Chapter 3

To Tell or Not to Tell

Before she even knew it, Ruthie was heading to lunch. It had been a weird day for her. Her sister seemed to know something about Martin and she wasn't able to see her again. Peter acted strange in the hall after their first class together. He must know something too. She decided that it was meant for her to know, she would find out.

Ruthie grabbed her lunch bag out of her locker and headed down to the lunch room. She scanned the lunchroom for Peter. She smiled as she saw him and started to walk towards him. Then she saw that he was in deep conversation with Meredith. He was looking around and then back at her almost like he was watching out for someone. Ruthie walked up behind him and said, "Hi".

"Uh… hi. When did you get here?" Peter said almost shocked.

"Just now, so what are you two talking about?" Ruthie said looking from Meredith to Peter.

Meredith nervously bit her bottom lip and looked to Peter for him to answer. Ruthie looked at Meredith with a 'you better tell me' look that only best friends give one another. Meredith tried to ignore the glare and started gathering up her things at the table. She looked at them both and said, "See you later, I… I have to go take care of some things."

"Well, somebody better tell me what's going on here", Ruthie said staring directly at Peter.

"It's nothing, let's just eat", Peter said sitting down at the table.

Ruthie hesitated and sat down anyway. Now, she really wanted to know what was going on. It wasn't the kind of thing like when you think it's a good surprise either. You know, like right before your birthday and you wonder if someone's throwing you a party. There was a tension. She had no idea what was going on, but, she would eventually find out one way or another.

She decided to try to ask Peter once more and if he didn't answer her, then, she would just let it go.

"Will you please just tell me what's going on?" Ruthie said.

"I can't. I'm sorry, but, I just can't." Peter said quietly.

With that, Ruthie decided to just let it go. She sighed and looked down at her packed lunch and suddenly did not feel hungry at all. She looked around the room and everyone was happily talking with one another. She envied them. She wanted to be happily talking about things with Peter. But, instead, they sat in silence.

Meredith walked as fast as she could to the girl's bathroom. She hated keeping things from Ruthie, but, she felt that she wouldn't understand. She walked into the bathroom and checked to see if she was alone. She was. She went into a stall and sat down and tears rolled down her face. She couldn't believe that Martin was back in town and didn't even give her a call. He didn't even stop by and say hi. He was here in the same high school as she was and he didn't say one word. She couldn't believe that she still cared for him, perhaps still loved him. She sniffled a little and stood up and walked out of the stall over to the mirror to check to see how puffy her eyes were. They weren't too bad and she dabbed them a little and paced the bathroom wondering what to do. Then she wondered in the back of her mind, just a little bit, did Ruthie still love Martin? She remembered how Ruthie had told her that she loved him. She dismissed this thought almost as soon as she thought it because Ruthie had Peter now. She seemed very happy with him and now they were going to prom.

Meredith walked out of the girl's bathroom with one final look at her face to make sure it didn't seem like she had just been crying. She walked down the hall and for whatever reason headed down to the baseball field. She spotted him sitting there in the bleachers and almost turned around. Almost. She walked up to Martin as nervous as the first time they went out, and said, "Hi Martin."

Martin turned and smiled and got down from the bleachers and said, "Hi Meredith. How are you?"

"Fine. Great. Couldn't be better. And you?" Meredith said.

"Doing fine. I'm here to look at the team for any hopefuls with my team scout." Martin said.

"Well, I don't want to disturb you; I just wanted to say hi. Peter had told me that you were here." Meredith said.

"Yeah, I ran into him earlier." Martin said.

"Yeah, he told me. Well, I guess I just wanted to say hi." Meredith said realizing that now she had said that twice.

"Well, hi. I wanted to talk to you anyways." Martin said.

"Really", Meredith said a little bit too excited.

"Yes, I wanted to talk to you about us. I'm sorry for the way things turned out between us. I know that was hard a couple of years ago and that things got really messed up. I'm sorry." Martin said.

"Hey, it's in the past. It's okay. That was years ago. We are both different people now." Meredith said trying to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal.

"Well, I'm not that different. I'm pretty much the same guy. Are you different?" Martin asked.

"Uh, I guess not, well, not really." Meredith said with a slight embarrassed laugh.

"So, are you and Peter friends?" Martin said.

"Yeah, we all hang out a lot. Peter, Ruthie, and me." Meredith said.

"Ruthie?" Martin said not realizing he just said that out loud.

"Yes, what about her," Meredith said.

"Oh, nothing. I guess she's doing fine." Martin replied.

"She's doing great. Peter and she are extremely happy and they are even going to prom together." Meredith added with a smile.

"Wow…" Martin said.

"You don't seem too happy there." Meredith said with a hint of jealously.

"Oh, I mean, that's great. I'm happy for her. For them. I'm glad that they have each other. Well, I need to go back to the coach's office. I'm sure that he's looking for me. It was really great seeing you Meredith. Tell Ruthie that I said hi." Martin said walking towards the gym entrance.

Meredith sat there and watched him walk away from the field and she sighed slightly and wondered if it would be horrible of her not to tell Ruthie. Maybe Peter was right; Ruthie doesn't really need to know that Martin is here.

"How in the world am I going to keep Ruthie from seeing Martin for 3 weeks?" Meredith mumbled to herself.

Stay tuned…