Saving Mona

Chapter 12 🍝

Rebecca beamed at Melanie. She had been waiting for the question all along. Gingerly, she came down from the table and strutted towards Mel. She only stopped when she was in front of her. Like the rest of the cafeteria, I stared as Rebecca smiled, and Mel shot suspicious glares at her.

"Tell me, Mel, what would be your reaction if you find out that your best friend was keeping secrets from you, from all of you?" her voice raised a notch higher at the last part as she addressed the rest of my friends, her eyes lingering on Dwayne and then finally resting on me.

She glared at me, and I glared back.

"What do you mean?" Jarod gritted out. He also hated situations like this, and the fact he was suddenly smacked right in the middle wasn't helping matters.

Rebecca's eyes sought him out as she began to circle him.

"I'm saying-" she started, her voice taking a gentle but still audible tone, "that Monalisa here," she gestured to me while giggling, "has a little secret."

My friends all glared at her as she strutted back to the cafeteria's middle and took her place back on the table.

"And I'm going to tell it," she concluded. Rebecca shot me a smug look as noises of confused but interested students broke out. She got the response she wanted.

"Well, what is it?" Layla shouted from behind me. For someone with a soft and timid voice, Layla knew how to scream. I cast a glance at her, the wheels in my brain turning. Would she be the first person to turn her back on me?

"Monalisa has an elder brother. Well, had. He died of a heroin overdose."

There it was.

My and mother's hidden secret was finally revealed through a ghost from the past. I waited with bated breath for my world to soon begin shaking with the force of my secret, my family's secret. The reaction I received was actually not what I expected.

The whole cafeteria went silent at Rebecca's brutal revelation. It was as if time had stopped as more than thirty eyes were fixed upon Rebecca.

It must not have been the reaction she wanted as Rebecca began to fidget under their stares and her smile began to wane. It looked like she was finally thinking about the consequences of her actions.

The silence lasted a little longer than I anticipated before someone broke it.

"Really? You expect us to believe that?"

It was Jarod. His monetary haze of shock and disbelief had given way to one of poorly concealed anger.

"Why is everyone suddenly going after Mona?"

A question I would also like to know the answer to, Jarod.

Rebecca began to stutter, a trait I guess she hadn't gotten rid of. "B...but it's true. I..I have proof!" she wailed.

Mel mimicked her poor attempt at being confident and glared at her. It was like Mel's glare was the signal everyone needed as attacks from every corner directed at Rebecca rang out.

"I knew there was something rotten about the new girl."

"Why y'all gotta be so damn jealous of Mona. Leave her alone!"

"Social status climber bitch!"

"Pathetic!"

"What a jealous attention whore!"

More in the like followed, and soon Rebecca was backing slowly away from the cafeteria, the fear and embarrassment in her eyes spurring on the angry people following her.