Chapter 35
“Did you know that the letter ‘H’ and ‘J’ are right next to each other on the keyboard?”
I raise an eyebrow at Jake as I shift my bag from one shoulder to the other, “Really?”
He nods, “It’s destiny. We were meant to be together.”
I laugh, wrapping my arms around him in a hug as we make our way down the street, “If you’re trying to be romantic, you’re failing – miserably.”
“What if I’m trying to be sexy?” he wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“Then I’m going to slap you.”
He lets out a woeful sigh, “Why am I still with my violent girlfriend?”
I bite his arm for that, “Because I’m sexy.”
He looks down at me, “Did you just bite me?” he asks incredulously.
I smile ahead, “Maybe.”
“Man, I’m in a screwed up relationship.”
“And don’t you love it.” I laugh.
He rolls his eyes and I notice a blush rising to his cheeks as he turns his head away, “Walk faster or we’re going to be late.”
“You shouldn’t be complaining when you’re the one who insisted on walking.” I shoot back, nudging him.
“I already told you, my bike broke down.” He whines.
“Then why didn’t we just get a ride to school with everyone else?”
His arms slide slowly around my waist and he pulls me to him, kissing me square on the mouth, “Well I wouldn’t be able to do something like that, would I?”
I push away from him, my own cheeks reddening now, “I guess not.”
We walk on in a comfortable silence, our moods lifting more and more with each step.
Maddy and Mitch meet us as we walk into school and I can sense their impatience to know what happened after I left them.
To tell you the truth there isn’t much to tell. Jake hadn’t asked me anything else about Matt and had stopped himself from broaching any subjects to do with him. My weird behaviour when he’d first appeared went unasked and he was generally pretty quiet on the subject.
I let Jake give a simple explanation about who Matt was to the older McLane’s but other than that no one knew anything else. I’d also gotten started on that letter thing that Mitch had suggested and I told her that as we parted from Jake to go to our lockers.
Maddy sticks around to hear the gossip. “He sounds jealous to me.” She says after I’ve finished telling them about our conversation back from her house. “He’s going all territorial alpha on you.”
I shut my locker, “You did not just call me territory.”
“Watch out, he’ll probably bite you or something.” She replies with a wink.
I give Maddy a WTF look, completely freaked out with where her mind’s going.
Mitch laughs as she shuts her own, “She’s got a point though, Hailey. He’s scared about your mysterious relationship with Matt.”
“It’s not that mysterious.” I mumble, walking towards our homeroom.
“Well, he doesn’t know all the details, so he’s bound to feel… insecure.” And with those parting words, Maddy flounces off to her own homeroom.
“She’s right.” Mitch says with a shrug as we walk into our classroom, “He’s obviously tres jelly.”
I roll my eyes as we sit down at our desks, “First Maddy classifies me as an area which belongs to my boyfriend who is apparently going to bite me and then you say ‘trays jelly’ of all things.”
“It’s another way to say jealous. I’m pretty sure it’s French.” She sniffs. Her eyes suddenly bulge out of her head, “Oooh, who’s the eye-candy?”
I slap Mitch over the head, “You’ve got a boyfriend! Get a gri– No. Way.”
What are the chances that Matt’s on exchange at our school and just walked into our homeroom? Well, apparently it’s pretty high.
He hasn’t seen me so I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and grab the groovy glasses Mitch claims to be fashionable from off of her head, “Mitch!” I hiss, “Give me your geography book!”
She passes it over confusedly and I snatch it from her, “What’s up with you?”
“That’s Matt!” I hiss again, setting the book up in front of my face before crouching behind it.
“’Morning class!” Mr O says as he walks in.
“Um, excuse me…” his accent sticks out like a sore thumb and immediately all attention is directed towards my ex-best friend. “I’m kind of lost…”
I peek out from behind Mitch’s book to see Mr O smiling at Matt, “You must be the exchange student, right?”
Matt nods, “Right. Um, I’m looking for uh… Ok, I have no idea what the classroom’s called but I’m staying with this guy called Lincoln Hayze.”
“Hell no.” I say a little louder than I’m supposed to.
All eyes turn to me, including Mr O’s and he raises an eyebrow at me, “Well, I’m sure Ms Parker wouldn’t mind showing you to the right classroom. Would you?”
I swallow, “Um, actually–”
Matt’s face lights up, “Hailey! You go to school here too?”
A murmur starts up in the classroom as everyone speculates on how I know this guy who has the ‘sexiest Aussy accent’ according to my already taken best friend. I stand up abruptly, tossing Mitch her glasses before stomping up to the front of the room and pulling Matt away with me. “Come on.” I growl.
