Stolen Secrets

Stolen Secrets- Chapter 4

~Jeff~

“Are you okay Natalie?” I asked worriedly. Ever since she had come into class a couple of minutes ago she had been sitting in her chair with her forehead on her desk, her arms wrapped protectively around her head. Mr. Anderson had yet to appear.

“Mmph,” she mumbled into her arms. I was really worried. What if this had something to do with what I told her yesterday about her dad? Does she hate me know? I would hate to be the one to make such a goddess so mad.

“Natalie?” I asked again. “Does this have something to do with me?”

She raised her head from her desk quickly. At least I got a reaction. I would have to wait for her words to decide if I was wrong or right.

“No, no, no Jeff!” Natalie said quickly. “I was talking to my dad last night and he got me thinking about some things I would like to ignore.”

I was tempted to ask what those things were, but I knew it wasn’t the right time. I was still just some stranger who she gave the high honour of talking to.

“So it doesn’t have to do with what I talked about yesterday?” I confirmed.

I saw Natalie take a deep breath, “No it doesn’t,” she said. But I had the feeling she was partly lying.

But I didn’t press her further. She could give me the details if she wanted to. She clearly wasn’t ready to though.

And talking to her about something that she was really upset over because she had remembered it, maybe wasn’t the best idea ever.

“Thanks for telling me though, about the tax thing.”

“Why would you need to thank me?” I asked completely confused. If she was upset about something because she had talked to her dad about the new tax, then why was she thanking me?

“Dad and I talked last night,” Natalie said with a shrug. “My house has been really quiet lately so it was good.”

I nodded. I got the feeling that not everything was happy at Natalie’s place. I didn’t know the full story, so I wasn’t going to judge. Or maybe I was just reading too far into things and I was just jumping to conclusions.

Natalie is new to the school. And like she told me that first day, she’s new to having friends, which I find unbelievable. I’m not going to ruin being her friend, because I simply was too curious about her life, something that has nothing to do with me.

“So are we still good for tonight?” I asked hoping to get to a safer subject.

“Um.” Natalie made this really cute thinking face. Her eyebrows came together and her lips formed a small pout. “What’s tonight?”

Oh so she already forgot. I tried not to take that too personally. If she had something else going on that she spent all her energy on, then I could respect that, but if I just didn’t matter much to her...

“We were going to work on the project,” I reminded her.

I watched as she stayed frozen in her confused face for a moment, before her eyes widened more and her mouth formed the smallest ‘O’.

“At your house right?” She asked slowly.

“Yeah.”

Natalie relaxed. “Okay. Do you want to start right after school, or wait until later?”

“Right after school if that’s alright,” I said smiling because I was relieved now that it wasn’t just me carrying on the conversation.

Mr. Anderson walked in and apologized for being late. Natalie angled herself away from me to face him. He continued to talk, but I was too distracted by Natalie’s glossy red hair that caught the early morning light from the window just perfectly. It was straight again today, I’m sure it had been curly yesterday. Girls and their hair, something I will never understand.