Broken Hearted [Book 3]

Chapter 18 - Settle For Less

"Marls." Jake said, coming up beside me as I stood at my locker.

"Yeah?" I said, glimpsing over at him.

"You and Ryder were singing in the choir room the other day and I really like that song and I want to know what that band was." Jake smiled. 

"Why'd you watch us singing?" I asked him, closing my locker and leaning on it. I gave him a suspicious glance and raised my eyebrow.

"I walked past randomly." Jake shrugged before smirking.

"Um, Before You Exit?" I said with a shake of my head. Jake nodded and walked away wordlessly. 

"What?" Angie said, walking up behind me.

"I don't even know, Ange." I told her, shaking my head and walking along the hallway in the opposite direction that Jake went.

"Was it about me?" She asked curiously, walking up behind me and standing next to me, her hand pulling on my red skirt.

"No." I shook my head and gave her a weird look.

"So it was about me..." 

"No, Ange-"

"Is Jake going to break up with me? I should have known this was coming!" She shouted, crossing her arms and standing in the middle of the hallway with wide eyes.

"Dude." I said, grabbing her shoulder. "He's not breaking up with you. Stop worrying." I shook her a bit and continued walking. 

"Okay." She sighed. "What he need? He had that look." 

"What look?" I questioned.

"That look." She said with a 'der' face.

"I don't know you." I whispered, walking away after poking her shoulder.

She caught up with me and smiled. "Hi, my name's Angie. Can we be best friends?"

"Now I seriously do not know you." I laughed, holding my hand out to her.

"I don't know me either! High-five!" She shouted, giving me a large high-five and shaking her hand like she hurt it against my palm.

"So, we suddenly don't know Ange?" Ryder laughed, coming up behind me and putting his arm around my shoulder.

"We do not know her. She's just a random person coming up to us and pestering us." 

"Fine. I'm going this way because I have to do crap." Angie said, pointing down the nearest corridor and walking down there. "Bye, strangers!" She screamed over her shoulder, sending us a small wave. 

"I don't know her." I whispered to Ryder, leaning my head into neck.

"You kind of sort of do." He whispered with a small shrug and some sort of frown on his face.

"Anyway," I shouted, grabbing Ryder's hand and walking down the hallway. "What has happened in the past hour or whatever?" 

"Not much, actually. Spanish." Ryder shrugged with a bored look and opened the binder he was carrying, pulling out a piece of paper and shoving it into my hands. "Best grade I've ever gotten in Spanish because I can read the questions!" Ryder laughed at himself as I looked at his paper. 

I smiled and leaned forward, kissing his lips softly before pulling away. I was so, so proud of them. "What about you? What'd you do?" Ryder asked, grabbing my hand again and walking with me.

I shrugged. "Algebra - you should have heard what happened!" I shouted with a laugh.

"What?" 

"So, Bobby was like Why do we even need to learn algebra? and then, the relief teacher we had, said To give math teachers a job and we were all laughing really loudly." I laughed at myself and Ryder chuckled at me. He was ashamed of my sense of humour, or he didn't find it funny. "Funny, right?" I asked, shaking my head at myself.