I made sure I packed my meds in my bag the next day; I didn't want to cause a scene by running out of the cafeteria like yesterday. Only problem was that I was running low. I was supposed to go to the doctor's every two weeks to restock my meds but... it had been nearly two weeks since I'd seen him and I only had enough for the next few days. Maybe a week tops.
It would be really embarrassing if, after my grand exit from home, I had to actually go back a couple of days later because I forgot to restock my medication.
Maybe it was pointless to even get any more. All they did was block the headaches out. Perhaps I should only take them if I started to feel any pain. They may last longer that way. Some days went by without any sign of pain before I took the medication. I guess I could still have days like that now.
I managed to get to school a few minutes before the bell. I parked near the gate again - I think this was becoming a habit - and decided to kill the next ten minutes with an agonising phone call to my parents; I didn't want them thinking I'd been kidnapped or something. But to be honest what kidnapper packs bags for their hostage? I laughed out loud at this as I pulled my cell out of my pocket, shaking my head at myself still.
'When people laugh to themselves, that isn't helping to prove their sanity,' a snide voice said from behind me.
'Go flirt with a grandma, Bradley. I'm not trying to prove my sanity to anyone,' I replied, dialling my home number. As it rang, I saw Remi join Bradley and she hit him over the head and muttered something to him which he just shrugged off carelessly.
'Hello?' a hoarse voice said from the other side of the phone. I felt myself freeze and my throat constricted. Yeah, I had no idea what I even wanted to say.
Shit.
'Uh hello,' I said in a somewhat Irish accent, trying to backtrack. Wow. I'm stupid. I couldn't even do an Irish accent. My Scottish was rather good, though.
'Who is it?' my mom asked on the phone.
Luckily we had one of those ancient house phones with no caller ID. I heard her let out a sigh and I did the only thing that I possibly could in a situation like this.
I shoved the phone into Bradley's hands and he stared between me and the phone with wide eyes.
'Er... hello?' he said into the phone automatically.
'WHO IS THIS?' my mother screamed from the other side of the phone, making him nearly drop it. Yeah she got pretty annoyed when people didn't answer her questions. Maybe I should have mentioned that to Bradley.
Nah.
'Er...' Bradley said, staring at me with wide eyes as he struggled to come up with an explanation.
'Morgan Freeman?' I suggested with a shrug.
'It's uh,' he looked at me doubtfully 'Morgan Freeman.'
As soon as he said that, we heard the dialling tone on the other side and I let my laughter out. I guess it was kind of messed up to be laughing in this situation but it was either that or cry. I should have thought about what I wanted to say to her. And the school parking lot wasn't exactly an ideal place.
'What the hell?' Bradley said, staring at the phone.
'I chickened out when I called my mom,' I said, laughing nervously and running my hand over the back of my neck.
'Morgan Freeman?' asked Remi curiously.
'She doesn't like how he pretends to be God in those movies,' I explained with a grin.
'Is she like, super religious?' Remi asked.
'No,' I said seriously. 'I think she just wants to be a God herself.'
'Why d'you chicken out?' Bradley asked.
'It's too early in the morning to deal with her,' I replied smoothly, trying to take my phone from him - and failing.
'Right... well I'm confiscating your phone as punishment for forcing me to take a call with a woman I don't know,' he said, slipping the phone in his pocket with a smirk.
'I'm surprised you didn't flirt with her,' I snorted, getting my usual cockiness back.
He may as well sell my phone and make a bit of petty cash. I doubt I'd be using it much. I'd already deactivated my social media accounts and I hadn't even replied to anyone's messages. I was now just a ghost.
'Okay children, no arguing,' Remi said, slyly stepping in with another question. 'Where'd you go yesterday, Raegan? You just bailed at lunch.'
'Oh... uh.' Damn, why am I always in need of excuses? 'I realised that I left the light on in my room,' I told her weakly.
'Then why were you searching your bag?' Bradley asked in a triumphant tone. Damn observant siblings.
'Looking for my car keys.'
'Hey look there's Kyle!' Remi exclaimed, her eyes widening before running off towards a group of people, including Hayley. I didn't recognise the others though, they must be some of the people that were on the trip yesterday.
'Who's Kyle?' I asked Bradley, tilting my head to the side as I observed the guy Remi had just run up to. He was quite good-looking too.
'Remi's old crush,' he replied, walking beside me as I headed towards the group. His next comment threw me off guard. 'You know, you lie a lot.'
'What?' I asked, stopping in my tracks and narrowing my eyes at him. Bradley stopped too and met my fierce gaze with one of simple curiousity.
