Chapter Forty-One…
“Well, I’m glad to be getting out of there.” I announced as soon as we had exited the classroom, a sigh of relief instantly escaping my lips.
“Agreed.” Jord granted, looking back at the shut and shaking his head in annoyance.
“Stupid Leonie and her stupid rumours.” I muttered, glancing now at Anna who was obviously wondering what we were so worked up about. “So, what’s up?” I inquired, deciding I ought to at least find out what we had been called out for.
“As I’m now dealing with your parents, they’ve put me in charge of the thing with Arthur as well.” She explained. “So, I’m here to take your statements.”
That made sense and I was almost relieved that Anna was going to be the main police officer questioning us, because I trusted her a lot more than the rest of them at the moment. Although she had pushed us in the Zack case, that proved to me that she was just good at her job. Something that was needed when it came to convicting my father.
“We’re going to Mrs. Danks’ office, she’s offered it to me to let us speak in.”
From the amount of times we’d been there during the Zack case, I knew Anna would know where Mrs. Danks’ office was, so we followed her and opted to lag behind a bit instead.
“They’re going to be cooking up some really bad things in there.” Jord pointed out in a lowered voice, so that Anna wouldn’t be eavesdropping on our conversation.
Sighing, I nodded. “I know.” I complained. “I don’t think I want to go back in there.”
“I’m hoping we won’t have to.” Jord agreed, smirking. “As long as this statement takes a long enough time, then I don’t see why either of us should have to go back this period.”
I grinned at his ingenious solution. We could avoid that classroom at all costs until the bell went and then I could find out off Grace what they’d managed to invent whilst we were gone. Foolproof, really.
When we reached Mrs Danks’ office, it surprised me by how long it had actually been since I had last been in there. Since the case with Zack, I’d cleaned up my act and attitude at school, so much so that I was never sent to the headmistresses office anymore. I’d been kind of hoping that I would never have to come back here, but of course that wasn’t the case with how my life seemed to play out.
“So, I obviously have the basic outline of what happened from the police officers who were at the scene, but we have little in the way of what was going on before we got there. That’s going to be the main aspect of what your statement will discuss.” Anna told me, telling me what I already had guessed. The way she said it was as though she had been given a script to read from, with all the overly complicated words she chose to use, or maybe she just spoke like that normally. Just because it wasn’t common, didn’t mean their weren’t some posh people in Sheffield.
She turned to Jord then, deciding to outline what his statement would consist of. “You saw Arthur taking Jessica from you’re classroom, so you’ll need to say what you saw there. Also, you made the call to Jessica, so you’ll need to tell me what you heard during the conversation. Other than that, there shouldn’t really be too much more for you to say.”
I was glad there was going to be nothing more than a simple recap of what happened. It might take long enough for us to avoid going back to the classroom, but not be too in depth and make either of us upset. This would be simple enough.
That was what I thought, anyway.
Giving the statement’s themselves took no time at all and after about twenty minutes we’d recapped the entire event for the recording device, even with me remembering to call Jord Mr. Armstrong and him calling me Jessica.
Only, when the device was turned off and Anna went onto the next topic that she had come to talk to us about, that was when the bombshell was dropped.
“I went to talk to Arthur yesterday, to see what he had to say on what had happened and he came out with something I was almost expecting.”
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What exactly was she getting at there? Was I supposed to know what she meant by that?
She appeared almost amused that I had no idea as to what she was talking about. “He’s accused you and Jordan of being in a relationship.”
I couldn’t help the groan that escaped my lips. “You’re kidding, right?” I asked, determined for her to just be making that up. Surely that couldn’t be happening again? I doubted the ‘I’m secretly dating Matt’ excuse would work again. We were pretty much stuffed this time, especially considering I was more or less living with Jord at the moment.
Anna shook her head, a genuinely apologetic look on her face. “I’m afraid not. It was practically the first thing out of his mouth when I walked through the door.”
I shook my head exasperated. “He must have been thinking of a way to get me back for putting him in there and that was what he came up with.”
“Exactly what I thought.” Anna agreed. “I’m very tempted to just ignore his claims, having investigated into it before, but he’s very persistent and I think he’s likely to go to someone else, who’s not as likely to be as disbelieving as I am, if he doesn’t get some kind of answers.” She explained, filling me with even more confidence in her than I had already.
If I was pushing it, I might even consider her a friend of sorts.
“So, what are you going to do?” Jord inquired, curious as to how she was going to dismiss his claims and convince him that she had put in all the effort she possibly could.
