I wait until I see her make it inside safely and then hop back in my truck. For someone who never had any family, I’m feeling pretty protective of her. Something about Maggie makes me want to walk around with her all day and make sure she’s smiling. Maybe this is what Major feels like with her.
I put my truck in drive and pull away from the school, trying not to examine my feelings too much. I’m not sure how long my therapy will take, and getting attached to a family that’s not mine is a bad idea. I need to get along with them and have a good time. But one day I’ll have to leave their house, and I need to stop these warm feelings growing in my chest.
No matter how much I like them.
Chapter 3
Maggie
I can’t help but glance back at the truck, feeling butterflies in my stomach. They push away the dread I had about going to school and facing Nick today. I can still feel the warmth on my cheeks from how sweet Eli was to me.
This was what I was wondering about. This is the one sensation I never got with Nick. Where it felt like my stomach did a little flip. I bite my lip and turn around. I’ve been caught looking back at him, but he’s still looking at me, too, making sure I make it into school safe.
When I enter the busy hall, I head straight for my locker, getting a few hellos from people. I’m wondering if word about Nick has gotten out and what he might have told people. What had he said about yesterday and what happened with Eli?
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. Nick and all of his friends will be long gone after graduation at the end of the year. I won’t have to be in their social circle, a place I didn’t care to be in to begin with. I didn’t fit with them, but maybe that was more because of me. Who knows? I’ve moved so much through the years that I’ve been somewhat content not making friends, knowing that I was most likely going to move once again.
I always stuck to getting good grades and losing myself in books. It’s easier to do that. I’d take care of whatever home Dad and I had together. I enjoyed making dinner every night and helping out. We’re a team. Always have been. Maybe that’s why the moving never bothered me. As long as we were together, I didn’t care, and I knew it was for his job. I knew if he thought for a second it bothered me, it would eat away at him. But the truth is, it doesn’t bother me at all.
I open my locker and put away some of the books I won’t need until the end of the day. I don’t want to lug them around if I don’t have to. Checking my phone, I see I have a little time before class starts, so I make my way to the bathroom. I wash my hands and pull my hair into a ponytail.
I hear sniffling behind me, and I turn around and glance under the stall. I see a pair of flats that have a Harry Potter design on them. I take a step toward the door of the stall. Unsure what to do, I decide to go for it and I tap on the door.
“Are you okay?” I ask. The sniffling stops, but she doesn’t respond. I push on the door a little, but it’s locked. “Unlock it,” I say as softly as I can. I hear the latch move, and I push the door open.
“Alice?” I recognize the crying girl from my Advanced Algebra II class. She’s hard to miss with her curly red hair. She doesn’t look happy to see me.
“It’s not true,” she blurts out suddenly, more tears spilling down her cheeks. I can’t stop myself from grabbing her and pulling her into my arms, wrapping her in a hug. I still have no idea what could be wrong with her, but she’s making my heart hurt.
She hugs me back, and I can feel some of the tension leave her body.
“I swear I wasn’t with your boyfriend,” she says though a sob.
“I don’t have a boyfriend, so I agree,” I say teasingly, trying to get her to calm down a little. I can’t help the flash of Eli’s face in my mind when I think of having a boyfriend.
“You’re not with Nick?” she asks, pulling back, her eyes red-rimmed.
The freckles on her cheeks and nose stand out more now that I’m this close to her. I’d never noticed them before. They make her look younger than she is. She’s eighteen, a senior. She’s actually close to me in height, though, which is nice, because I’m used to everyone towering over me.
“He’s a jerk,” I tell her, and watch her lips tip up in a small smile.
“I thought you two—”
“Nope. I hope I never see his face again.” I smile at her, trying to make her feel better. Show her it doesn’t matter. They are a bunch of assholes.
“I can’t wait to finally graduate,” she mutters, still sniffling. “He told everyone we had sex and that I was terrible. And now I’m stalking him.” Another tear leaks down her face. “They wrote ‘slut’ on my locker.”
“Jesus.” I shake my head and pull her back into a hug. “They’re assholes,” I tell her.
“He’s mad at me because he tried to kiss me last week when I was leaving school late and I pushed him away.”
I pull back, taking a piece of toilet paper off the roll and handing it to her to wipe her eyes.
“Forget them. Like I said, he’s a jerk, and you probably hurt his giant ego.” I can’t believe I even dated him. He’s a sleazeball. If my dad knew how easily I was roped into Nick’s game, he’d be so disappointed in me.
“You believe me?”
“Of course I do,” I answer instantly. She gives me a big smile. “We can share a locker.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Please, you’d be doing me a favor. I don’t have any friends here.”
“I thought that you hang out with—”
I cut her off. “They aren’t my friends, and I don’t want to hang out with them anymore. Besides, that’d be bitchy to you if I hung out with the people who wrote ‘slut’ on your locker.”
She lets out a small laugh. “Maggie, right?”
“Yep.”
She lets a breath before wiping her eyes. “I look like a hot mess, don’t I?”
“A little bit. Your face is a bit blotchy, so we should probably wait before we leave. You’re walking out of here with your head held high,” I tell her.
I may be shy at times, but I never back down from anything, something I know I get from my dad. You don’t let anyone push you in a corner or tell you that you can’t do something.
“We’ll be late for class.”
I shrug. “One tardy isn’t going to kill me.”
We wait a few minutes, talking about our upcoming finals, and I hear the bell ring. Alice walks over to the mirror to look at her eyes. She pulls out a pair of glasses from her bag and slides them on.
“I think I’m good,” she says, turning to look at me.
“Yep.” I grab her by the arm, locking mine with hers, and pull her from the bathroom. We head for my locker, and I show her the code. She puts some of her stuff inside and seems to have her spirits lifted.
“I’m Group B lunch,” I say.
“Me too.”
“Awesome. We can have lunch together and go to algebra after.”
“I’d like that.”
Shutting my locker, we plan to meet up by the vending machines before we part ways at the end of the day.