𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 - Matt Sturniolo

ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ

"We were just a little too loud in Miss Abernaphy's class." I said. He raised his eyebrows.

"And she sent you straight to me, or did she warn you beforehand?" he asked.

I looked innocently around the room and so did Aurora.

So he concluded, "So she warned you." He said and I bit my cheek.

"Since it's your first time this year, I'll only admonish you, but next time you'll have to do detention." He said and a stone fell from my heart.

"Thank you Mr. Howard." Aurora said and we both got up to leave.

"Miss Johnson, please stay for a moment. Mister sturniolo, you can go back to class." I turned to Aurora who just nodded and blurted again.

࿇ ══━━━━✥ Aurora ✥━━━━══ ࿇

"How are you?" was the first thing the principal asked me.

"Fine."

"I'm glad the clinic was able to help you, but you're not completely out of the woods yet."

I looked at him confused. "What do you mean?"

"I am legally obligated to send you to our school psychologist." He said and I sighed loudly.

"I don't need it."

"That may be, but if you don't go, you'll have to go back to the clinic, and I'm sure you don't want that, do you?"

I looked down and shook my head silently.

"I thought so, so all you have to do is go to miss donovan's office on Monday after school and talk to her for half an hour. That's doable isn't it?" he asked and I nodded silently.

"Then you can go back to class now." Thank you, bye." I said and walked out of the room.

I didn't want to go to this Miss Donovan, she would only bring up everything I had successfully repressed.

I was fine now, as fine as I could be without a mother. But I didn't want to go to the clinic either, so I had to go through it.

When I stepped into the hallway, I saw Matt. He had been waiting for me. I threw him a questioning look.

"I thought it would be weird if I showed up alone, then there would be more speculation about you." He said and I gave him a silent thank you.

He was still like when we were kids. Totally caring, protective and thoughtful. I looked at him walking beside me with his eyes forward.

I missed him and it hurt to know that I had ruined everything.

"You're watching me Aurora," Matt said with a sideways glance.

I laughed. "Shut up."

"So you admit it Aurora?"

"Do you admit that you did it?"

"No"

"Then neither do I."

...

I was sitting on a bench 3 minutes away from school to smoke my cigarette in peace when Ben from my math class sat down next to me.

He had a joint in his hand. "Do you want a drag?" He asked and held the joint out to me.

"Ben, I just got out of withdrawal and you're asking me to smoke grass? Are you serious?" I asked and looked at him asking.

"That was a test and you passed it." He said and took a big drag.

"If this is a hint, it's a bad one." I said and smoked my cigarette.

" It's not a pickup line, I just thought you didn't have any friends and you could use a friend."  He explained and I laughed.

"You don't have any friends yourself, do you?" I asked and he shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe. So how about it?"

"Why not?" I said.

Then we started a conversation. I learned that he had lost his sister and that's why he started smoking pot. I didn't have to tell him my story, everyone knew that my mother had died because it was in the newspaper.

࿇ ══━━━━✥ Matt ✥━━━━══ ࿇

During the lunch break I sat down at the usual table with my brothers.

"We heard you had to go to the principal's office with Aurora." Chris told me.

"Yeah, I think he was happy to have someone other than you visit him."

"Haha, very funny Matt." Said chris sarcastically.

"If you didn't catch chris' hint, we want to know the story." nick added.

I told them and they both started grinning suspiciously.

"I have a feeling you two are going to become friends again." Said Nick and Chris nodded.