RUNAWAY GIRL

CHAPTER 5

MELLISA POV

We reach the school parking lot and he drops me off near to the place where my friends are standing and goes to the teacher’s parking lot. I go up to them and say hi.

“Hey. What classes do you have today?” Riley asks.

“I have Math, Chem then lunch then English and history.” I say.

“Boooring. I have two continuous lessons of PE.” Peggy says.

“Hey guys.” We hear Jack say as he approaches us along with Nath-Nate and Moses.

They tell everyone hi and Nate gives me a brief nod.

YES! PROGRESS!!

We hear the bell ringing and all of us move in the school and head for our classes.

Moses Arya and I head together for our Math class and Nate joins us after calling us to wait for him.

“You have Math with us coz I haven’t seen you in any of mine?” I ask.

“Yep. I just never bothered showing up. My grades are alright.” He says.

“Yeah by alright if you mean an A+, then I am failing.” Arya says.

“Same here. I can barely keep with the syllabus.” Moses says.

“Don’t even wanna start on me. I hate Math. English and PE is more my thing.” I say.

“I hate English. I can’t even bullshit an essay.” Nate says.

“Ya I know.” I say under my breadth.

“What? How would you know?” Moses asks hearing what I mumbled under ,my breadth.

“Oh. It’s just that usually people who are good at Math are not good at English or other literary subjects. I had psychology as an extra object and I did research on this.” I say.

“oh. Makes sense.” Arya says but Moses and Nate nod.

Phew! Nice save Azzi!

We reach the class and Arya and Moses sit together leaving Nate and I to sit together. The class goes by in a blur and I go to my locker to get my chemistry textbooks. Since I joint late my locker is really far from there’s so I just told Riley to save me a seat. As I shut my locker I let out a screech because I saw Bethany a.k.a. the ‘she dog’ standing in front of me with Paris and London her twin wanabees.

“What do you really think you are trying to do?” Bethany asks.

“Ummm. Getting my books to go to the next class.” I say.

“No. she means, what are you doing hanging out with that loser sister of her’s and her extremely annoying girl friends.” Paris says.

“And extremely hot guy friends.” London sighs dreamily to which in return gets pointed looks from the other two and I stifled a giggle.

“Hey. Why the f**k are you laughing?” Bethany asks.

“Nothing. Just seeing how you guys are wasting your time on petty things like things like these.” I say and start to walk away.

“Listen here you b***h, stay away from Nate and the guys. I am already tired of my loser sister and her two other friends and I don’t want to bother keeping a check on another loser like you.” She says and starts to walk away.

“Hey you Bethany. I really don’t give two shits about you talking bad about me to my face or to my back but dare you talk bad about my friends I will not tolerate it.” I say.

“yeah. Stay the f**k away from us and leave us alone.” Riley says.

“Let’s go Mel.” Riley says again.

We turn around and walk away to our class. “How did you know come to my rescue so fast?” I ask.

“Oh nothing. You were just taking too damn long to come so I thought of coming to get you and I saw you cornered by the ‘she dog’ and her wanabees.” Riley says as we enter the class.

Ha! Riley and I thought the same names for Bethany. Best friends do think alike.

The chemistry class went by in a blur again as the teacher started teaching some topic from the organic section of chemistry. After chemistry lesson all of us have lunch together. I accompany Riley to her locker to keep the chem books in and take books for the English lesson we have after lunch then she accompanies me to mine and we enter the cafeteria and spot the group sitting on the round table. We take our lunch and go towards them.

“Yo guys.” Riley says sitting down and I just smile to everyone sitting down beside here.

“Girl you need to eat properly.” Peggy tells Arya.

“Why? What’s wrong with what I’m eating?” Arya asks.

“Everything. We have noticed you quite for sometime Arya and you haven’t been eating properly.” Riley says taking Peggy’s side.

“No it’s nothing like that. It’s just I don’t feel like eating pizza. It is making me nauseous and icky.” She says.

“Are you alright?” Moses asks getting worried and holding her hand.

The others give each other looks not understanding the conversation happening between the two of them. We left the topic and just continued with lunch.

Riley suddenly said, “ Oh crap. I had to hand in the geology report to Mr.Mathew today. I’ll see you all in the class.” And runs outside the cafeteria after she  saying that.

My phones chimes and I see it is a text from mom.