I storm down the hallway not caring if he’s following or not. “Hailey.” He grabs my arm and I stop.
“What?”
“I want to talk to you. No, I need to talk to you.”
I turn around, anger rearing its ugly head within me, “Are you mental–”
“Matt! Hey man, I’m sorry I lost track of you.” Linc runs up to us looking worried.
Matt shrugs, “It’s fine. Hailey was just taking me to your classroom.”
“Thanks.” His smile falters at the grumpy expression on my face. He looks between us, “Um, am I missing something here?”
Matt shakes his head, “It’s nothing. I’ll see you ‘round.” He adds, looking pointedly at me.
I roll my eyes and give a small smile to Linc before walking back to my classroom.
Everything just got a whole lot more complicated.
*
Jake drops me off in front of my art class before heading towards his own, an unhappy expression still on his face due to the sudden reappearance of Matt.
“Hey Sarah.” I sigh as I set my stuff down.
My art teacher pokes her head out from the supply closet, “Hey Hailey. Bad day?”
I shake my head, sitting down heavily, “You have no idea.”
Maddy’s suddenly in the doorway and she looks frazzled as she looks around the room. As soon as she sees me, she makes a bee-line for her seat. “I just heard about you-know-who!” she hisses at me
I sigh again, slumping forward onto the table and resting my head on my arms, “He keeps saying he wants to talk to me.”
“Well here’s your chance.” She mumbles to me.
My head comes up quickly, making me wince as the muscles in my neck protest. In comes Linc with the very person we’ve been talking about.
Sarah greets him warmly and starts up a conversation with him – probably based around his history with art which I can tell you right now are worse than Mitch’s stick figures. Linc in the meantime comes over and puts his books down at his seat.
He doesn’t lose time with the sweet talk, “Ok, so what’s the deal?”
I open my art book to my newest dress designs and continue to sketch the straps. “Your transfer student’s the deal.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s Matt.” I say, looking straight into his grey eyes, “Ex-best friend Matt.”
Linc’s blonde eyebrows raise a considerable height up his forehead but he says nothing else.
“Um, can I sit here?”
We both look up to see Matt standing awkwardly opposite us on the other side of the table.
“Do whatever you want.” I mutter, shutting my book and getting up abruptly. I walk over to the store room to retrieve the shimmery purple-blue material I recently got for the maxi-dress I’m going to make.
“Hailey!” Sarah calls out.
“Yeah?” I shout back, grabbing what I need.
My art teacher’s head pops into the doorway, “Would you mind running a little errand for me?”
I shrug, coming out of the room with my material, “Sure. What do you need?”
She gestures at my latest nightmare which is sitting – no overflowing – off of her table. “Well, I actually need someone to run the costumes for the play down to gym for me. Would you mind?”
I groan out loud, dumping my stuff on a stool before walking over to my marshmallow dress.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t be able to fix it.” I grumble, bracing my legs before picking up the heavy thing.
Sarah laughs, “I’m just too good at what I do. Sorry Hale.” I roll my eyes, asking Tom to hold the door open for me. “Oh, Matt? Would you mind taking these other costumes too please?”
My eyes widen slightly as I turn around to see him take a whole bunch of hangers from her. “Sure thing Sarah.”
I send Maddy a look of despair before hurrying out of the room and down the corridor. I try to run, but with the dress I’m lugging along, it’s turns out to not really be an option.
“Hey,” Matt catches up quickly but I keep at my swift-ish pace, “Hailey, seriously. We need to talk.”
We walk out into the courtyard and continue towards the gym, “There’s nothing to talk about Matt.” I say through my teeth.
I manage to get to the gym doors first but I soon find that I can’t get any hands free to open it.
“Here, let me.” He opens the door and I squeeze through it with my gigantic dress, the hoop skirt beneath it getting stuck halfway.
“Crap.” I mutter, trying to pull it through. Matt begins to push it as well and before I know it I’m on the floor, surrounded by layers of heavy material, close to just shoving the damn thing in a trash can.
I sit there for a couple of minutes, breathing deeply as I try to calm down, an oversized dress over my head.
It’s not just the dress I’m angry about, it’s Matt as well. Who does he think he is? We were best friends for so long but when I needed him most, he wasn’t there. Now, a whole year later without any phone calls, messages, emails, wall posts or even letters – he shows up. Bam. Just like that.
It wasn’t a secret. Matt and I were pretty close to going out before that thing with Marshall happened… When I was with him, I never got angry. I always felt calm and peaceful even. I felt safe… And I guess he felt the same way with me.
