"If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself." ~George Orwell
I rushed up to the stairs passing through the crowded hallways hoping to reach my Physics class on time. I barley had two minutes remaining yet I needed to go to my locker and the bathroom to pee. It wasn't my fault I was later per say. It all started when everyone in my house woke up late. It seemed that all the alarms in my house had momentarily shut off. When Mom opened her eyes and saw that it was 7:45 am she panicked. She quickly woke me and Justin up rushing us out of the house and then she sped like a manic. I didn't really know that she had it in her.
I quickly dialed my combination inwardly cursing when the lock didn't budge. I did it again and it opened on the 3rd try. It was like it was purposely trying to screw me over. I grabbed my textbook and ran towards the Physics lab. People in the halls were giving me weird looks but I didn't care. Mr. Simpson did not tolerate tardiness.
I entered the class just as the bell rang. Mr. Simpson was waiting by the door to shut it in the late people's faces. He gave me a disapproving look but didn't say anything. Thank God for that. He began teaching the lesson but my mind was half asleep. Forgive me, it was the first day back to school and waking up four hours earlier than regular was not feet.
My mind remained droned for the most part of the morning. It was only till lunch when I took a seat across Scarlett and Sophia that I seemed awakened.
"I'm tired," I whined as I twirled the spaghetti around my fork.
Sophia yawned loudly. "Trust me, I'm pretty sure that I got less sleep then you did."
"Oh yeah, I sleep for six hours how about you?"
"Four."
Scarlett and my eyes widened in response. "What the hell were you doing?"
It seemed all of a sudden that Sophia was interested in her lunch more than meeting our gaze. "I couldn't sleep."
Scarlett and I shared a glance. That was a straight-out lie that she had told us. I quirked my eyebrow at her and mouthed we'll take later. She nodded at me. It seemed later came earlier than expected because Sophia muttered something about returning a book to the library and left. We both watched her leaving refraining from saying anything because we had something important to discuss.
As soon as she was away from ear shot I started. "That's it. She's been hiding something for a long time now. I'm tired of not knowing."
Scarlett nodded. "I noticed but I was trying to give her space but not anymore."
We grinned at each other. "It's time for us to do some espionage work."
We left the cafeteria and walked towards the library because that was where Sophia said she was heading. Not surprisingly, she wasn't there. We even asked the librarian if she had come and she responded with a 'no.'
I turned to Scarlett. "Where do you think she is?"
"I have no idea but when we find her, there will be hell to pay."
We started our search from the top floor scanning our gazes from the English hallways to the Maths looking for the familiar black hair and black glasses. But it seemed we had no avail. The main floor was the same. We asked people we saw in the hallway and they all answered that they had not seen Sophia. It seemed that Sophia had truly disappeared without a trace. Scarlett and I had searched everywhere and we were about to give up. The bell was going to ring in minutes so it seemed that we had wasted our lunch.
As we were about to head back upstairs Scarlett grabbed my arm. "Wait," she muttered.
I looked at her confused. What was the matter with her? I didn't want to be late for class and it seemed that spying on Sophia had not lead us anywhere.
"We didn't check everywhere. There was one place that we forgot."
I was even more confused. We had check almost everywhere in the school. She couldn't be talking about opening every class because that would take a long time.
"We didn't check the haunted hallway in the basement." She replied.
The hallway in the basement wasn't really haunted but it was dark and gloomy there. There was a broken light which was the only source of light and nobody bothered to fix it because nobody went there. Since it was below the boy's bathroom you could hear racket and noises which spooked many people out. There was also very chilly and a place we would never find Sophia. She hated dark places.
I shook my head at Scarlett. "She's not going to be there. She hates places like those. That is the least likely place we are to find her."
Scarlett cocked her eyebrows. "Exactly, it's the least expected place to be found." She dragged my arms and me down the stairs. "We'll just check quickly and then we can go back to class."
The protest that was in my mouth was swallowed my Scarlett's gaze. Sighing I followed her back. As we entered the basement a chill went up my spine. It was like the North Pole and it seemed that the school wasn't really fond of providing heating to the lower floors. Our footsteps made echoing sounds making be believe that we were truly the only people in the hallway. I was proven to be wrong when we made it at the end of the haunted hallway. My jaws seemed frozen in shock and it seemed like I wasn't the only one thinking like that.