Mom: Hey honey. Both of us wont be home till dinner. See you at dinner have some news to break out to you. Take care and stay safe. P.S. Some cold pasta is waiting for you in the fridge ;).

Hehehe! Mom is so cute.

I reply her back.

M: Sure thing. Thanks for the pasta ;*.

The bell rang signalling that lunch is over so we get up and head towards English. All of us except Peggy have English just now as she has Politics right now.

We reach the class and saw Luke already there doing some paperwork.

“You came in early today.” I say standing in front of his desk while the others go to their seats.

“Yep. Had some papers to mark.” He says and I notice he has pink lip balm on his lips.

“Since when did you start applying lip balm, that too pink in colour.” I say laughing lightly.

“Oh that. I confiscated it from a girl in my other class,” He says.

“So you tried it on?” I say unsurely.

“No. I mean yes. I was just wondering- just get to your seat.” He says wiping the lip balm from his lips and I turn around and walk to my seat which is next to Riley but there is no Riley sitting there at the moment.

After five minutes of the class Riley enters the class.

“Why are you late, Ms Anderson?” Luke asks.

“Sorry sir. I was with Mr Mathew giving him the geology report he had asked me to make.” She says.

“It’s okay but next time do not be late.” HE says and continues teaching the lesson on Scarlet Heart.

As the lesson is about to get over Luke says, “So I have appointed Ms Anderson as the TA. All the assignments will be given to her to give it to you and submitted back to her to be given to me. You all are free to go but Ms Anderson can you stay back for a few minutes.” Luke says and sits at his desk.

“Are you serious. Your brother chose Bethany to be his TA.” Jack says in disgust.

“Yeah. That is so unlikely of him.” I say.

“Never mind. Let’s get to history of we don’t want Mrs Brown to eat us.” Riley says and gets up and we start to leave.

“Why are you here, Ms Anderson?” Luke asks Bethany as she reaches his desk.

“Sir but you said that I am your TA.” She says in her all time whiny voice.

“Nope. I meant Riley not you Becky.” Luke says and all of us laugh and Riley just stays back while we go towards history.

“Is it just me or did you also notice your brother wearing lip gloss.” Arya says.

“Yep. I asked him about it when I was talking to him at his desk. He gave me such a weird reply.” I say.

“Yeah. What did he say?” Jack said raising his eyebrows.

“You know Jack you should just be a girl. He is a f*****g big gossiper than these girls.” Nate says and we just laughed.

“What did he say?” Moses asked.

“He said some girl in his other class was using it so he confiscated it and then when he was free he used it to see why girls like it so much.” I say.

“What crap!” Moses says.

“Please don’t tell me you actually believing him.” Nate says.

“Obviously no. Do you think I have STUPER written on my forehead.” I say to Nate.

All of them suddenly stopped and just stared at me with wide eyes.

“From where did you hear that word?” Nate asks.

“What word?” I say.

“STUPER.” Riley says.

Fuck! Azzi you have to speak crap right!

“I saw it online in some book I was reading. Why are you asking me that question?” I say acting oblivious.

“Nothing. You just reminded us of someone.” Arya says.

“Ohhkayy.” I say stretching the okay.

“Let’s get going then.” Jack says.

 Our History was normal as usual and Riley came in 10 minutes late with a late slip from Luke.

The class got over more quickly than I expected as we were studying world war 2 and I like that topic. I went to the parking lot and texted Luke.

M: Hey. I’m in the lot. When are you reaching the lot.

I waited for five minutes when Jack stopped in front of me with Nate and Moses with him.

“Need a ride again?” Jack asks.

“Naa. It’s okay. Luke would just be getting over here- wait never mind. He just texted saying he would take a little bit time correcting some papers.” I say.

“Sure. Get in with Nate at the back.” Jack says.

“Thanks.” I say sitting in the car.

The car ride was silent and as we reached the house and bidding them goodbye I went in my house for some alone ME TIME which was really required by me. I had a nice shower after having the cold pasta mom left.

I played my all time favourite music- The 90’s legendary rock band playlist including Nirvana, AC/DC, KISS, etc.

I was dancing around the room with a hairbrush in my hand when I hear two voices laughing at me. I turned around and saw Sydney in the arms on Nate laughing and holding a phone recording my every move.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” I ask screaming across from my window to the window at which Nate was standing with Sydney.

“Oh shush. Mind your language Melly. Kids are around.” He  says  smirking.