'You lie a lot. You didn't leave home did you? You ran away from it,' he said accusingly.
'Why would I run away from home and then enrol myself in high school?' I asked with a snort, trying to divert him from the subject.
He couldn't know. He was just guessing. A very fucking accurate guess but a guess nonetheless. I felt myself getting nervous and dreaded his next words still.
'But you didn't enrol yourself did you?' he said, quickly putting the pieces together. I got the feeling that he was only half being serious when suggesting that I ran away. But now he was being deadly serious. 'That officer caught you outside of school and enrolled you, right? You pretty much said so yourself, yesterday.' He was looking at me in a challenging way now. 'You look like the type to be a teenage runaway.'
This provoked me into talking. I'd decided since being told I would die, that I wasn't going to take any shit from anyone.
'Hey I'm eighteen now so it's not running away. Wait - I mean...' I broke off with a scowl, realising that he'd tricked me into spilling the beans.
He laughed at that, eyes glinting. He was a smart one, I'd give him that. Unexpectedly smart. I'd have to watch out for him.
'So why'd you run? Mommy didn't give you enough attention?' he asked, mockingly.
I sensed a slight tone of bitterness in his voice and I remembered that he was the brother of Remi whose mom had died, guessing it was his mom too unless they weren't fully related.
'That's a stupid reason to run away; how would my mom give me more attention when I'm not even with her?' I said with an eye roll. Bradley chuckled slightly - for once not in a mocking or sarcastic way. I kind of liked the sound of it. 'Anyway,' I said, getting more business like. 'You better not tell anyone.'
'Why would I tell? I'm not a douche.'
'Man, you need to take a look in a mirror, Bradley,' I told him seriously, a smile curved the corner of my mouth.
'Whatever. So why did you-' he began.
'Hey, look there's some people over there!' I exclaimed, trying to deter him from the question of "why". That was something I really didn't want to answer. I barely even knew this guy anyway so I didn't feel obligated to tell him. I just had to keep him sweet enough to not tell anyone else.
I ran over to the group where Remi had disappeared into and found her chatting to that Kyle guy still. He was even better looking up close. He had a friendly face, kind eyes.
'Oh, Kyle this is Raegan, she's new - started yesterday,' Remi said, introducing me.
'Hey,' he said giving me a warm smile. 'How are you finding it?'
'It's okay,' I shrugged. 'Obviously I would rather not be here, but you know. It is what it is.'
'She's like a female version of Bradley,' Remi told him, rolling her eyes. 'Finally someone to match his evil sarcasm.'
'Oh really?' another guy grinned. 'Finally, we need someone who can put him in his place.'
I performed a short bow. 'I'm glad I can be that someone.'
For the next few minutes I was being introduced to a few more faces. There were two more girls one called Lisa - who I was told about yesterday - and another called Tara. They seemed nice enough. Lisa introduced me to her boyfriend - Davy and his friend George. That pretty much made up the group. Remi, Hayley, Lisa, Tara, Davy, George, Bradley and now me. Apparently there was some other guy called Tommy but he wasn't in today and by the way some of the others talked about him they didn't seem too bothered. Interesting.
The bell rang and as we made our way to class, Bradley caught up with me and said 'I will get you to tell me why you left. Believe me.' He disappeared into the crowd.
'God damnit, I do believe him,' I grumbled, starting down a random corridor with a frown. I was such a loser. I couldn't even keep a secret for three days without someone catching on. Or maybe he was just too observant. Perhaps it was just a bit of both.
'Hey Raegan, you're in my English class now,' Lisa said, dragging me in the completely opposite direction to which I was going.
After two lessons in which I learned not a thing, we were allowed a twenty minute break. I made my way to the cafeteria and when I opened the doors I was very proud of myself for having found it on my own. I'd lost the school map already.
As soon as I stepped inside, I was ambushed by Remi; she grabbed my arm and dragged me backwards.
'Okay, I'm down with the rough play but I don't want to ruin the relationship we have. Can't we just remain friends-' I began, putting on a panicked face.
'Oh Raegan you're so weird,' she said with a laugh. 'We're going outside for break because it's a nice day. The others don't want to because they're absolute hermits. I was trying to tempt them out with these.' She held out her hand to me, showing the candy in her palm. I wrinkled my nose slightly at the terribleness of her plan.
'I really don't think that will wo-' I began but I was cut off.
'Oh please Remi, give us some candy,' a whiny voice called from behind us.
'Not unless you guys sit outside,' she shouted back, dragging me along again.
