Secrets Are For Keeping

Chapter Seven

The minute I walked into the school building on Monday, I knew it was nothing like other school days.

Maybe it was the odd silence filling the small hallways when even with very few students there would usually be noise.

Maybe it was how all the teachers seemed to be waiting in the hallways conversing rather than actually being in the classrooms.

Maybe it was the smell of fish which was only served as hot lunch once a month and was the one day everyone regretted, since everyone who bought lunch ended up going home sick.

Maybe.

Definitely the last one.

My feet carried me down the small hallways with lockers on the walls. My locker was a gray metal color, and even before reaching it I knew what I would find.

I was almost tempted to avoid going to my locker all together because of what it was.

But I couldn't avoid it. It was inevitable. At some point in time, some day, I'd have to face it. Face him.

Everyone had the ability to choose their lockers, and since we had established a certain alliance over the past couple years, Zander had decided to choose a locker next to me. Specifying that he chose a locker next to me, not the other way around. Although I probably would've done the same for him since he was the only person I really liked in school.

My eyes found him the second I turned the corner into the next bland hallway. He was shoving books in his locker, but was much quieter than usual, a lot like many of the other students.

I quickly put in my combination and opened my locker.

He turned away from his locker and more furiously began shoving books into his bag.

I grabbed a couple of books that I knew I'd need for my day at school, and began putting them into my own bag. I watched him carefully as he struggled to shove more books into his backpack. As he was trying to pull a binder out, a girl suddenly rushed past and the binder flew from his hand, landing next to my feet with papers splayed all over the floor.

Automatically, I bent down and began picking up the papers, eyes focused on the ground.

Then Zander's hands joined mine, pulling papers that had strayed farther from the binder and piling them up. I finally looked up to hand the papers to him and our eyes made contact.

His brown eyes were dark and almost scary in a way. Then, like he had back at my apartment, they moved down to my wrist.

Fortunately, I had decided beforehand that it would be a really good idea to wear a long sleeve shirt. Even so, I pulled the elastic fabric farther down, covering most of my hand, yet most importantly covering my wrist.

"Class will begin in one minute exactly," a robotic voice announced through the speakers.

I backed away from Zander, picking up my bag as I did so. Without looking back, I walked in the opposite direction from the papers that he was quickly putting back into place in his binder. My hands shook as I increased my speed. It only took seconds to get to my first class of the day, and I knew it would only be seconds more before Zander would walk into the classroom. It was ironic how instead of being my only source of refuge in school, he'd become my only source of anxiety.

The glass desk in front of me came to life as I sat down behind it. Although books and paper were usually necessary as teachers wanted students to still be able to write with their hands, the majority of actual work done in school was with the school desks. We each had our own account that could be used to log in to any electronic desk in the school, which was also where we could look anything up, write anything, and use for practically any purpose that someone could think of. Except they refused to allow us to use the desks for any "non-school related" purpose. Doing so could probably get you suspended, but I'd personally never seen that happen before. They weren't too strict about giving out suspensions, since in the school's opinion, suspensions were rewarding people for breaking rules. Of course, they weren't really allowed to change the rules since they were only a school, not the entire Board of Education.