A close call to midnight

Finn

Belle suddenly runs away while I'm talking to Michael, which surprises me.

 "Belle! Wait!" I shout. 

Michael's gaze follows her, a hint of confusion in his eyes, then shifts to me.

 "Why do you even bother with her, mate?" he questions.

 A surge of protective anger wells up within me. I don't want to tolerate Michael's dismissive tone about Belle. He should definitely watch his words about her.

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, not sounding amused. Micheal laughs at me, not noticing how frustrated he makes me.

"Well, everybody here knows she is a freak..."

The audacity of his words hits me like a slap in the face.

'She's a freak?' I repeat, my voice trembling with a mix of disbelief and offense. 

I then ask: "Do you even know her?" and Michael shrugs his shoulders. His ignorance is making me mad.

"I don't think you do. If you knew her, you would see she's not a freak. "I say to Micheal.

I think about how the past few days with Belle have been, and I can describe her with many words (all positive, by the way), but freak is definitely not one of them.

''Whatever, man, gotta go; still catch you tonight, tho?'' Micheal shouts as he walks away from me.

I give him a slight nod, but I already know that if I go to that fire tonight, I won't say a single word to him. Calling Belle a freak. How dare he? How do all these people have such a nasty opinion about this girl if they don't even know her? It freaks me out.

I think about how she ran away from me just now. Why did she do that? Did I do something to make her upset? I was only talking to Michael.

 I want to run after her for a moment, but then I realize there is no point in doing so anyway. She ran away so quickly, I'll never catch up with her again. 

While I walk back to my dorm, I catch a quick look at my watch. Oh shit. I did not realize that Belle and I had been working on the project for so long; if I don't hurry up, I would be too late for dinner. 

As fast as I can, I walk to the dining hall. A small part of me hopes that this is why Belle ran away so suddenly; maybe she did not want to be late for dinner.

 When I finally arrive in the dining hall I immediately see that that is not the case. Belle is not here. I go sit down next to Sophie, and I feel nervous. I still don't know why she acted so weird towards me and Belle in the library earlier today, and I want to confront her about it. It may be better now that Belle is not here so she does not hear it.

''Erm, Soph'' I say.

Sophie looks at me straight away and then at Belle's empty chair on the other side of the table.

"Hey, Finn! I see your date didn't show up." She says in a strange voice, pointing to Belle's empty chair.

''Yeah... about that'' I begin. "Why were you acting so rude towards me and Belle this afternoon?"' 

I hate this. Sophie has always been my best friend; what suddenly changed?

""I think the real question should be why you are being nice to her..."" Sophie laughs.

 I look at my twin sister in bewilderment, feeling confused. As I said, Sophie and I have always been very close, but at the moment, she feels like a stranger to me.