Stolen Secrets

Stolen Secrets- Chapter 3

Over the years, I would become obsessed with someone I knew I wouldn’t get, but I always knew who they were. I knew their friends, their personality, and parts of their story. That all came with going to school with someone for a couple of years. But I knew nothing about Natalie.

Natalie was the new girl from Vancouver. That was all I knew about her. But, just the way she reacted to my smallest comments made me think that her story was a lot bigger and complicated than most people’s at this school. The bigger a story is, the more room there is for sadness.

I hope I’m wrong and Natalie is just a shy person. No one deserves a story filled with pain when they are only sixteen.

~Natalie~

“Partners?” Jeff said leaning over into the aisle between our desks.

“Excuse me?” I asked. I had been finishing the notes the teacher had put on the overhead.

“For the project,” Jeff elaborated.

I looked down at my notes and read what I had written. I hadn’t been paying attention notes, they always bore me. I had been writing while my mind wandered.

And Jeff was right. There was indeed a project coming up.

“Um, sure,” I said. I was surprised that Jeff was asking me. There must be someone else in the class that was higher on his list than me. And at my old school, I had only working in a partnership when a teacher assigned them. Otherwise I was always alone.

“So the project is due Tuesday, when are you free so we can get together and watch it?” Jeff asked.

I read my notes again so I wouldn’t ask another stupid question. Our project was to watch a movie of our chose, then the day it was due, we had to have a debate about it in some way.

“Well what are we going to watch?” I asked.

“Do you have any good ones?”

“No.” I had left most of my movies in Vancouver. Not that I had that many.

“I’ll grab something then. When are you free?”

“Anytime,” I guess. Inside I was screaming ‘come save me from the silence of my dad!’ But that would have sounded borderline psychotic.

“Tomorrow night okay?”

I nodded.

“Your house or mine?” Hmm, my blank and empty apartment, or his probably more lively home?

“Yours if that’s okay.”

“Okay. See you at lunch,” Jeff said standing up and leaving just as the teacher was dismissing us.

At lunch, I stared at the hall filled with the current of other students. I was amazed I had managed to find my second class at all. Now I was trying to remember which direction the library was.

Was it by the front office? Or was it in the same area as my math class?

“Lost?” Jeff asked appearing at my elbow.

“Completely,” I admitted.

“Are you going to the library?” he asked hopefully.

“Yeah.” I took a step in the direction I thought it was.

Jeff caught my elbow and spun me in the opposite direction. “You had a 50/50 chance of being right,” he said with a shrug.

I nodded and together we walked down to the library together.