Now, it’s a different story. Yes, I cherish the memories we made together but that’s all. After leaving me like that, why should I be happy to see him?
I have no idea if he likes me still and I know I definitely don’t like him in that way. But I have a feeling misunderstandings are going to come up and as a result – Jake’s going to be very angry.
“Come on Hale.” The dress is lifted off of me and I look up to see Matt’s hand reaching out to help me up. I sigh inwardly, knowing that he’s just going to keep pestering me if I don’t listen to him.
I ignore his hand and get up myself, dusting off the seat of my jeans before taking back the dress. “Spit it out then.”
I start walking towards the room where all the costumes are being kept in and I hear him walk after me. “I know whatever I’m about to say will just piss you off and make you think I’m making up pathetic excuses –”
“Cut the bull Matt.” I interrupt, turning the light on in the room and walking over to the rack of costumes.
He lets out a sigh of his own, “Either way, what I did was pathetic. There’s no other word for it. After I found Marshall… with you I was so angry.” His tone hardens and I look towards him in surprise as I recognise that other side of Matt which only appeared on that one night.
“I wanted to call the police, I wanted to tell my parents, I wanted to make sure he paid for what he did to you.” I go through the other costumes, taking the ones Matt’s holding as well. I’m mildly surprised to find that I don’t feel as affected by talking about the past as I used to.
“But you said no. You told me to forget about what my own brother did and just act like it never happened.” Matt’s hand rests on my shoulder and he turns me towards him. He bends down so that we’re at eye level, “I was pissed off. I was horrified. I was a total wreck. You didn’t want to tell anyone about Marshall and all I had was the guarantee from him that he’d leave you alone. I wanted to help you–”
“How is leaving me to deal with everything by myself helpful?” I snap.
Matt takes a deep breath, straightening up, “I thought it might be better if I distanced myself from you. I didn’t want Marshall to hurt you again. The only way I could make sure there wasn’t a repeat of that incident was to make sure he didn’t see you.”
I look up at my ex-best friend, comprehension suddenly dawning on me. A torrent of different emotions swirling within me as the missing puzzle piece to the wreck that is my life, is put in place. Of course, when I’d been in denial, these thoughts had occurred to me, but I never thought Matt would be so…extreme.
“I hate you so much.” I finally say into the silence.
Matt groans and I turn around to walk back to my class but he pulls me to him, crushing me to his chest, again. “Please Hailey. I want you to forgive me. I need you to forgive me. I can’t live with feeling like this for what I’ve done. I shouldn’t have done it and it’s taken me this long to realise. I just want us to go back to normal.”
I stand rigidly in front of him, refusing to lean into him like I had done so many times in the past. “Let go of me.” He instantly complies, stepping back. I cross my arms, “We can never go back to normal.” I say bluntly, cutting right to the main point. “What we had can never be the same again Matt.” I take a deep breath, “But I guess I can try and stop hating you.”
His face lights up like a jewel in the sun and I turn away from the radiance of it all and walk out of the room without waiting for an answer.
I hear the door click shut and running footsteps as he catches up to me, “I guess your proposal is better than nothing.”
I grunt in response, making my way out of the gym doors and back out into the sun.
“Were you serious about us never being the same though?”
I nod my head, “I’m not looking for a relationship like that at the moment.”
He goes silent for a minute, “Is it because you’re going out with that other guy? I think Linc said his name was Jake. The guy you’re living with.”
I stop dead in my tracks and slowly turn to face Matt, “E-excuse me?”
Matt frowns down at me, his intelligent green eyes scanning my expression, “You know, it’s a bit dodgy if you’re seeing a guy you’re living with. Not too many positive scenarios come to mind when I think about it.”
“W-what are y-you talking about?” I manage to stammer out, fear making my stomach clench and unclench uncomfortably.
Matt raises an eyebrow, “I saw you guys down at that park. I heard what you were saying too. I also asked Linc who he was after homeroom. Have you told anyone yet?”
I wipe my face of emotion and put up a blank expression. I can see where this is heading. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I say coldly to his inquisitive tone.
I briskly continue on walking, “Someone’s going to find out soon.” He calls after me. “What you’re doing isn’t right.”
I flip him off without turning around, If he thinks he can blackmail me, he’s got another thing coming.
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Yes... this is the horrible girl who updates as slow as a snail..... Sorry about the slow updating and everything... Having a busy time doing work experience at the royal children's hospital! 36 IS coming along but i'm trying to figure out how to get the story going along smoothly :s
hope you enjoyed this either way xxx