Social Experiment

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All morning I had a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. There were two distinct reasons why the pit seemed to grow deeper and deeper the sooner my lunch hour approached. For one, I felt like I had to make real amends with Nathan after our fight yesterday. Usually, I pissed him off and he got over it, but I know that I had struck a chord. I had gone too far. 

Secondly, I was supposed to ask him to be my fake boyfriend. The mere idea of it made my stomach do somersaults. How do you ask your friend- who you have a crush on, but that's another story- to be your fake boyfriend so you can piss off your ex? The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to actually go through with it, but I knew that it would be perfect revenge.

So, when the final bell rang to signal the beginning of my lunch hour, my stomach was a full on pit of nerves and my mind was racing in anticipation of how things were going to go. I skipped going to my locker and went straight to the cafeteria to find Nathan, but when I scanned the entire lunch room for the familiar mysterious bad boy, he was nowhere to be found. 

Before I could walk towards our lunch table to inquire about Nathan's whereabouts, someone abruptly stepped in front of me and stopped me in my tracks. I blink in confusion and turn my gaze upward to see Luke looking at me with a serious expression, although his eyes darted all over the cafeteria. 

I raise my eyebrows in question and ask impatiently, "Yes, Luke?"

His eyes scan the lunch room once more before his gaze rests on mine. "Have you seen Nathan?" 

The seriousness in his eyes made my impatience vanish and be replaced with worry as I shake my head and lower my voice. "No, why? Is he okay? What happened?"

"I was in the library and Nathan came in screaming at Thomas. He went straight up to him and punched him in the face before storming out." Luke explains as a confused crease in between his brows appears. "I don't know where he went, but the librarians were pissed. They were screaming at him to come back but he just ignored them."

My worried frown only deepened as I listened to Luke. What the hell could Thomas had done to make Nathan that upset?

"Do you know where he went?" Luke asks instead of waiting for my reaction. "You should try to talk to him and calm him down. He seemed pretty on edge."

"I'm going to go find him," I say automatically without even considering it in the first place. It was like I already knew that I needed to make sure he was okay. "Thanks, Luke. I'll see you at home."

With that, I turned on my heel and began scouring the empty hallways in search of Nathan. When I came up short, I went straight for the parking lot and scanned his now empty parking spot in front of the school. My heart began to beat faster in worry as I grabbed my keys from the side pocket of my backpack and got into my car.

What if he got in his car, blinded by rage, and sped off the road? Or got in a car accident? I couldn't help my mind from overthinking things, only coming out with the worst possibilities, because I couldn't help the nagging feeling of worry biting at me. As quickly as I could, I drove to his house and hoped that his familiar black Mustang would be in the driveway.

I let out an audible sigh of relief upon seeing his car in the drive when I reached his house and wasted no time in jogging to his front door. I knocked feverishly, already thinking up the lecture I was about to give him for scaring me half to death like that, but nobody came to the door. I pressed my ear against the front door and heard muffled sounds of music on the other side. 

Without thinking much of it, I twisted the knob and realized the door was open, so I pushed my way inside. I could hear the Kinks playing faintly from down the hall as my eyes scanned the mess that was their living room. Blankets and pillows were strewn over the ground and the couch among various toys that I assumed were Bennett's.