By The Way

Chapter 29

"Are you going to answer me?" he demanded as he pushed me roughly.

I let my Caffrey grin spread across my face as I replied, "No."

I spun on my heel and found another way to class without being late. I walked in just after the bell rang. I hung my head as my teacher called me out for being late. However, the art teacher must have e-mailed him because when he saw that it was me, he didn't give me a detention. Thank goodness.

"Today we will be working on linear programming," he told us.

I squirmed in my seat, more than ready for my next class. We spent the whole class learning constraints and graphing inequalities. The class seemed to drag on forever, but I still had homework to do. When the bell rings, I dart into my French class. I say French class, but in reality it was lunch period. I pulled out my tablet and called Noah.

"Hey, Lovely. How are you feeling?" I heard his voice and immediately felt calm.

"Better now," I told him, "I kind of lost it in art, but I'm fine."

"What happened?" he sounded concerned.

"We were painting Saint George and the Dragon. That was the painting that brought Neal and Kate together," I told him.

"Well why don't we work on something that you are incredible at?"

"And what is that, Noah?"

"Teaching me French."

I smiled and pulled out my "lesson plans" for the day. We spent all of lunch working then I went to my physics class.

"Today we will be learning about acceleration," my teacher announced as the students filed in.

We talked about hypothetical problems like what would a person's velocity be when they reached the ground if they jumped out of a second story window. I knew all of the answers. Definitely not because I have had to do those calculations in my head as I was jumping. Definitely not that.

I was bored out of my mind, so I went back to multitasking. I was doing two subjects worth of homework while I was pretending to be engaged enough where the teacher wouldn't call on me, but I was also thinking about what had happened after art class. I didn't tell Noah, and there was no way that I was going to tell Neal.

The bell rang again, and I rushed to my Criminology class to take my seat in the back. I was really only in this class to get out of History, but it was amusing to hear people talk about these great criminals as if they were to be admired. I knew most of them, they weren't that special.

"Miss Hunter," my teacher called on me, "Could you tell me about any recent crimes that you may have seen on the news?"

I smiled my Caffrey smile, "Actually I heard about a case where an FBI asset and his younger sister were kidnapped. It had something to do with an old rivalry or something like that."

My teacher smiled as she nodded in approval.

"Very interesting, " she complimented me, "How did you hear about it?"

I felt all eyes on me, the youngest member of the class as I came up with a story. I could hear Neal's voice in my head, Tell the truth. They don't need to know details, but truth will make it easy for them to validate it.

"My brother works with the Bureau," I continued smiling as the words rolled off of my lips.

"Would he be willing to come in and speak to the class, Miss Hunter?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Unfortunately, my brother has been very busy recently, but I could see if an agent would be willing to present to the class," I offered.

In reality, I had to remind myself that I was registered under the name Natalie Hunter to keep anyone from judging me for my brother's crimes. I would just have to convince one of the Suits to come in to my school and talk in front of my class.

We continued talking about recent events, and I might have zoned out once or twice. The boy that had pushed me earlier was turning around in his seat to send me dirty looks. I ignored him, but I couldn't help but think about what would happen after class.

"Hunter," he yelled as I turned the corner on my way out of class.

I paused for a second while contemplating my options. There weren't many, and none that were especially good.

"Hey! I'm talking to you," he yelled again.

I turned around slowly to face him. He stood about a foot away from me with his arms crossed and his goons surrounding me. Great.

"Why don't you tell me about what happened to you in art class?" he sneered.

I didn't want to deal with him, but I had nowhere else to go. I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that this was no big deal. I put on a smile and took one last breath.

"Not really. But if you must know, I was remembering someone," I said as calmly as I could.

"Who, your mom? I bet that she didn't want you, did she?" he spat at me.

The girls around him giggled, and the boys just smirked. I felt tears forming once more. I refused to let them fall, though. He was not going to win. I bit my tongue subtley to keep my rage inside of my body. The stinging pain was enough to keep me focused on staying calm. After thirty seconds of giggling and smirking though, I almost cracked.

"So who was it?" a different boy asked.

"Kate," I breathed, barely a whisper.

All of them laughed. I couldn't take it.

"I was remembering Katherine Moreau. One of the greatest human beings to ever exist. She was my brother's girlfriend, and she was practically a sister to me. The two of them met in an art gallery and they started talking about Saint George and the Dragon. I couldn't help but remember her and everything about her. And how I will never get to see her or talk to her ever again, because she, she was killed in an explosion," I exploded.

Everyone around me fell silent.

"And besides," I added, "I wouldn't want to remember my mom. I ran away for a reason."

That shut them up. They didn't even apologize as they dispersed and went their separate ways to class. I leaned against the lockers and slid to the floor. Pulling my knees to my chest and tucking my head. I heard someone sit down beside me about a foot away.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

I snapped my head up so quickly that it hit the lockers behind me. It was the boy that had repeated the "Leader's" question. He tilted his head and inched closer to me. Ten inches, eight, six. He stopped and apologized again.

"I'm really sorry. For how Ethan acted, and for going along with it. I'm Jameson, by the way."

He held out his hand for me to shake. I did because Neal taught me to be polite, but I still felt wary. It probably didn't help that my head was throbbing. I touched the back of my head, but there was no blood. I was actually amazed.

"Do you want to cry?" Jameson asked me.

I looked at him, and I must have seemed helpless because he scooted closer to me. I did start to cry, so he put an arm around my shoulder. I leaned on him as I cried.

"I'm sorry," I echoed his words from earlier.

"What could you possibly be sorry for?" he asked me.

"I'm sorry that I'm such a mess. I've just had a really rough weekend."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Okay."

We sat in silence, missing all of sixth period.