The next day I woke up around two o'clock. I was glad it was Saturday. When I looked over I saw that Becca wasn't in her bed. Of course she wouldn't be, it was two o'clock in the afternoon. She probably had plans, unlike me who had absolutely no life at this school yet. I would just have to walk around the city a little bit. Find out where everything is. I also needed to find the cheapest car I could get because walking everywhere was not going to work.
My stomach started to growl so I got dressed and headed down for breakfast. Well, I guess it would be lunch now. When I got down to the cafeteria Becca, Cole, May, Lea and Nathan were already at a table looking sleepy eyed. I guess I wasn't the only one that slept in today. Becca must have left shortly before I got up. I got my food and sat down beside them. I saw something out the corner of my eye. Someone was staring at me I could feel it. I looked over to see the boy from last night staring at me. When I looked over at him he quickly glanced away.
The people at my table didn't seem to notice they were too busy talking about their plans for the day. Some were going shopping; others were watching a Star Trek Marathon (Nathan of course). I had been sitting there just listening until Becca invited me to go to the mall with her. I Accepted happily, glad I didn't have to look like a loner all day. We decided to split up at the mall and meet at the food court around 4 o'clock.
I bought a bunch of tank tops and a couple pairs of shorts. I barely had any summer clothes because I didn't really need them where I was from. Here that was all they wore so I needed to buy a lot. While I was waiting for Becca at the food court I decided to get something to eat. I was looking around trying to decide where to go when I accidently bumped into someone standing in one of the lines.
"I'm sorr-"I stopped midsentence as I saw who it was I had bumped into. Shane. He smiled when he saw me, but it slowly faded when I didn't return it. I don't know what look I had on my face but it was enough for him to look disappointed and slightly angry.
"Someone told you, didn't they?" I just nodded. He gave me a rueful look and started to turn away.
I finally gained the ability to speak again "Wait! Why don't you tell me what happened? I want to hear your side of the story."
He looked at me curiously like he wondered if I was crazy.
We sat down and for a minute he just sat there like he was thinking. Just when I thought he wasn't going to talk at all he finally spoke. "Are you sure you want to know?"
"Yes, definitely. I don't believe anyone would kill someone else for no reason. So I want to know. And if you didn't do it I want to know why people think you did."
He raised his eyebrow and began the story. "It was about 5 years ago when I was 12. My parents had to go out that night so it was just me and my brother in the house alone. I was lying in bed when I heard a scream. I snuck out of my room and didn't see anything. I looked down the hall and saw that my brother's door was cracked open. I went in to see and…" He stopped and looked away so I couldn't see the expression on his face. Pain? Anger? Fear? I didn't know. A second later he continued, "I opened the door and all I saw was my brother laying there on his bed like always. The only difference this time was that he had a knife sticking out of his chest. Not really thinking I ran over and pulled the knife out. I couldn't stand to see him that way."
"Why do people think that you did it then?" He gave a bitter laugh.
"Apparently the person that killed him was really good at covering their tracks. The police couldn't find any fingerprints other than mine and there was no sign of a break-in at our house. All the signs pointed to me. I was the only suspect. Nobody asked if I was the one that actually killed him. They never even gave me a chance to explain. Nobody ever has, until now that is. You are the only person that has ever asked, and the only one who knows what really happened."
For a minute I wasn't sure what to say. "Well I'm glad you told me."
•
On Monday I went to my first class with Becca and saw that Shane was in that class with me. He was sitting in the corner of the room with the desk next to him empty. With a jolt I realized that I didn't care what any of these people thought. I could feel every pair of eyes turn to me as I walked over and sat next to him. I heard a couple soft gasps like they thought I was risking my life. But I guess they thought Shane was a killer so to them I might as well have been.
I tried to ignore all the stares people were giving me, but then I looked over and saw that Shane was staring at me too. I was about to ask him what was up when the teacher cleared his throat. Everyone's attention turned back to him and he started class.
About half way through the period Shane slid a note over to me, I read it silently:
What are you doing?
Slightly confused I responded. What do you mean?