In the light you could see Dillon leaning against the wall with his legs wide open. Sophia was in between them with her back resting on Dillon's chest. He was running his fingers along Sophia's arm and it seemed that she was enjoying it immensely.
Scarlett got ready to open her mouth but I covered my hands over it and dragged her away from the 'couple.' Her eyes were wide open as she burst open her mouth. "Did you see what I saw?"
I nodded my head. "I certainly did. I can't believe the nerve of that girl!"
I wasn't mad that she had kept it a secret. I was just hurt that she didn't trust us enough to let us know what was going on in her life. We were like sisters, and it was really painful to find out something like this.
"What I'm more curious about is if she's going behind her parents back," Scarlett muttered as we climbed the stairs. "Remember the whole situation with Devan?"
"How could I forget?" I retorted sarcastically. "After all, it was a life changing moment."
"So what do we do now?" Scarlett asked. We had almost reached my chemistry class. "Confront her?"
I grinned evilly at her. I rarely got that look but Sophia keeping a secret had rubbed me the wrong way. "We grill her until she tells us and ignore everything else she says."
Scarlett mirrored my grin and gave me a quick hug. "Seems like a plan."
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"Do you guys want to come over to my house to study for the physics test?" Sophia asked her.
I simply glance at her. How could she be so calm in this situation and lie to my face? Oh wait, it was because she thought she was safe. She was so wrong.
"I'm busy."
"Me too," Scarlett echoed.
Sophia looked a little taken back. We usually never rejected her help whenever we had to study for something. Sophia had a way for making things more understandable. I was really going to regret this plan tomorrow it would seem so.
"Well okay, I'll text you guys when you get home and if you have any questions just give me a call."
"We'll be fine without your help." I said and then started walking down the path. I made sure not to look back but I was pretty sure the Sophia would be in shock. I felt bad but my hurt was overriding my love for my friend.
I walked to the nearby park and took out my gloves to wipe off the snow from the bench. I took a seat and found my but was freezing but it felt nice. The park was covered in a light layer of snow and the jungle gym looked more fun. I remembered my elementary school days in which we would all be rushing down slides filled with snow since they were slipperier. The memory put a smile on my face that was quickly wiped out when a snowball hit me.
"Oww," I cried turning around trying to find the culprit.
There was only a little girl with blonde pigtails standing behind me and the rest of the park remained empty as it had been minutes ago. I was really confused, was this girl the one had thrown the snowball at me? If so, how was I supposed to approach her?
"Sweetheart, did you throw a snowball at me?"
She nodded and spoke "My older brother said I'm not allowed to talk to strangers."
I cocked my eyebrows and moved closer so that I was leveled with her. "Did he now? What a smart brother you have."
The girl looked happy as she grinned showing me her two missing teeth. "Yeah, he's the best brother ever. He plays with me and told me to throw the snowball at you."
I took in this new piece of information. Clearly her brother was trouble but could be sweet since the little girl seemed smitten with him. "What's your brother's name?"
As the words barley left my mouth cold hands covered my eyes and shouted "Boo."
My eyes widened in surprised and I let out a blood curling scream trying to remove the hands over my eyes without any avail. Another hand covered my mouth as I struggled to break free my captor spoke. "Good job Darcy, now let's take her back to our hideout."
My mind started spinning like a clock. I was being kidnapped. I was too young to die. The little girl had clearly been part of his ploy which meant that he had been hiding and possibly watching us talk. This clearly wasn't called being creepy. My kidnapped forced me to walk and replaced his hands with an eye patch and mouth gagged. I tried struggling, kicking, punching but it seemed that nothing seemed to affect my kidnapper. He would merely yell 'ouch' sometimes but it felt like he was faking it to get me to hit him harder. It seemed that after about five minutes of walking we had arrived at our destination as I was pulled to a stop.
"Darcy, sweetheart, open the door for me. My hands are kind of full."
I snorted at his choice of words. How ironic. I was lead inside and too my utter surprise a wave of warmth hit me. I thought I would be it some cold, and dark place but from what I could tell which wasn't much it seemed far from it.
