Chapter 15
Paloma was leaning against the fence post near the school gates texting when the bus pulled up to the school. She looked up from under her fringe and grinned. This made me nervous.
I was greeted with a vice like hug as I stepped off the bus. “Hey Tabby! How was your weekend?” I could tell there was a hidden meaning behind those words.
“It was great.” I smiled, and kinda choked.
“Oops, lack of air.” Paloma said, letting me go to avoid me dying right here and now.
She stepped back and gave me a knowing smile. I rolled my eyes as I readjusted the bag on my shoulder.
“Well, are we gonna go find ‘him’ or what?” Bree asked, bouncing on her toes.
“Oh yeah! Totally forgot about that!” Paloma said sarcastically, winking at Bree.
“Guys, please, just, uh, and yeah.” My nervousness was causing me to have the inability to string words together into sentences.
“Calm yourself, we’ll just stumble across him on our way to class.” Bree reassured me.
I shook my head at the thought of them being like this all day.
Paloma shoved her phone back in her bag and skipped ahead excitedly. Bree followed, while I trailed behind, hiding behind my fringe.
Obviously the news wouldn’t get around school too quickly, because not many people from here went to the party or knew about what had happened.
I felt self conscious walking through to the main buildings. No one looked at me though, so I looked up and tried not to think about it.
“Hey! Tabby?” A deep voice called from behind me.
Paloma and Bree stopped and turned quicker than I did. I eventually turned too, my heart leaping in my chest. Thankfully it was Matt. He motioned for us to come over.
“Hey Matt.” I smiled shyly.
“Hey Tabby, how was the rest of your birthday?”
“It was great thanks.” I answered, smiling at the memory of my birthday.
“Great.” he replied. “I came over ‘cos Jake wanted to see if you guys were here. He’s waiting by the field.” He grinned, probably remembering what had subtly gone on between me and him on my birthday.
Paloma snorted. “Thanks Matty-boy. Tabby was getting worried he wasn’t here!” she said. I shot her a look.
“Haha, somehow I don’t think that’s necessarily true Paloma.” Matt replied.
I gave him a smile to say thanks for getting me out of the hole she was currently digging for me.
“Well thanks Matt. Are you coming down with us?” Bree asked, trying to help me further.
He nodded. “Sure, I’ll escort you ladies down there.” he grinned again. Matt was usually so quiet, it was quite strange seeing him so verbose.
The girls walked down jabbering in my ear and telling Matt all about me and Jake. He laughed at how excited the girls were getting. He saved me the embarrassment by not looking over at me too much though, he only grinned once or twice at me, which I could handle. He was such a nice, considerate boy. Unlike some people I knew who were currently hyperventilating over my unknown relationship status.
I was sure we’d passed Calvin on the way down, but if it was him, he didn’t say hi to Bree, and she didn’t take one look at him either. I think it was just my nerves getting the better of me, now I thought of it; it looked nothing like him anyway. Phew.
Keep breathing Tabby, I muttered to myself like a crazy. Matt laughed quietly. I think it was at me. I laughed too, he was a calming effect.
Jake was facing away from us on the edge of the field. He was talking to Max, so didn’t see us coming. I noticed I’d fallen behind quite a bit. I think Max caught sight of me coming though. He tapped Jake’s arm to get him to turn around.
Dick. Land me in it why don’t you!
Jake turned around and immediately grinned in my direction. I could feel my face literally burst into flames. Someone would have to grab the fire extinguisher, and sharpish.
I smiled back at him though; I’d forgotten how good his hair looked now.
“HEY JAKE! HEY MAX!” Paloma yelled like a mental freak. A few students turned to see what all the commotion was about.
“Hey Paloma.” Max said coolly, giving her a little nod.
“Paloma!” Jake cooed with a little less volume but enough enthusiasm to get a few more looks.
He gave her and Bree a little hug. I finally arrived at the scene of all the hugs and greetings. Me being slow had allowed myself to cool down and take my pulse down to normal speed.
