The Nerd's Secret (On Hold)

Chapter 5

"Jesus Christ Sara, what the heck happened." her eyebrows furrow together as she places feathery touches on my bruise.

I shrugged. "I told you that I might get a bruise or five." 

She rolls her eyes. "Aren't you supposed to be good at fighting?" I only laugh because I had nothing else to say. 

Sometimes I wonder why the universe decided to make my life a living hell. And most importantly, why the universe decided to make my brother's life miserable. He's a good kid, he doesn't deserve a horrible life, he deserves to have a proper family where they would have proper sit-down dinners. Where the parents would come home from work and talk about their day and how stupid their co-workers are. Where you're not struggling to put food on the table every day or to buy some simple shoes when your feet grow. 

"Sara?" Anna asks carefully, snapping me out of my trance. "You don't need to act tough around me, you don't have to act like you're emotionless." She stops what she's doing with my makeup and puts her hands on my shoulders. "If you want to break down and cry, then I have a willing shoulder for you. If you want to freak out and be angry, then I have some plates you can smash. Even if you want to skip school today and go kill some bitches, then say the word and I'll dig a hole."

We both chuckle for a little while my eyes begin to blur my vision. Anna clearly recognised my eyes tearing up because her next move was to give me a hug and I gladly accepted it. 

As the warning bell rang for period 1 snapping us out of our little moment that we're having, we both got up and made our way to class. 

"Hey, Sara!" I heard a familiar voice behind me yell. I turn around to see a happy Jared jogging towards me. Suddenly, he abruptly stops and his happy expression turns soft as his eyebrows crease in confusing. "Are you alright?" 

My first reaction's to turn the other way. "What do you mean, why wouldn't I be?" I play it off.

"It just looks like you've been crying, your eyes are watery and your nose is bright red." I feel his hand on my shoulder and I just shrugged it off. I don't like being touched by strangers. I don't want him to know that I'm sad, I don't want anyone to know that I'm sad. 

Without a response, I just walk faster to my math class.

+     +     +

Math textbook, check

English papers, check

Wait a minute, did I have to bring my English papers home? Yea, right? Wait, no. Whatever.

I stuff my English papers in my bag anyways. As I close and lock my locker, I notice Jared standing behind it making me jump a little. He holds out his hand to shake mine as I awkwardly shake his back. "Hi, my name is Jared Harte, nice to meet you. I'm new here." He says cheerfully.

"Umm, Jared what are you doing?" I ask. If this is normal behaviour for this dude, then this is going to be one long semester.

He lets out a huge breath as if he's getting ready to say a long speech. "Alright, we kinda met on the wrong foot. I want to be your friend, so let's start over—"

"Don't you have other friends to hang out with? Like basically every guy on the soccer team?" I interrupt. 

"Yes, but I also want to be your friend." He says as if it's obvious.

"Why?"

"What do you mean 'why' ?" He crosses his arms over his chest. "I just want to be your friend."

Why would someone want to be friends with an asshole like me? I never had someone come up to me and ask to be their friend, I never knew anyone who cared enough. When I met Anna, we were in the first grade so it kinda just happened. How do you befriend someone?

Plus, doesn't this guy have anyone else to befriend? I'm just some girl who's too fucked up to be friends with someone. 

"So...." He trails off searching my face for an answer.

"Almost friends." My voice cracks as I mentally curse myself for it.

"Almost friends?" 

"We're not friends but we aren't acquaintances eithers. We're almost friends," I explain.

A huge smile forms on his face that melts my heart. Now I get why people were staring. He is hot. Obviously like I've said before, looks don't matter to me, but damn...just, damn...

"Awesome," he answers, his dark brown eyes sparkling at me. 

+     +     +

"He doesn't have good intentions."

"Wait, what?" I almost spit out my water that I was drinking. I re-adjust myself on my bed so that I'm sitting cross-legged. "What's so wrong with wanting to be friends with him, Anna?"

"He's a player, they only befriend girls to fuck them afterwards," She says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Aren't you supposed to be like hella street smart and can tell when people have bad intentions."

"Exactly, that's why I can tell that he doesn't have any. Why would a guy like himself even want to do anything other than be friends with me."

"Because despite your insecurities, Sara, you're pretty fucking hot and that's coming from a lesbian."

I roll my eyes at her compliment. I really never thought I was hot, I have too many imperfections like my dimples, freckles, ginger hair, and my frail body. Seriously, I have the body of a 9-year-old boy. Sometimes freckles and dimples look good on people but not me.  

Randomly, a knock was heard on my bedroom door and Anna opened it for me.

"Sara?" Brady's kid-like voice asks.

"Yea?" 

"Can you help me with this extremely hard math problem?" He asks running and jumping on my bed showing his work to me.

20 - 15 = ?

"I don't know if you can even do it, it's pretty hard." 

I let out a low chuckle and take his math paper into my hands and start to explain how it worked and how to count on your fingers for it. 

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Alright, this was a little bit of a shorter chapter, but a cute one at the same time :)

I'm trying to work on my writing skills to describe what's going on better so like, sorry if I suck.