'Okay, so that worked a bit too well,' I said suspiciously.
'The guys love candy,' she explained. 'Well, they love all the sugary food, I guess... coach makes them go on a special diet, so naturally they use every opportunity they get to eat candy and chocolate,' she added with an eye roll.
I laughed at this and Remi opened the side doors to the school. They led out onto a grassy area near the bleachers and football pitch. There were a few trees near the chain fence and we made our way over to them to escape the blazing sun.
We all got comfy on the floor and as soon as Remi pulled the bag of candy out, the guys looked at her hungrily. This was like watching the penguins being fed at the zoo.
'Now children play nicely.'
She threw the bag into the middle of the guys and they all started leaping on each other, trying to get some. Did I say penguins? Perhaps a better animal to compare them to is pigs. But then it'd be watching them get fed at a petting zoo. Pigs aren't exotic enough to be at a normal zoo. Maybe boars?
Bradley approached from across the lawn and sat on the ground next to me so he could also lean against the tree trunk I was using. His movement brought me out of my strange musings and I moved away slightly so that he could have more room. Yes, I understood personal space.
'So are you all on a sports team?' I asked, curiously, referring back to Remi's coach comment.
'Yep,' one of the guys mumbled through a mouthful of candy. George, perhaps? He was good-looking too. Well, they all were actually. A lot of eye candy around this place. I suppose it made up for all the old people.
'Football team,' said Davy. 'We're on the football team. All of the other sports are lame.'
'Or you just suck at them,' Lisa laughed. Davy grimaced. I remembered those two were dating. At least they weren't a couple that showed copious amounts of PDA. I'd never been into that.
'Just because I tripped over in the middle of a sprint does not mean that I suck at running,' he said slowly, defending his honour.
'I'm still surprised that coach picked you as running back,' laughed Bradley from next to me.
'Well, he obviously knew it was a one off,' Davy replied in a grumbly tone. 'At least I didn't tie my shoelaces together right before a big game!'
'Hey, that wasn't even me, one of you guys did it when I wasn't looking!' he exclaimed, leaning forward angrily.
I snorted.
'First I find out that you flirt with the elderly and now you can't even tie a shoelace. In my opinion, Bradley, you are getting stupider and stupider.'
He scowled at me.
'Stupider isn't even a word.'
'Well, when I type it up on word processor it doesn't have a red squiggly line underneath it!' I pointed out.
'Word processor probably just felt sorry for you. I bet when you type your name in it comes up with a red squiggly line,' he replied.
'That might be true, but at least I can tie my own shoelaces!' I retorted.
He opened his mouth to reply but Remi cut him off impatiently.
'Children! Stop fighting. Bradley you're nineteen years old, you are going to be leaving high school in a few weeks and you're having an argument about red squiggly lines on word processer!' she said in an exasperated voice.
'Hey! It's not just my fault!' he complained.
'Yes, but I prefer Raegan to you, so you get the blame,' she told him soberly before returning to a conversation with Kyle.
'Ha, your sister prefers me,' I whispered under my breath as soon as Remi was distracted.
'Shut up runaway,' he whispered back, elbowing me in the side. I elbowed him back and he flicked the side of my head annoyingly.
'I'm going to kick your-' I began.
The bell went and everyone shot up immediately, scrambling around for their bags and making noises of complaint. I scowled at the inconvenient timing and snatched my own bag up off the floor.
'Saved by the bell, Bradley, saved by the bell,' I told him, shaking my head and getting to my feet.
Perhaps I ought to be nicer to him seeing as he was the only person here who knew I'd run away. He was the only one who could tell everyone else just what was going on with me.
But damn it, he was just too easy to tease. I got a kick out of arguing with him.
As we walked inside, I noticed my bag wasn't zipped up all the way and struggled with it for a few seconds. Stupid thing always got caught. I heard a loud wheeling sound and was suddenly shoved forcefully aside, making me lose my breath as I stumbled into some lockers.
'What the fu-' I started, glancing up with an irate expression.
'You were about to get run over,' Bradley said sweetly from the other side of the hallway.
I looked down the hallway and spotted an angry looking woman wielding a food trolley speeding down the centre of the corridor towards the cafeteria. I saw a few other students jump out of the way dramatically as she charged down the hall.
'It's the trolley that goes to the teacher's lounge,' Bradley told me as I pushed myself away from the lockers with a grumble. 'She hates students, I think she enjoys running them over. Helps her vent her frustrations, you know.'
'Oh,' I said, slightly dazed still. 'Thanks, I guess,' I added grudgingly.
