Hiding Anna

Chapter Ten: Halloween

Chapter Ten

Halloween came sooner than expected. With huge amounts of school work and outings with friends time one month flew by.

After that horrid day at the park and seeing Anna puking up her own blood, I made a decision to carry on my summer goal and not start arguments with Anna. She always commented and snapped at me like usual though so I'd obviously stick up for myself and snap back. I wouldn't be a victim to her bullying like everyone else.

Although, she didn't seem quite as 'popular' as she was before since she was apparently homeless. I still didn't know whether that was true or not but by the way Zoe had switched seats with another girl on the right side, I guessed it was.

Anna had a rough background, that I knew as much. I'd experienced it myself. Her parents were either dead, addicted or working constantly although I hardly doubt that. The area where she lived was riddled with druggies and gangsters, which explains the reason for why she's the 'bad girl' of the school.

I would feel sympathy for someone like her but circumstances changed my opinion and I would never go back. Anna Brooks was too much of a bitch to feel sorry for and maybe if she hadn't done what she did two years ago, I would have tried to help her get out of the place she lived. It wasn't safe there and soon she'd become one of them.

In the past month we'd had multiple bickering sessions on the bus consisting of her calling me a slut and I called her a tramp. Nothing we hadn't said before, nothing so insulting it would end in a full on bitch fight — thankfully.

As for George well that was a different story.

He was constantly in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to get rid of him. I avoided all eye contact with him in lessons and on the bus to escape from his prisoner gaze. He'd texted me a few times to see how I was or if I wanted to go round his house but I'd made up excuses or declined.

A few times I almost did go, but I knew if I did I'd regret it. I felt things around George that I never felt around anyone. Sparks and shivers and warmth.

I hated to think what it could mean so before I could as so much type the word 'okay' I'd call some guy from school or a party and have sex with him.

However, the image of the light brown haired, midnight blue eyed boy never faded. His kindness and care was incredible and I couldn't help but think how foreign that feeling was to me.

No one — ever — had helped me through a flashback before. Not my mother, she was never home, not my siblings, I didn't want them to worry, or any of my friends. As far as they knew I was always happy and bubbly and there if they needed listening too. Or around Anna I was just bitchy.

George saw right through all that though and found ways of making the panic go away. Either just holding me or talking about nothing in particular to distract me.

He was so incredibly clever. Even though I blanked him at school I couldn't help but listen in in class to the interesting things he'd have to say. He always had a different interpretation to a subject matter that I'd never even thought of before.

For example in Biology we ended up going off topic in a class discussion about evolution and listening to everyone's opinions on how the universe was created. Most religious students argued about the 'The Creation' story in the bible whilst head strong scientific pupils got very heated in the debate on the big bang theory. Throughout all this George had been intently listening, I'd observed his perfect facial features gathering up the information.

Half way through he raised his hand and stated his simple opinion.

"Does it even matter how the world was created? The point is we never will have any proper proof and even if we did people would argue against it. Either way people will still choose to believe what they want to believe so why bother looking deeper into it. What is the purpose? In the end we got here, somehow we did and that's that. Why don't we just let people create their own stories on how this incredible universe was created and enjoy listening to them?"