The Guarded One ✔

Chapter Twelve

It's been a week since my grandma's funeral. Aunt Laura is adjusting to life without her mother, but in all honesty, I think she's been adjusting to it since Grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer's years ago. They say that when you're diagnosed with a condition like that, you basically dead anyone - in my family's experience that is.

"Where's Hayden?" Jess asks as we all meet up in the hallway in the morning before homeroom.

"Late as always" I mutter.

"Probably" Tyler nods with a worried expression.

Is that concern I see? That alone is enough to make me nervous. Tyler only ever gets worried about anything concerning Jess or football. It looks like I've missed some things.

I furrow my brows, as flashing Tyler a confused look. He brushes it off by avoiding eye contact.

The bell rings, sending me to homeroom. I'm usually the one who keeps my friends inline, it frightens me that something may be going on that I don't know about.

After homeroom, I enter Biology quickly. I take a seat in my usual spot when I see the kid, Ayla. She just sits there, drumming her fingertips against her desk whilst rocking her head back and forth in boredom.

Twenty minutes go by and still no sign of Hayden. She's never this late.

"Do you know where Hayden is?" I ask Ayla.

I know that it's a stupid question. After all, Ayla barely knows Hayden. The concern in Tyler's eyes this morning, paired with Hayden's absence doesn't sit well with me.

"Absent?" She raises a brow as though it is a question.

In all the years I've known Hayden, she has never taken a day off. Her parents never let her. She once showed up to school with the chicken pox, and she spent the entire day with the nurse.

"Was she acting weird last week?" I ask quietly, "I took a few days off, you see..."

"Not at all," Ayla admits.

I sigh as looking up to see Mr glimmer sitting at his desk, arms folded, listening carefully to our conversation. Why? His eyes meet mine, I turn my head away and furrow my brows. Something doesn't feel right.

***

After school, I have football practice. I've always loved football, I guess it's my escape. Always have been. We all have something that takes us away from the world for a whole.

I walk across the field with sweat dripping from my face after we finish running laps.

"Nice work, Jason" Coach Carson nods his head. "If you keep this up, I may promote you back to captain"

I nod my head. "Thanks, coach"

Captain. It has always been my dream to be captain of the football team and I guess I was for a while, or perhaps I just was on paper for a hot minute. It was taken away from me after the school reviewed my suspicion and detention list. After that, they realized that I was a risk.

When I return to the change rooms, I find my cell buzzing in my locker. I receive a message from Duncan informing me of a party tonight.

"Duncan messaged you too?" Tyler assumes as looking over my shoulder for a moment.

I nod. "Are you going to the party tonight?"

He shakes his head "Nah, got better shit to do"

"Fortnite doesn't count as better shit" I smirk.

"Wanna, bet?" He cocks a brow.

I laugh as applying deodorant as Tyler puts on a clean shirt. "So any word from Hayden?" I ask. "It's not like her to take days off"

Tyler's body tenses up. It looked as though time froze for a moment before he continued putting on his shirt.

"I'm sure she's fine" he assures.

I shake my head slowly. I always know when someone is lying to me. See, everyone has a tell. Tyler's eyes widen right before he tells me bullshit.

"Well okay then" I go along with whatever he says, "I'm going to head off, if you change your mind about the party, I'll see you there"

Tyler nods as I pull my backpack over my shoulders before walking out of the change rooms. In the distance I see Duncan talking to Ayla by the lockers.

She would have just finished cheerleading practice, which I only know because Duncan's has been talking non-stop about it.

I still don't know how I feel about Ayla, but I guess that it takes me a while at first to trust everyone. Who knows, maybe she'll be good for him?

-------------------------------

A/N

Hi all,

So any ships so far? I for one have been a hardcore Duncan + Ayla ship for years soooo.

Also, the next few chapters are going to be pathing the way for the heavy topics that I wanted to cover in this book. I will leave trigger warning where needed as well as helplines that you guys can access :)

Please VOTE if you're enjoying this book so far.

Thank you

Happy reading!