'You guess,' he snorted. 'I save you from getting crushed and you "guess" that you should thank me.'
'You didn't save me in a very nice way,' I pointed out to him as I continued down the corridor, hoping it was the right direction.
'What would you consider a "nice way"?' he asked, falling into step beside me once more.
I met his gaze when I glanced over and once again noticed how dark his eyes were. Despite the fact that he mostly looked at me with an annoyed expression, his eyes always seemed to hold a sort of warmth in them. Kind eyes.
'You could have just pulled me aside rather than shove me with all of your force into a wall,' I told him, picking my way more carefully through the corridor, particularly looking out for women wielding trolleys.
'Are you expecting me to apologize for helping you in a mean way?' he asked, not bothering to watch where he was going; everyone seemed to be making way for him anyway. I bet they recognized him from the football field.
People had a hero worship thing going on here with the football players, I'd noticed. It didn't help that he was pretty hot too, I could see more than a few pairs of eyes on him as people moved out of his way. Wait - I couldn't refer to him as hot. He was simply my victim of torture.
I shook my head at the thought and then realised that he was waiting for an answer.
'Oh, um, if you show me where chem lab B is, then I'll give you a better thank you?' I said in a questioning tone of voice.
He considered it for a moment before shrugging.
'Okay, but the thank you has to be pretty good for me to be late to Bio with Mr Garter,' he said.
'Oh my, God you have him too?' I exclaimed. 'He is so evil and makes you sit in complete silence the whole time. After an hour with him, I had so much energy. Do you know how hard it is not to speak to another human being for a whole hour?' I demanded.
'I can see that being a problem for you,' Bradley smirked with genuine amusement.
'I don't talk that much, only when I have something to say,' I replied.
'How about you talk about why you ran away?' he asked sneakily.
'Fool me once - shame on you, fool me twice... well that hasn't happened quite yet,' I replied with a grin. He wouldn't wring answers out of me that easily. No wait, he wouldn't ever be getting answers! I was even slipping up in my mind. I was stupid. This town was making me super stupid.
He tilted his head to the side and frowned. 'How about if we make a deal?' he asked.
'What d'you mean?' I said slowly.
'How about I do something for you and in return you tell me why you ran away?'
'What did you have in mind?' I asked.
What could I possibly want when I only have thirty - sorry I mean twenty-eight - days left? Not a possession, I wouldn't need any of those where I was going. Plus I don't want to tell him - it'd be... scary. The whole point of me running away was for everyone to treat me like I was normal. I didn't want to go around telling people my problems.
I told him my thoughts, avoiding the last part.
'Not a possession?' he asked with a frown. 'Why not?'
'I've got all I need,' I said simply.
He opened his mouth to reply but then shut it and studied me for a while, ending up with a frown in his face.
'You're a hard one to figure out,' he commented. 'How am I meant to think of something worthwhile to give you without it being a possession?'
'Here's the deal. If you can find me something worthwhile to give me before or on the thirtieth then I'll tell you why I left home. If you can't by the thirtieth then... well I won't tell you,' I shrugged, confident that he wouldn't be able to keep up with his end of the bargain. I wouldn't need to tell him this way. And it would keep him off my back. He'd probably forget about it in a couple days.
He grinned and held out his hand.
'Deal.'
I reached out and slid my hand in his, shaking it. When I tried to pull away he gripped it tighter, not letting go.
'But you might have to give me a couple of examples of something I can give you which isn't a possession. Prove that it can be done.'
I tilted my head and wrinkled my nose slightly as I thought up some examples.
'It could be a view,' I said. 'Or an experience, a memory or...well I'll leave the rest up to you. That's more than enough to be getting on with.'
He allowed me to pull my hand from his this time. His hand was a a lot bigger than my own. Well, he was entirely bigger than me in general really. Tall, but not a giant, sort of medium build, not too muscly nor lanky. Just right.
'Okay,' he said. 'Okay, I'll give you something which isn't an object or possession on or before the thirtieth of this month.' He paused for a second. 'Why the thirtieth?'
'I just feel like it's the right day,' I told him, shrugging casually and putting my hand on the door handle to the classroom. I was about to walk in when I remembered my earlier promise.
'Oh, Bradley,' I called him back. He turned towards me, quirking his eyebrow in question. I bowed lowly, with the whole arm-sweep thing. 'Thank you for saving me from the evil trolley woman. I owe you my life,' I said in a pompous kind of voice. I saw a smile flash across his face before I grinned back before heading into class.