Just Say The Word

Chapter 30

Melody and I arrived at school the next day as a united front. Every time someone would make a comment towards me, she would brutally slice them with her tongue or flip them off. Sadly, that could only last for a few minutes as we had separate classes with her being a freshman and all.

I was dreading heading to first hour. Lance would be there and he would be ignoring me. It didn't know if I could handle that just yet, but I had no choice. Sighing, I waved goodbye to Melody as I trudged into English. My eyes immediately traveled to where I knew he would be sitting. His eyes were cast downward as he looked over some papers. Gosh, he looked so beautiful. Stop it Mackenzie!

Reluctantly, I took my seat next to him and carefully averted my eyes to the front of the classroom. The teacher was droning on about satire and quite frankly, I couldn't care less at the moment.

"Are you okay?"

My heart jumped a bit. Wrong reaction. "What?" I turned slightly to face Lance.

He looked conflicted for a moment before he answered me. "I just want to know if you're okay, Mackenzie."

Mackenzie. "I'm fine," I grumbled before turning to face forward. He called me Mackenzie.

"Don't be like that Mackenzie. I still care about you. I just cant be with you."

That hurt. It was like pouring salt in my wounds. "I know you don't want to be with me, okay Lance? You don't have to rub it in my freaking face!"

The whole class turned at my outbreak. Great. Now everyone would know how desperate I was.

"Turn around! This doesn't concern anyone in this room!"

With chuckles and whispers, mostly everyone's eyes averted elsewhere. Even Lance turned back to Mr. Boring and wouldn't look at me. I wallowed in self pity for the rest of class.

When lunch came around, I was tempted to just ditch school period and head back home. But I couldn't. I had to attempt to face this. As soon as I stepped into the cafeteria, all eyes were on me. Almost immediately after that, the whispers started. Turning my back to the crowd, I jumped in the lunch lline to grab a salad and a yogurt. Even the lunch lady looked at me funny. If the food wasn't already packaged, I'd say she spit in my food too. Did everyone hate me?

Coming out of the line, I realized that I had no where to sit. I peeked over at Liam's table to find them all staring and laughing at me, Liam excluded, of course. He just glared very hatefully at me, which was almost worse. I did a quick scan around the room and found Kace sitting with a small group of Sophomores; two girls and one guy. Inhaling a deep breath, I made my way over to his table.

"Kace."

The two girls he was sitting with saw me approach and announced my arrival before I could say anything. Slowly he turned around.

"What do you want, Mackenzie?"

I swear I could feel everyone's eyes on my back. "I-I..I want" Take a deep breath, Kenzie. "I want to apologize, Kace." He folded his arms and stared at me as if to say "go on." "I found out about them because Riley was having a mini spaz attack. When I checked on him, he told me and made me promise not to say anything. Now I'm not going to say that's a legitimate excuse to not tell you, because it's not. I am however, going to explain myself. I just wanted to fit in with Liam's friends. Destroying a friendship within you guys would've definitely made him dump me. I know it sounds funny coming out now, but it's true. I know that I should've told you, I know. And I am so sorry that I didn't. I did most of it for my own selfish reasons, but partly because I didn't want to see you get hurt either. How was I supposed to tell you that and feel okay about myself afterwards?" I wiped a stray tear away and paused to compose myself. "Kace, you're one of my best friends. You can't just forget that. I-I really need you right now so please, please stop being mad at me."