“I can tell him that I’ve done all the research into your so-called relationship and that his claim was false. That there was nothing untoward between you and Jessica. He can’t question my judgement once I’ve made it.” She assured us both, doing a lot to boost my confidence. There was nothing that Arthur could possibly have on us, so once Anna had passed it that we were only friends, he had no argument, even if he went to another officer about it. They wouldn’t question Anna’s decision to drop it either.
“Thank you.” I replied, genuinely. With the support of the officer who was in charge of two important cases related to me, it filled me with more hope than if some random person was the one to be investigating these two issues. Anna knew me to a certain extent, which should be an advantage to me.
“It’s no problem, Jessica. I saw what you went through when it came to Zack and how upset you got. I just want to get this over for you as soon as possible. I can only imagine how the stress must be getting to you.” I could see an almost admiration in her eyes and her words reflected that. It was safe to say that I liked Anna a lot, she was someone I could respect and hopefully trust - something that didn’t come easy to me.
“Is that it?” Jord inquired then, a small, slightly forced smile on his face.
Anna nodded. “That should be all, there’s still nearly ten minutes of your lesson left as well.” She pointed out, making it sound as though it was a good thing.
“You don’t think we could stay in here for the next ten minutes then, do you?” I asked, smiling sweetly in an attempt to persuade her.
Raising her eyebrows in confusion, I could already see her getting ready to ask why.
“Why?”
“Because everyone’s questioning me about what happened to me the last couple of days and I’m sick of it. There’s tons of rumours about it,” I decided it best to leave out exactly what the rumours were now saying, “and I don’t want to listen to them. I just want to be left alone now.”
Sympathy was what flashed across Anna’s face now. “Fair enough, I’ll stay in here with you until the start of your next period.” She allowed. “I’m sure you could get another couple of days off school if you wanted, just until the weekend.”
“No, I want to keep on top of my schoolwork, I just wish it didn’t have to come with the gossip.”
“Fair enough.”
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When I walked into my next lesson, slightly late because of the time I’d spend in Mrs. Hippo’s office with Anna and Jord, I felt the entire class’ eyes on me.
Willing myself not to flush with embarrassment, but doing so anyway, I took the seat Grace had saved for me at the back. Normally we would occupy the front ones, but I was grateful she’d taken the option to sit us at the back, so that people couldn’t openly stare at us, or me, so easily.
“So, what’s the worst of it?” I queried Grace, dreading the answer.
Grace shook her head, a sign that it was as bad as I’d anticipated. “There not so much about your kidnapping anymore, there more about you and Mr. Armstrong.” She grimaced, before reciting what everyone had come up with. “They now think you’re having a secret relationship, which is why Mr. Armstrong got so angry when he saw you being taken, but that’s what you heard anyway.” She was getting slightly off track, so I prompted for her to continue. “Right, yeah, and that the police who came in are suspicious of the two of you, which is why you were took out together.”
I snorted. “They didn’t possibly think it might have something to do with the fact I was kidnapped a couple of days ago.” I shook my head exasperatedly. People just weren’t logical when they had something else they could make everything into.
“I know.” Grace agreed. “And they’ve come up with some crazy idea that Zack only cheated on you with Leonie, because he found out that you were sleeping with your teacher.”
I rolled my eyes. “Only Leonie could come up with that rubbish in an attempt to justify her actions.” No doubt she’d been called a slag because of it, so now she had to make me look like a bigger one to make up for it.
“I tried to stick up for you as much as possible, but no one listens to a nerd, so they just ignored me and carried on anyway.”
I sighed. “I know exactly how that feels.” I admitted. I was always the geek who nobody listened to.
As we’d been talking, I’d heard the whispers and seen the stares of people turning around not-so-subtly when the teacher wasn’t looking. They weren’t even trying to conceal how much they were gossiping about me and about Jord. Teenage girls were ruthless bitches and I was starting to believe that the boys were just as bad.
I decided that it was becoming an increasingly attractive option to go home and not come back until after the weekend, but I knew even then, it would be just as bad.
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So yeah, this is a short and completely AWFUL chapter. I actually hate it the most out of the whole story -.- But, I've been in a bad mood for a while and my insperation has just kind of come to a dead end, I hope it will be back soon! But, I have work experience next week, so I'll probably be quite busy, I also have a science exam, which I should be revising for, like now. Oh well, it'll be rate ;D
Thanks for votes and comments, hope this wasn't too disappointing!
And the song, although I don't normally like Blink182 that much, I really love this one! I like the line: "I'm too depressed to carry on" That's kinda' how I'm feeling at the moment -_-