The Days Before 16

Chapter 13 Continued Part 6

Wednesday 15 July, 2015

I sat cross-legged next to Daniel who had his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. I was staring down at my hands trying to figure out what I had forgotten when I remembered. My phone! What if Todd had texted or called and I'd missed it because my bag was in the car last night? I zipped open my bag and went straight to the small pocket which was meant for your phone. I had a black Blackberry. I didn't take it out of my bag; I just unlocked it in there. I had one new text message. It read: 'Willow, I'm going away for a few days to clear my head. I don't know where I'm going but I'm coming back. See you soon.' It was from Todd. He sent it last night. He left? He left me here on my own? How could he? A single tear ran down my face as I locked the phone and put it back in its pocket.
"You ok?" Daniel asked concerned. I nodded and wiped the tear away.
"Sorry. I have to go." I said and got up. I put my bag strap over my head so that the strap went diagonally across my chest and my bag was hitting my left leg as I walked away. I put my hands in the pockets of my jeans. I had nearly made it to the edge of the grass when Sonny got in my way.
"Hey, what's wrong?" she asked.
"Me and Todd had a... fight last night. A bad one. And he told me to get out of the house-"
"What? Why didn't you tell me before? Why didn't you come over last night and stay at mine? Where did you stay?"
"You were mad at me so-"
"Not mad enough to turn you away!"
"So I stayed at-" I said. I nearly said Trevor's house but caught myself. That would have been tough to explain. "At Daniel's last night." I said. She gave me a bad look and despite myself I smiled. "Nothing happened, geez."
"Well how was I supposed to know?" she said and I shrugged.
"But then I looked at my phone to see if Todd had tried to call me or left a message to say I could come home but instead I got this." I said and handed her my phone with the message up on the screen. Her mouth dropped open.
"Oh babe." She said sadly and hugged me. I wrapped my arms around her. She let go. "If you need a place to stay, just come over."
"I'm staying at Daniel's house tonight again. But I'll come over tomorrow night."
"You better!"
"Well we have to plan something for my birthday don't we? Or are we skipping it this year?" I said. She burst out laughing. She tried to say something but started laughing again. I started laughing at her.
"Of course we do! Where are we going to hold it? What are we going to do?" she asked, looked toward the tree and continued, "Who were you going to invite?"
"I was talking to Trevor before school and it came up and he said I could have it in his guest house. His parents are going away for the weekend, what do you think?" I said. She looked like a bobbing head off one of those dolls as she nodded. "I'll take that as a yes. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I was going to invite you, Trevor obviously as it's his house and Daniel. Yeah?"
"Yeah. So you have no idea what to do?"
"No. Why, got any ideas?" I asked and she looked at me wickedly. "What do you have in mind?" I asked. This is going to be interesting, I thought.
"Spin the bottle-" she started, I cut her off with my laughter. "What?" she said with that wicked smile still on her face.
"Nothing."
"And we could watch scary movies." She said. "Get my drift?" she continued. I started laughing again. I nodded. I got her drift. She wanted to watch scary movies so that she could cuddle up with Trevor. What girl doesn't watch scary movies to get closer to a guy?
"Come on. Let's go back." I said to her. She nodded and we started walking back toward the tree. "Thanks." I said as we sat down.
"Don't even mention it." She said and Trevor put his arm around her shoulders again. He looked at me with sad eyes over the top of her head. Thank you, I thought to him, she needed this. He smiled. Man, being a mind reader did have its perks. I looked at him then looked back at where Sonny and I were talking. Mind reader. He heard everything we were talking about. His smile got wider and reached his eyes. I blushed, again, at forgetting about it. You'd think that something like that you wouldn't forget but I kept forgetting. I looked at Daniel. He seemed very tense and had a look of disbelief on his face. What had they been talking about when we were away?
"You ok?" I asked him quietly. He blinked and looked at me as if he didn't realise I was there.
