The Girl Who Was Adopted

Chapter 3 - You Might Like Breaking The Rules

After two weeks of perfect attendance at school, two weeks of working as dedicatedly as any student possibly could, two weeks of spending my breaks sitting and reading in plain sight – and still, nobody had even bothered to speak to me. I had to find a way to make friends, it was getting terribly lonely.

Sarah gave me a small 'in your face' kind of smirk every time she spotted me walking around the school by myself; in between classes and in the cafeteria, she knew that she had succeeded in making me feel unwelcome in the school, and in general. It was all a game to her, and while I hated it, I knew that it would get ugly; games always did.

I knew that she hated how much time Clare was spending with me, she was making getting a snack after school an almost daily thing – but Sarah made a point of not coming home for hours after school, and Clare often mentioned in our time together how much she wished Sarah would spend more time with her.

I knew that the fact that I was constantly requesting books for the home study was building Phil's interest in me – it opened a wide range of conversational topics for the two of us, and I was finally able to add to the dinner conversation – but Sarah seemed to make a point of hiding her interests from her parents until she needed something from them. I couldn't help that, either.

I wasn't trying to make her life difficult, I really was just trying to stick to her rules and stay out of her way, but having no friends was getting to me, and I was getting tired of talking to the giant stuffed bear that sat on my bed. I pulled out my phone while I waited for Clare to fetch me from school, and my curiosity drew me to Tyler's name in my contact list.

"Okay, you win," I said when he answered, after the second ring.

"I win?" He paused for a moment, "This is good news." He probably noticed my voice on the line, because he didn't seem to wonder at all about who called to tell him that he'd won. "So, you got sick of your old bad boy?"

I tried not to sound disappointed. "Like I told you, he only spoke to me once." I hesitated, was I really going to talk to Tyler about this? I had no one else, after all, "I need advice on how to make friends."

A chuckle carried through the phone, "You've come to the wrong person. I don't make friends, babe, I meet people and keep their acquaintance in case I need them in the future."

"Sounds lonely." I hesitated, "I have no idea what you're expecting me to be able to help you with though, there's nothing that I have to offer."

"Sure there is." Every word dripped with a smirk, and I sighed into the receiver.

"If you're looking for someone to hook up with, I'm not your girl," I answered stiffly. I couldn't stop the annoyance, was that really what he saw when he looked at me – someone who was easy?

"No," he laughed, as though I'd told the best joke he'd heard all day. "You look like you're more than just a pretty face, you might be interesting to hang out with. You never know kid, you might like breaking the rules. Who knows, maybe you'll be the first person I can hang out with for more than fifteen minutes without wanting to push off a cliff."

"That sounds like a challenge," I joked. "What do I have to do to avoid being pushed off a cliff?"

"We'll go to the game tomorrow night."

"What game?" I asked nervously. I knew that, to him, I was part of a rebellion – I wasn't allowed to be spoken to, so he was speaking to me, I wasn't allowed to be hung out with, so he wanted to hang out with me; but I was nervous, because I knew that being part of the rebellion meant that when he got bored, I would be alone again.

"Football, there's only a couple games left of the season." He made a clicking noise with his tongue. "We'll go to the game, and I'll get an opinion of you there."