Fragile Bones

Chapter Thirty-Three

Days shifted by slowly, lethargically becoming a blur in the mess that my life had become. Asher was practically glued to my side, despite my efforts to push him towards his other friends. In english, he was right by my side, whispering things to earn glares from Mr. Henderson, though he never punished him for it. It was obvious that he was scared of Asher, and that wasn't too uncommon for people who didn't know him.

In P.E. Asher made sure he was on the same team I was on in volleyball, hitting balls for me when they came near me. I couldn't say I wasn't thankful for this, P.E. was the bane of my existence. Even back when I wasn't feeling like a walking corpse.

At lunchtime, Asher sat with Charlie and I, holding me under a scrutinizing look until I was uncomfortable enough to take a bite of food. Whether or not Charlie noticed is anyone's guess, but I would have to assume not, which was one upside of my life right now. Occasionally someone would walk up to him, telling him to come join their group on the opposite side of the cafeteria, and he would turn them down each time. If Charlie didn't notice my eating. habits, she certainly noticed this.

"Y'know, he is constantly around you. I didn't pick up the clingy vibe from him when I first met him, but it's like he's attached to you. Like Edward Cullen was with Bella! Is he a vampire Madeline?"

"What do you think, Charlie?" I sighed, stopping by my locker on the way to our Physics class. I put in the combo and yanked it open, glancing at the faded marker that I had tried to scrub off from what felt like years ago. You couldn't tell what the words were anymore, so to Charlie, all it looked like was some graffiti gone wrong.

I pulled my bag in front of me and replaced my last classes books for the next ones.

"Just saying. Also, why don't you carry more than one classes worth of stuff in your backpack? You barely make it on time to each class this way. Or just be like Asher and carry a singular notebook and a pencil for everything!" Charlie mused, looking at a group of girls who walked giggling past us. Sometimes I wondered if she wasn't branching out to other friends for my sake, like I would become a pitiful loser again if she wasn't with me at school.

I snorted. "Yeah, Asher really sets all the examples when it comes to school. Shall I pull my GPA down to a 1.2 as well?" I intentionally avoided directly answering why I make so many pit stops at my locker. The truth was, I didn't have enough strength to carry all my books at once, like most students did.

"I don't think his GPA is that low," she said, rolling her eyes. "He's definitely smarter than some of the people here." Her eyes narrowed at something behind me, making me turn around while I closed the locker. Spencer was speed walking down the hallway, looking into every classroom he passed. He looked mad.

When he approached us he looked at us as if he was going to keep walking, but backtracked a couple steps until he was next to us again. "Have either of you seen Lindsay?"

Charlie and I looked at each other and shook our heads at him. He walked off again without another word. I watched him open the girls bathroom and shout her name, and then slam it shut when he received no answer.

"What the hell is his problem?" Charlie asked, as we took off to Physics before we were late.

"I have no idea."

Once we got into the classroom, we took our usual seats in the back. To my surprise, my teacher wasn't sitting at the desk, but someone else. Must be a substitute teacher.

The bell rang, and the woman spoke right away, fanning herself with a pamphlet with one hand and scrolling through her phone with the other. "Y'alls teacher is out today, they said you can just work on some practice problems from your textbook. Is there anybody here missing that anyone notices?"