"Keep our guest entertained. I'll be back." The same voice spoke.
Tiny hands made weaved their way into mine and I was lead to what I presumed a sofa. It seemed my captors were nicer than I had predicted.
"So your name is Darcy?" I started.
"Yes, and I'm in grade 1. I don't really like it but my brother says that it will get better. I really miss kindergarten because there were a lot of toys but now I actually have to do work and it gets tiring. There is also this boy named Carter and he loves to tease me. He made my friend Mira cry and the teacher didn't do anything. I didn't tell my brother because he would make it too much of a big deal but still I don't know what to do." She kept rattling off.
I was amazed that someone in grade one had that much maturity. After a while my gags were removed and I got the chance to finally get a look at my surroundings. I seemed to be in a house. The walls were a rich brown with maroon sofas and a white coffee table. A warm beverage was placed in my hands and I looked up to see that it was Nick.
"Nick, what the hell is going on here?"
He had the sense to look a bit sheepish. "Drink the hot chocolate first Alana and then will talk. Darcy you can go back upstairs but just make sure not to disturb mom she had a late shift yesterday."
The little girl named Darcy nodded and went up the stairs. I went back to drinking my hot chocolate. It was delicious-almost as good and Dad's. Warmth spread throughout my body after I was done.
I glanced at Nick. He was sitting across me drinking hot chocolate as well. "Care to explain now?"
"Well, I was taking Darcy to the park because she really wanted to go when we both saw you alone sitting on the bench. You looked really lonely so I told Darcy to hit you with a snowball and let me do the rest. As Darcy was keeping you busy, I crept up and blindfolded you until you reached my house." He gestured around the place, "and here we are."
I glared at him. "Was it really necessary to 'kidnap' me?"
"Nope, Darcy just really likes adventures so I gave her one."
I was silent as I watched him sip the last remains of his hot chocolate.
"Why were you alone in the park?" He asked softly as his grey eyes met mine.
"I had a long day and I needed time to think."
"Want to talk about it, it helps sometimes." He said.
I thought about it. I could tell him, or I could keep it inside myself and slowly let it eat me away. "Did you know that Dillon and Sophia are a couple?" I blurted out.
He looked surprised for a second before he sighed. "Was this the thing that was eating you up?"
I nodded. "Did you know?"
He sighed again and looked back down to his feet. "Yes, I found out a couple of weeks before."
Wow, the knife just dug itself deeper in my chest. "You knew?!" My voice was a bit shrilly. Nick had known. Yet Sophia hadn't felt the need to inform nether Scarlett or me.
"I found out. Dillon didn't tell me. I went over to Dillon's house and saw them both together in his room. I could tell they were a couple without them saying anything."
Everything felt into place. The news that Devon and Dillon had fought at the Halloween party must have been over Sophia. The times she stayed up so late were probably talking to Dillon; he was probably the partner she had for her project. That day Scarlett and I saw her while I was showing her my house; she was probably at his house since it was in the same neighbourhood. The weird look that Dillon had on his face while Sophia was cuddling her teddy bear, a gift from him I would presume.
"But still! Sophia was supposed to be close to me, yet she didn't care to inform me about this special 'guy' in her life.
"Well maybe she felt that something would go wrong. It was pretty new for both of them. Maybe they were still happy to be in their secret bubble away from all the gossip and she had before with Devon. I can't make certain of anything and it will continue to bother you unless you clear the air with Sophia herself."
I made sense. With a new plan in mind, one that would entail me directly speaking to Sophia in mind formed. Surprisingly my heart to heart with Nick had made me feel better. It made the love that I already had for him to grow. Who knew that he was such a great listener and wonderful at giving advice?
Nick shook me from my thoughts as he held up a hand to grab. "Come on, let's walk you back home."
Sufficient to say, my day had turned 180 degrees in the right way.
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Oooo la la. There seems to be a new couple in town:P So did you guys expect that Dillon and Sophia were together or were you imagining Alana with Dillon? All of my previous foreshadowing finally made sense! Did you guys like the scene with Nick and Alana? Comment or vote if you want to see more. Thanks you guys for getting this story to 2.4k reads.
Stay tuned next week for the new chapter!
-Kyra