I pretended not to be phased by the comments and succeeded. That's the one thing I'm good at. I gave the girl a shy smile before turning back around to write the date in my notebook. I felt a crumpled piece of paper being thrown at me, and my instinctive thought was that it was someone throwing stuff at me for fun. I heard someone next to me clear their throat as an attempt to catch attention. I looked over and saw Jake looking at me and motioning to the paper mouthing 'open it'. When did he even get in here anyway? I open the paper and read what the shaky, almost unreadable writing on it.
Are you okay?
It read, and I responded with a fake smile, hoping he wouldn't notice it's fakness. My hopes were ruined when he mouthed, 'Tell me later' before turning towards the front of the class again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I rushed out of English in hopes to avoid Jake's questions, but was stopped when I felt someone place a soft hand on my shoulder to stop me. I bowed my head down as I turned around.
"Hey, Kate. What's wrong?" He asked softly. His eyes were searching my face for something, but my head focus was still on my shoes.
"Nothing. I'm fine." I respond, throwing a quick glance into his concerned brown eyes.
"I'm fine is a girl's biggest lie." He states trying to get the answer out of me. I look at him confusedly as to how he knew this. "You'll be strong and all 'I'm perfectly fine' in front of people, but once you're along, the tears will come like the Niagra falls. I grew up with two teenage sisters." He adds. The creepy thing is, everything he said is true.
"It's nothing really. I just saw some of the comments people wrote on the pictures of me and the guys and they sorta got to me. I know I sound like a little baby right now and I shouldn't take the comments seriously but I've had... bad experiences." I mumble the last part, afraid he'll ask me a load of questions. Jake's eyes suddenly widen as he registers what I just told him.
"You were bullied in your old school weren't you?" He asks carefully as if trying not to open up a healing wound. I nod in response but don't dare make eye contact with him. "That's why you moved here isn't it? A fresh start? Escape from your problems?" He investigated further, doing exactly what I had hoped he wouldn't do. I nod again to look up at his eyes that were filled with sympathy.
"You can not tell anyone. If people find out they might think that I'm already scarred and they can continue tearing me apart. You are the first person here to find this out and I trust you with it, which might not be the smartest thing since I haven't known you for very long. But I'm gonna push that thought away so please don't miss use my trust. I have had enough back stabbing for a life time." I instruct him, pointing a finger at him as I did so. To my surprise he smiled. It wasn't an evilly smile or anything that I was used to, but a genuinely sweet smile.
"I won't. Thanks for trusting me with you secret ma'am. I feel honored." He said lightening up the mood before he bowed before me like royalty.
"What class do you have next?" I ask him trying to change the topic and succeeding.
"Gym. You?" He answers looking at his timetable. I look at mine to see what lesson I have and a relieved sigh escapes my mouth as I see the lesson.
"Gym. Let's go." I say before letting him lead the way towards the school changing rooms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Hello everyone. You should know this by now but for out new student Kathleen, I am Mr. Burnett, gym teacher and football coach. So to start with today, could you please split up into two equally strong, mixed gender teams." Mr. Burnett instructs us and people start scrambling to form two teams.
"Jake, come here." I hear someone call and to my surprise, instead of leaving me, Jake takes my arm and pulls me into the direction of the person who called him.
"You ever played football before?" The guy asks crossing his arms over his chest tying to look intimidating.
"If you mean soccer then yes if you mean actual football no." I respond not feeling even the slightest bit intimidated even though he was muscular and tall. He must have stood at about 6'3 which made my 5'8 look like nothing. He scuffed as if finding it funny that a girl could actually play soccer. "I'd like to see that." he mumbles under his breath.
"Oh it's on, sexist jerk." I reply confidently cause a few 'ohh's to sound from people nearby. I walk over to the other team, again surprised to see Jake follow me.
"Get ready to be beaten to the ground." Jerk (I don't know his actual name but jerk seems quite suitable) whispers as we get into our position, me getting into my usual position as center mid.
"That's if you can even keep up with me." I reply with a smirk before the whistle is blown and the game kicks into action.
Jerk passes the ball to one of his team mates and he passes it back to Jerk and he dribbles it smoothly and speedily up the field. He dribbles past a few people, usually passing it thought their legs and I get an amazing idea.
I sprint up in front of him with my legs open and I can see the grin growing on his face as he passes the ball towards the direction of the space between my legs. As the ball is about to pass through them, I snap my legs together making the ball bounce off them in front of me.
Jerk, not expecting this, keeps running and basically serves me the ball on a silver dish. I hear him tell a few curses as I rapidly dribble down the field. I dribble around and though people until I'm just outside the goalie box and shoot the ball with all my power. The ball swiftly glides directly into he left corner despite the goalies attempt to stop it.
A few people come over to highfive me as I jog back to the half court line walking past Jerk. "What was that you said earlier about beating me to the ground?" I ask him innocently and he just flicks me off making me chuckle.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After the game, which by the way my team won, everybody was sweaty, panting and smelt like a waste disposal. I on the other hand was in perfectly fine condition and was mentally laughing at the people dripping with sweat in the hot noon sun. We had just come back from the changing rooms and some people just didn't even bother walking back to the building but just slumped onto the bleachers.
"Woow! Go Kathy!" I hear someone cheer. I turn around just to be engulfed in four pairs of strong arms. When they finally let go I fixed my hair that they had messed up and looked and them confusedly.
"What are you guys doing here?"I ask as I take a gulp from my water bottle and pic up my bag.
"We could t get our instruments yesterday because of our surprise exit so we here we are once again but this time unannounced." Luke explained as Ashton and Calum through an arm over either one of my shoulders. I walk towards the doors. I could feel multiple pairs of eyes burning into my skull as we walked to my locker I put in the combination for the lock and push my bag inside.
"Where you headed to next?" Michael asks messing up my hair. He I a lot like Greys in the sense that he is annoying as hell but one of the most awesome people alive.
"Lunch." I reply taking out my wallet and shutting my locker.
"We just have to drop our stuff off into that van and we'll be back." Luke announced readjusting the way he was carrying his guitar.
"I'll come with you guys if you don't plan in kidnapping me again." I reply smirking. "Besides, so you really think it's the best idea to join me in the cafeteria with a bunch of crazy fangirls? The last encounter you had with those resulted in me going MIA for the rest of the day." I question curiously.
"Nah it'll be fine." Ashton shook off and we started heading towards the main entrance of the school.
Once the guys had dropped their stuff of, we walked to the cafeteria which was obnoxiously loud I swear I could hear every conversation clearly and I was on the other side of the hallway. As we made our way to the cafeteria I started growing a little anxious since I don't exactly have good experiences with cafeterias. I shook off the thought. I mean u was doing quite a good job at staying hidden until now. I took a deep breath pushed open the doors.
Immediately all conversation stopped and all eyes were towards me and the guys.
Way to make yourself unnoticed Kate.