“Hey Tabby.” Jake said, taking my hand and squeezing it.
“Hi.” I mumbled.
“Wow Jake, leaving a girl speechless. Get you.” Max taunted, making Paloma laugh like a loon.
“It’s a gift.” Jake said in a mock modest voice.
“God, I wanted action, not soppy hand shakes!” Paloma exclaimed, folding her arms across her chest and sticking out her lower lip in mock annoyance.
“Subtle, Paloma.” Max commented.
“Guys, I’m sure Tabby would rather die in a hole than do this in front of us.” Bree said, again saving my skin.
I gave her a thankful look, she could read my mind.
“True.” Max interjected.
“Yeah, but still. Are you, y’know…?” Paloma started. I could tell she was nervous to finish in case I ripped into her.
“Max, we need to go.” Matt said suddenly. I jumped slightly; I’d forgotten he had walked down with us.
Max caught on “Oh, yeah right, gotta practice.” He said. “See you later Jake?” he said in a slightly unsure tone.
“Yeah, of course. See ya.” Jake said watching them stride along to the music block.
I wished I could run right this second, like now, why couldn’t Matt have asked me to go with them? Made up an excuse about me knowing how to tune a bass ‘cos his was out of tune? Could you even tune a bass? Or Max could have asked me to help him with a drum solo? Asked me to hold his music for him?
I think I spent quite a while making up lame excuses in my head before Paloma gave me an elbow right in the gut.
“Ouch!” I said, snapping out of my trance.
“Tabby, please stop daydreaming, it may be highly amusing for us, but I think we have places to get to.”
“Oh ha ha.” I replied sarcastically. I felt really nauseated. Jake hadn’t mentioned Saturday at all.
I felt used.
“So Jake, I heard about you and Tabby.” Paloma whispered, though I was close enough to hear. Jake however, didn’t have a gob as big as Paloma’s and would speak much quieter.
This was making me even more nervous. Was Paloma doing this to save my embarrassment, or so I didn’t feel bad when he denied it?
“Did you now?” Jake answered, grinning at me. The volume of his voice startled me. So I guessed he wasn’t denying it?
“Yeah, I did actually.” Paloma answered, putting her hands on her hips and sticking out her bottom lip.
“Well, what did you want to know?” he asked cheekily.
“Ew, gross. No not like that. I think it’s cute and all, but is it, y’know…?”
Great, this was my cue to leave all upset and blubbery.
“Real? What do you take me for?!” Jake said with mock shock.
“Yeah that. I mean, you guys being best friends and that, it’s kinda awkward to take it up a notch suddenly like that.” Paloma clicked her fingers to motion the quick fire pace everything had suddenly moved on since Friday.
“Yeah, well it wasn’t that quick fire. You know that Paloma.” Jake gave her a look, which confirmed what she’d told me about him liking me ever since he hit puberty or whatever.
He took me by surprise by walking over to me and taking my hand. “Yeah, I really like Tabby, and I was hoping we could go out sometime?” He smiled down at me.
“I thought you were technically going out anyway.” Bree said.
“Same here.” I laughed.
I looked up at Jake. He was smiling down at me, his green eyes all soft. He leaned down and kissed me again. Shockingly, I’d forgotten how great it felt. I could feel him smiling as he did so.
“Yeah, they’re definitely an item.” Paloma giggled.
***
Paloma was literally bouncing off the walls when we were in class all morning. She wouldn’t stop gabbling about me and Jake. I think I nodded and smiled until my face ached and my neck was ready to snap.
It was an unusually warm day, and Bree was sneezing and spluttering so much, I thought her head would explode. Her eyes were streaming most of the morning and I was seriously considering taking her to the medical office for her own safety. She had hay fever like symptoms.
I found it weird though, hay fever season had gone a few months ago, unless Bree always suffered long afterwards?
It wasn’t until lesson 4, just before lunch, that things kinda got quite bad.
We were sitting in English, fanning ourselves with our recently marked essays on some poem we read when Bree started sniffling like a demented drugs dog. Wow, awful comparison, all things considered.
