Broken

chapter four

The courtyard is shaded, a little chilly, so I pull my cardigan tighter around me, tucking my chin to my chest to warm myself up. The past few days brought a wave of anonymous texts my way, all signed by A, so my phone has lived in a deep pocket of my bag on silent for longer than it ever has before. It offered some reprieve, but the texts heightened my curiosity as to who the culprit is.

"Where is your phone?" Emily demands as she sits next to me. Her breath is uneven and pink shades her cheeks; she rushed here. "I've been worried about you, Aria! You can't just turn off your phone with no explanation I-"

"Emily, calm down. I'm fine."

She's displeased by my tone, but thankfully, she diverts the conversation elsewhere.

"About the job application," she starts.

"Emily, I didn't get an application. What you said last week was right. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea in the first place," I admit.

"Oh. Well, I suppose you won't be needing this, then." She folds the piece of paper up she had in her hand and goes to put it in the trash.

"Emily! What is that?"

"It's the application form," she says quietly.

"I thought you disapproved?"

"Oh, I do. But I don't want to tell you what you can or can't do. It was unfair of me." She hands me the paper. "If you hand it in today or tomorrow, you could probably get the interview over with sometime this week."

*

As Emily suggested, I filled in the form as soon as I could, and wait outside of the English room for him to finish teaching a class. A brunette leaves the class early and loiters awkwardly next to me, twiddling a lanyard of keys in her hands.

"Can I help you or...?" I say, slightly confused.

"I need to get to my locker," she says, pointing to the one I'm leaning on.

"Oh, sorry. You should have said." I move out of her way. "Is the class almost over?"

"I think there's ten minutes left," she answers, "then he's all yours."

"What?"

"I saw you were waiting for us to finish," she recovers.

She closes her locker and walks towards the main entrance of the school; I don't recognise her but something in my gut tells me she's a friend of Alison.

When the students begin to file out of the main door, I head in through the other.

"Hi," I say, disrupting him from the papers on his desk.

"Aria. What can I do for you?" he smiles kindly.

"I just came to give you this." As I hand him the form, I cringe inwardly; this is a terrible idea. I plead that he doesn't linger on the subject too long.

"Emily never mentioned you were interested in a job. Neither did you." He looks down at the unfolded and creased form, clicking and unclicking the pen.

"Emily got me the application. But, I've applied to a few places," I add quickly.

When he finally looks up at me, I feel uneasy. I fear I may have stepped over the line and hurriedly try to retrieve the form, explaining the mistake I've made.