Broken Pieces

Chapter 5

“Have lunch with me?” I offer. Lacey jumps in surprise and looks over at me, slightly closing her locker. 

“I'm fine.” She lies. 

I roll my eyes. “Eating alone is not fine.” I acknowledge. 

Lacey closes her locker. “I'm seriously fine with eating alone.” 

“I'm not taking no as an answer.” 

Lacey hesitates but then shakes her head. “I'm fine, seriously Seth.” 

“It'll be fun, meeting new people.” I reassure her but she just shakes her head, fear in her eyes. “They don't bite, Lacey.” I tease. Lacey just shakes her head. I rest the side of my head on the locker I was leaning against. “How about I eat with you?” Lacey gulps and shakes her head, cowering back. “Lacey, I'm not letting you eat alone.” 

Lacey sighs. “Fine, you eat with me.” She whispers. I grin but nod, leading the way into the cafeteria. 

“Let me just tell my friends I won't be eating with them.” Lacey nods and scrambles over to her table. “Hey guys, I'm sitting with Lacey today.” I ignore Emilee as she wiggles her eyebrows. 

“Tap her yet?” Ryan jokes. 

I roll my eyes. “Whatever, peace.” and with that I turn around and sit in a chair across from Lacey. We don't talk as I eat my lunch in peace and Lacey eats hers in peace. 

For once I actually enjoyed a silent lunch. I'm used to Ryan and Emilee argue with each other over stupid crap or hearing Ryan go on about the girl he got in his bed last night. It was rather annoying but being Ryan's friend and all I sucked it up. Sure, time to time it was interesting to hear who the girl was but it got old. When I sat with my friends there was just no thinking time, no time to let my mind relax. It was always something over something over something. I love my friends, don't get me wrong, I just enjoyed this silent lunch much better then the loud and anxious one I get everyday. Plus I liked Lacey's presence with me. 

“Thanks for fixing my car.” 

I look over at Lacey. “It was no problem.” I assure. “Any problems with it?” I question and Lacey shakes her head. I nod, great. 

You could say I've been more curious about Lacey more then ever for the past couple days ever since I entered her house. I never seen something like that and I was curious, I mean it's not everyday your neighbor has crazy OCD. But the thing that made me more curious was that at school she didn't seem so...OCD crazy as at home. She left her papers crumbled and unorganized on her desk during class time, her locker wasn't the cleanest, and she never really perfected her looks. Like, pieces of hair would come out of her ponytail and she wouldn't care...it was strange. 

It seemed like she was maybe bossed to do the things at home? Or maybe it's not even Lacey with the crazy OCD. Like Lily mentioned, she lives with their dad. Maybe he's the mad crazy OCD person in the family? I caught onto Emilee's observations, I learned her secrets, and decided to use it on Lacey and figured it worked. I took little pieces of evidences and kind of placed them into holes.