"Yeah." He said.
"Ok." I said. Sonny started laughing. I looked over at them. Trevor was whispering something in her ear. Why did I look? Why did I do it to myself? The bell rung suddenly. Was lunch over already? Wow, that was quick. I lent down and picked up my bag. We were all on our feet and we started walking toward the buildings. I had both of my electives today then I finished on History with Sonny. I had Music then Home Economics.
"Bye." Sonny said as she walked down the hallway to the dance rooms.
"Bye." Daniel, Trevor and I said at the same time.
"What do you guys have now?" I asked them.
"Don't we have Man Arts then Science?" Daniel asked Trevor. Trevor nodded.
"Sounds about right." He said. When the next hallway appeared I gave them a wave and turned down it. I walked to the end classroom and walked in. Gabby was a tanned, blonde hair brown eyed sports girl but she mostly did surfing.
"Hey." She said to me as I sat down next to her.
"Hey."
"I missed you on Wednesday."
"Sorry, slept in."
"No, don't be. I heard about your parents, I'm so sorry."
"Thanks Gab. What did I miss out on?"
"Nothing as usual. I just listened to music, did a bit of singing like I normally do." she said. I nodded. She was a really good singer.
"Wanna practise?"
"I guess." She said and we went to one of the keyboards. We were partners for our assignment but hung out in Music as everyone else had their own groups. I didn't mind Gabby; she was nice, funny and sweet. For our assignment this term we had to, in pairs, write our own piece of music. Gabby basically wrote it and I just went along with it because it was really good. She had an ear for writing music. It was fast and complicated but nice. She was going to play it in front of our small class in two weeks and I'd just sit there doing nothing but she didn't mind. After we had listened to it a couple of times we stopped and started listening to songs off her IPod. We each had one headphone in and we sung along to the songs. Before we knew it, it had been half an hour and the bell rung. We packed up and she put her IPod back in her bag.
"That piece is awesome!" I said as we walked out of the room together.
"I'm glad you think so. You sure we don't need to change anything?"
"I'm positive."
"Ok. Hey, if you need anything give me a call." She said and handed me a piece of paper. It had ten digits on it.
"Thank you. I will. Bye." I said to her as she went right at the main hallway whereas I went straight ahead. She gave me a little wave. This time I went to the second door from the main hallway. I walked into the Home Economics classroom and slipped into my seat at my bench. I grabbed out my recipe book and a blue and red pen. I was one of the first people here as I was so close to the room. My bench partner, Alice, was one of the last people through the door. She had Science at the other end of the hall. You wouldn't think it would take that long to get here from the end of the hall but when all the classes of maybe thirty kids each came out and everyone had to get to their next class, it could get pretty hectic.
"Hey Willow." She said. Alice was a brown haired green eyed science nerd. She referred to herself as a science nerd all the time. "It's just a demo today right? We cook next Tuesday don't we?" she asked.
"Yeah. She's demming the Australian Pavlova; remember as we're doing cultural foods?"
"Oh yeah. Yum. I love Pavlova. When I went to Australia last holidays with my family we had some from this little bakery when we were driving through this small town. Damn, I can't remember what it's called and where it was. I'll tell you next Tuesday."
"Ok." I said. Miss Taylor started the demo. I took notes and wrote them in my recipe book. It looked pretty straight forward. We had a system that was pretty straight forward as well. What happened was when it came to prac day we would just make enough for one person but it was all supplied by the Home Economics department. While we waited for her Pavlova to cook I talked to Alice. We didn't talk about personal things, we just made small talk. Like 'how was your day?' and 'how are you going in all of your classes?' By the time we had finished talking about our classes the Pavlova was done. It looked really good. The bell rung right through the middle of Miss Taylor's sentence, she stopped and dismissed us. These middle periods have gone really fast, I thought.
"Bye." Alice said.
"Bye Alice." I said as she turned right to go back to the Science classrooms.