I slammed my locker door and walked along the empty school corridor as I dragged my book bag along behind me. I heard voice inside a closet and was instantly intrigued, normally everyone had left by now. As I neared the door, I recognized the voice of my ex-boyfriend, Josh, then I heard this girl Tina's voice. "Hey babe, how bout one more go?" Her voice was filled with lust and I didn't want to think about what they were doing in there. I suppressed my tears as I walked toward the double doors that led to my freedom. Once I got outside I put y book bag on properly and took off running, tears now flowing freely down my face. I didn't want anyone to see me like this, crying mean vulnerability and vulnerable wasn't something I wanted to be, I couldn't be. I heard a car turn onto the street behind me, but I didn't think anything of it until the car slowed down next to me. I looked over to see the blue truck that I knew so well. The window rolled down to reveal my best friend, Zach.
His face filled with mixture of compassion and anger when he saw the tears running down my cheeks, a searing hot reminder of what of I had just seen. Without a word, I opened the dented passenger side door throwing my bag in the back seat before flopping down into the seat. The cab was filled with a comfortable silence as we drove to "our spot", a quiet bank on the edge of the river just outside town. I was feeling better after just being around Zach, he had that effect on me. We were like yin and yang, crazy and wild against cool, calm, and collected. Zach and I had been best friends for as long as I could remember. We had grown up next door to each other practically brother and sister from how much time we spent at the other's house. His parents fought a lot so he often spent the night at my house.
He looked over at me and cleared his voice before speaking. "So are you gonna tell me what happened or am I gonna have to tickle it out of you." See this was why I loved Zach so much, he knew me so well. This was part of the reason Josh, my ex, had dumped me. He had always been jealous of my and Zach's relationship.
I took a deep breathe and said," Well, I had been walking towards the doors to leave, when I passed the janitors closet. Inside I could hear Ryan's voice and then that girl Tina's. She said something about 'how bout one more go' and then she called him babe. I got out of there as fast as I could. I started running once I got outside and then that when you found me." I looked up at Zach, his big brown eyes were filled with a mix of compassion, anger, and one I couldn't make out, but it looked like jealousy. What did he have to be jealous of?
"Tina as in that boyfriend-of-the-week girl?" I nodded my head as I thought of all the different boyfriends she'd had. Zach was right, a lot of the time it was about one every week or two. Zach wrapped me in a hug and I could smell the comforting scent of his favorite cologne. I had bought a bottle for him about 6 years ago for his 11th birthday. To this day it was the only cologne he ever used. I loved the scent, for me it was one of comfort. I knew that the person wearing it would never leave me or do anything to hurt me. This was important for me, I didn't really see my parents much, they were always on some business trip or some vacation with my dad's boss. When I was little they were always home, they might have been ignoring me, but at least the were home. Now I was lucky if I saw them more than once every couple months. When I started getting older the business trips started, at first just for a week and then for two, now they sometimes lasted for months on end.