You just started here; you don't want everyone to hate you too, do you?
I don't really care. If I want to be your friend I'm not going to let other people interfere, never have and never will.
A sigh of frustration from Shane. Please? I don't care if we hang out outside of school or whatever but I don't want you to be unhappy here. You seem like a really nice person and you could be really happy here… if you don't associate with me in public. Please…?
How do we hang out outside of school?
The Mall, we could meet every Saturday and do whatever and not have to worry about people seeing us.
Fine. But wait, I don't have a car…
I could drive you I guess. People won't really see us in the parking lot.
Fine. Deal.
At lunch I went and sat down with Becca and her friends. As soon as I got there they all stopped and stared at me. I knew that I didn't have to worry about telling them about Shane. Obviously they already knew.
"Are you insane?" Becca asked incredulously, "I told you to stay away from him!"
"Yeah, well I've never been very good at listening to directions." They all looked at me like I was crazy. "He didn't actually kill his brother!"
"And was he the one that told you that?" Lea asked in her snide, bitchy way "I mean jeez it is possible for people to lie ya know." She rolled her eyes.
I shook my head. "No one is that good of an actor. You can't fake that kind of thing."
All of the sudden Nathan decided to join the conversation, "Come with me. I can introduce you to some nice people." He grabbed my arm and dragged me with him to another table. The table he brought me to had about 6 people at it. They looked like the preppy kind of people, the really annoying kind.
"Hey guys, this is Brooke. It's her first day here so I thought I'd try to help her make some friends."
One girl smiled and said "Hey weren't you in my first class? I saw you were sitting with Shane. I guess you probably didn't know about him then?" Before I could respond she continued, "Would you like to sit with me tomorrow instead? I'm sure the teacher will understand." I wanted to yell at her and tell her that I wanted to sit with Shane. But then I remembered Shane and I's agreement.
I put on a fake grateful smile. "Sure that would be great! Anyway it was nice meeting you guys, I'll see you later!" I walked away and rolled my eyes to myself. Thinking about how fake and stupid I had sounded.
I got back to the table and glanced over at Shane, there were kids over there talking to him but they didn't look happy. Shane looked like he was mocking them. The growing look of irritation had me worried about Shane's safety. I looked closer and saw that the kids were a couple of muscular jocks. All of the sudden one of them started to draw his fist back.
I jumped out of my seat and ran over, "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
"This is none of your business! Get out of here!" One of the jocks said without taking his eyes off Shane. I raised my eyebrow. He did not just talk to me like that.
"The hell it isn't! What reason do you have to bother him at all?" The one that spoke before looked surprised, he opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off, "You need to leave now." I even surprised myself with that. If it was anyone else, I'm ashamed to say, I probably wouldn't have done anything. But the fact that it was Shane they were bullying changed the situation. For some reason I felt very protective of him.
Surprisingly the jock actually listened, they all walked away glaring at me. I looked around surprised to see that everyone in the cafeteria was staring at me. For some reason this really bothered me. I rolled my eyes at them and sat down beside Shane. Turns out he was staring at me too. A shocked look on his face.
I walked over, grabbed my lunch and purse and sat back down beside Shane. Murmurs and whispers broke out and filled the room. I ate my lunch quietly ignoring everyone else. I didn't care what they thought I knew I had done the right thing in defending Shane.
"What was that?" Shane asked me in a hushed tone.
"He was going to hit you" I said simply.
Shane looked at me like I was crazy, "You're not supposed to care! Remember?"
I rolled my eyes, "Whatever I'm not ashamed that I defended you and I guess now that the cat is out of the bag I don't have to worry about avoiding you at school."
"You've got balls, I'll admit that. Do you know how many times anyone has ever stood up to them?" I raised an eyebrow. "It's a total of one as of today." I raised both my eyebrows this time. Maybe it was a good thing I did it then. No one deserves to get away with stuff like that and not be punished.
"Then I guess it was about time that somebody did don't you think?" He just shook his head slowly, incredulously.
Things were going to change at this school, whether I had to do it myself or not.