered. As I walked across the courtyard, I saw Matthew duck behind some trees and bushes with his friends as they began to light cigarettes. I rolled my eyes and continued on. Before Amanda and I could make it back indoors, a soccer ball flew out of nowhere and hit me directly in the face.

"Lexi are you okay?" Amanda hurriedly asked as I held my hand over my nose. I nodded. "Do you need me to take you to the nurse?"

"No it's okay, I can get there. I don't want you to be late, just point me to where it is," I pinched my nose as I felt blood start to come out. Amanda quickly helped me as far as she could before hurrying to class.

I walked into the nurse's office and was helped to stop the nosebleed, then laid in a bed with an ice pack to stop any bruising. Someone soon came into the nurse's office coughing and the nurse left to attend them.

I soon heard a familiar voice arguing with the nurse.

"Matthew, how many times have I told you not to do anything that could cause your asthma to act up," the nurse scolded him.

"Sorry, I was just running around outside with my friends, I didn't think anything of it." He replied. I remembered seeing him outside smoking with his friends and knew he was lying. The nurse had him sit in the bed next to me until he felt better, and it wasn't until she walked off that he even noticed me there.

Thankfully he didn't say anything and ignored me. After a moment of silence I spoke up.

"You shouldn't smoke if your asthma is serious." I said quietly. Matthew glanced at me.

"What does any of that have to do with you? You would love to see me drop dead," he scoffed. I shrugged with an ice pack over my eye.

"I don't know. It'd probably be pretty satisfying, but I bet your parents wouldn't like it. Aren't you worried they'll find out?" I said. Matthew went quiet again for a moment and I thought he was going to ignore me.

"I doubt they'd notice or care," he mumbled quietly.

"What do you mean?" I asked. He looked almost surprised that I had heard him and he rolled his eyes.

"Why are you acting like you care so much? Last time I checked, we aren't on very good terms" he mentioned, going back to his annoying self.

This time I was the one that fell silent. Why was I even talking to him?

"Well what are you even in here for?" He said breaking the silence. I pointed to the ice pack on my face.

"Soccer ball flew into my face," I said and sighed. Once again, a silence came over us. Although we are usually at each other's throats, right now it wasn't so bad. We stayed like that until the nurse came and dismissed me. I quickly glanced at Matthew and saw him glancing at me as well, before walking out.

~~~~~

Amanda and I sat at our usual table for lunch and settled down. We talked about our classes before Amanda froze mid sentence.

"What?" I asked. She shook her head and looked away from whatever she saw.

"It's nothing, it's just Matthew just walked in," she said, she looked like she was preparing for the worst as we heard him walking past our table.

I glanced up as he walked by, but surprisingly he didn't look over at us today, or acknowledged we were even there. Amanda and I looked at each other, taken aback, but we shrugged it off and continued in peace now that we were in the clear... or so we thought.

Following behind Matthew was a group of girls, and anyone could tell that they were THE it girls of the school. As they walked past us they laughed obnoxiously and one spilled her water all over mine and Amanda's food.

Amanda and I froze and we looked up at the girl who did it.

"Oh noooo, I can't believe I just did that. I am so sorry, I'm just so clumsy sometimes," she said in a mocking tone. Her name was Ruby. And everyone in school avoided her because she was a jerk who used her dad as leverage over everyone. "I'm sure you can forgive me right??"

Her friends behind her giggled, and I caught sight of Matthew sitting down at his table while glancing over at the drama.

"Oh it's okay Ruby," Amanda said as she began putting down her napkins to try to stop the water from leaking over the table. "It was a complete accident."

Ruby looked her up and down.

"Obviously it was, I just said that," she sneered. She turned around and her group went to join Matthew and his friends at their table.

I stared at them for a minute, Matthew briefly meeting my eyes before turning to his friends.

"Amanda why do you entertain that bitch," I said as I tried helping her with the water.

"Because she is literally the most popular, most rich girl in school? I don't know about you but I don't want to get on her bad side. She's known for using her dad to get revenge on people that annoy her. Usually that means going after their parents..." she trailed off. "Plus she seems like she was in a good mood anyway. Usually she would use something like juice that's sticky, but she used water."

I stared at her in shock, but decided to just help finish up cleaning before the two of us left.