God! I wish I could slap that smirk off his face.

“What are you doing. Please delete the video you made.” I say.

“No can do. Imagine how good  it would look on my i********: feed and by the amount of people following me this video will be so popular.” HE  says.

Fuck! Astrid you can’t let that happen! What if he sees it.

While I was in my thoughts I didn’t see Nate back away from the window and go further in the house. Without thinking I just ran to Jack’s house and knocked like a mad woman. If someone saw me just now like this in a spaghetti top and boy shorts they would seriously think I am some w***e coming for a booty call.

“What the hell. Who the hell is wanting to knock my door off its hinges.” I hear Jack saying and  openly the door and says, “ What,” damn rudely.

“Where’s Nate?” I say angrily.

“Whoa whoa whoa! What do you think you are doing at a guys house at this time in such improper clothing?” Moses says coming out from inside while Jack is slowly trying to calm me down.

“I don’t care. I want that guy right now here and to delete the video he took of me.” I say.

“Why is their so much noise here?” Nate says coming down the stairs with Syd in his arms.

“Oh you seriously came here?! I was just joking.” He says.

I push Jack away take Syd from his arms, put her on the floor and held his collar in my small hands.

“I want that video deleted right now and my face is never going to go over the internet ever.” I say grinding my teeth angrily.

“Whoa whoa kitten. Calm down.” Nate says.

“Mells, please calm down. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.” Jack says while Moses rubs my back and little Sydney standing on the floor and looking at the four of us.

“I don’t care. Please, Nathan delete the video and don’t post it anywhere. Please. Please. Please.” No I was crying saying this.

“s**t! It was just a harmless prank. I was never going to post that video and invade your privacy.” He says looking guilty.

“Calm down. Sit down on the sofa. Nate you get the phone and delete whatever video she is saying that you took and Moses get here a glass of cold water.” Jack says leading me to the couch and rubbing my back to calm me down while the others got to work.

Nate hurried down with the phone in his hand and made me delete the video myself so that I was sure it is gone. Then I drank the glass of cold water Moses gave me. By this time Nate had replaced Jack by sitting next to me and held my hands in his.

“I am really sorry, Mells. I was just joking.” He says.

“It’s okay. I guess I overreacted too.” I say.

He wipes the tears from my eyes and gives a small smile. God I would die for his smiles.

The boys asked me to stay at their home for a while to cheer me up and I agreed. But first I went back to the house wore appropriate clothes and locked the house while texting mom, dad and Luke that I would be at Jack’s house hanging out with the boys.

I reached the house and the boys had already set up the boys a movie. We sat together and watched the movie and halfway through the movie Kathy and Keith came home and asked me to stay for dinner as I very well accepted because Kathy is an amazing cook.

After dinner Nate went with me to leave me at the doorstep of my house.

“Hey Mells.” Nate says and I turn around.

“Yes?” I say.

“You consider us all your friends right?” He asks.

”Ya. I mean it has only been a week of knowing you all but yeah I do consider you guys my friends.” I say.

“Good. So if something was troubling you, you would talk to us about it right?” He says.

“I don’t understand what are you meaning Nate.” I say as if not knowing what he is trying to talk about but I knew damn well what he was talking about.

“Like today. You were so scared as if someone would do something to you. You were really scared and we were s**t scared too.” He says.

“It’s nothing. I just have a lot of anxiety if I see my face on any social media.” I saw diverting the topic.

“Oh. Never mind but when you feel comfortable you can talk to anyone. I know you and the girls are quite close, Jack is your neighbour and yeah Moses is available always. I am saying that we are always there for you. And I .. uh..” He says scratching the back of his neck and turning a bit red. It was his habit to do it when he was nervous.

“You what?” I say smiling lightly.

“I am also there for you.” He says.

I smile and then did the most unexpected thing I would ever do. I kissed him on his cheek, said good bye  and ran inside the house with my heart pounding in my chest.

Shit Azzi! The f**k did you do!!!!!!

 I went up to Luke's room and saw he was eating while doing some of his paper work. I wished him good night and went to my room and laid down on the bed. I was happy to see that my friends cared about Mellissa like they cared about Astrid. I feel as if I am deceiving them but I can't help it as it is for their own good. I closed my eyes and remembered the feel of my lips on Nathan's cheek and a smile automatically creeped it's way onto my face. 

God! I've got it bad!