“Shit!” Bree muttered under her breath. Her fingers were covered in blood.
“Bree, are you ok?” Mrs Jacobs asked.
“Umm, I think my cold caused my nose to bleed.” she answered, clamping a tissue over her nose. It was already bright red. She was literally haemorrhaging.
“Tabby, could you take Bree down to the medical room please?” she asked, handing me a permission slip to let me out of class.
I nodded “Sure.”
I took the slip and followed Bree out, she’d already legged it.
I had to sprint a bit to catch up. We walked down to medical in silence. I knew Bree wouldn’t be up for talking, obviously because she was losing a lot of blood from her tiny, sore nose.
The lady at reception looked up shocked when she saw us and quickly got Bree sitting down with her head back and another wad of tissue over her nose.
“I’ll call your mother, you look awful honey.” she said.
“Yeah, I agree.” I said.
“You can go back to class now if you like.” the lady said.
“You don’t have to stay Tabby.” Bree said in a muffled voice due to the tissue currently blocking her nose.
“Are you sure?” I asked. I kinda didn’t want to go back to English without her there.
“Yeah, I feel awful. I want to be on my own.” she said.
“Ok, I’ll catch you later then?” I asked, giving her a slight hug round the shoulders.
“Yeah, I’ll try and call if my mum lets me out of my confinement.” she joked.
I smiled at her. “Ok, get better soon!” I waved.
She waved at me until I’d disappeared from view round the corner.
I hoped she was ok, she seemed so ill and not like herself at all. I also had a niggling feeling at the back of my head that maybe that nose bleed wasn’t entirely to do with her bunged up sinuses.
I definitely needed a chat with Paloma about this at lunch time.
***
“Tabby, please, what is this all about?” Paloma asked slightly scared by my odd behaviour.
I’d literally just passed her in the corridor from English and was dragging her to the cleanest loos known in this school; the science block.
“Look, I’ll tell you when we get there.”
Paloma saw where we were headed. “Tabby, you’re sixteen years old! Do you really need assistance in the lavatory still?” she asked in a posh and jokey manner.
“Oh ha ha, funny. Look, it’s about Bree.” I said, backing into the door and hoping it was unlocked. Thankfully it was.
“I don’t want to know Tabby. Jake’s waiting for us.” she said as if it were the end of the world.
“No, he’s practicing with the guys.” I said.
“Still! I don’t want to spend my whole lunchtime cooped up in here. Gross.” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“We won’t. It’s just Bree. She went home, nose bleed. I’m really worried about her.” I said, finally letting Paloma go.
Paloma sighed and shook her head. “Look, she has the drug problem, not us. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”
“You mean what Calvin’s doing. And what has this got to do with her taking drugs anyway?” I asked.
“Well duh Tabby.” Paloma said, hands on her hips again.
“Duh what exactly?” I was utterly confused; but was sure I wasn’t going to like what was said next.
“Bree hangs around with or goes out or whatever with Calvin, right? And he’s out smoking and getting high or whatever. Correct?”
I nodded, still feeling dumb.
“Well you think they’re just smoking pot or whatever. But what if she’s into other drugs too?”
I gulped. I’d hoped Bree wasn’t that stupid, but I’d seen what had happened before and knew that wasn’t exactly the case.
“Other drugs Tabby! What drug causes nose bleeds after excessive use?!” Paloma asked.
Ok, so now I was struggling to breathe.
“Yeah, that’s right. Cocaine.” Paloma said bluntly. “You’ve gotta face up to it Tabby. Bree’s still with Calvin, I’m sure of it.”
“I was scared you’d say that.” I mumbled.
Paloma came over and hugged me. “Look, we’ll say no more. We could be wrong; we need to get some proof first.”
I nodded, pretending to be reassured by her words.
But even I couldn’t convince myself any more.
“Come on, we’ll deal with this later. I’m starving.” Paloma said.
I laughed, the worry melting away momentarily.
You could tell Paloma always thought with her stomach.