Cupid's Daughter

Chapter 18~ Mission Aborted

By six am, I had decided that I was not going to school today. Not only had the photo of Nate and I kissing (taken by, as Miss Ungermeyer from Lizzie McGuire would say, a sneaky brown-noser with a hidden agenda) made its rounds on my hate page, but it had also been circled around on all corners of the web. I had turned off all of my phone notifications, deleted the Facebook and Instagram app and refused to open any texts from unknown numbers.

Call me paranoid all you like, but this was Noah Jones we were talking about, and there were hundreds of his 'fans' who wanted me dead for cheating on him. Even if we weren't actually dating.

My dad knocked on my door just as I'd pulled the sheets back up over my head, trying to drown out the silent noise of the cyber world.

"Hey kiddo, you feeling alright?" He poked his head in, dressed in his work gear for the day.

I moaned in response.

My dad pulled the covers down and lay a hand over my forehead to check my temperature. "Well you don't have a fever. Is it your stomach?"

I groaned again.

"Is it... you know, girl stuff?" My dad questioned, making me sit upright in my bed.

"No dad, no." I shuddered at the thought of explaining cramps to my father... not gonna happen.

My dad straightened up and nodded with an awkward grimace, heading back towards the door. "Well if you're not sick then you need to go to school."

I fake coughed. "But I am sick."

Dad rolled his eyes with a small smile. "Do you really think I'm buying that? Get dressed and go to school, I'll be home at lunch to check that you're really there." He blew me a kiss and then he was off, leaving me to wallow in my misery. I already rued the day before it had started.

I got showered and dressed at a snail's pace, picking out and scrutinising every aspect of my outfit carefully before putting it on. By seven a.m. I had spent so long getting ready that I had to run out of the door to school.

Fortunately, most people were in class by the time I arrived. Unfortunately, not everyone was. In my unwillingness to go to school this morning I'd thrown on an old pair of ripped jeans and a hooded khaki jacket, pulling the hood over my head to conceal my face.

I thanked my rarely lucky stars that I had Spanish first, a class with neither Noah or Sabrina shared with me. I walked into the classroom with my head down, only to be stopped by the teacher clearing her throat. "Señorita Conway, remove the hood before entering the classroom, por favor." Señora Avana scolded me, and I reluctantly pushed my hood down before taking my usual seat in the middle row.

"Slut." Someone muttered between coughs as I sat down, making me sigh.

"That's the chick who cheated on Noah." One girl, Liza Stevenson, muttered to her friend.

"After one day." Someone else added.

"And with Noah's brother!"

"¡Silencio!" Señora Avana spat sharply, turning to write new vocab down on the board. I tried my hardest to copy down the words, but it was hard considering I was the talk of the town and no one would shut up.

After a torturous two hours of Spanish, I decided to go through my next classes with my hood up and my headphones in, ignoring the chatter and taunts of my peers. By lunch, I could not have been more relieved to sit down with Sam, Tommy and Avery and talk about normal stuff like we always did.

What I was greeted by, however, was not normal conversation, but silence. I forked through my rice as we sat uncomfortably, the tension almost palpable.