Through his lens

Letters to Juliet

'Have you heard from Paige?' Olive, Paige's crazy red headed friend said as I joined the rest of her group.

It turns out the hallway hadn't been as empty as I had originally thought. It didn't take long for rumours to start about how Paige had had a meltdown because Matt had dumped her. The more people started talking in hushed whispers the more I wanted to punch someone. My protectiveness over Paige brought out some anger issues in me.

I didn't know Olive that well but it was clear that she and the rest of Paige's friends were just as worried about her as I was.

'No, have any of you?'

'Nope.' They all said in unison.

It had been three days of silence from her side and as Matt skipped school the first two out of three, we weren't any closer to getting the truth.

'I just don't get it. He seemed smitten with her when we all went out together. He must be an amazing actor because he had both Harrison and I fooled.'

'I can't believe it either. After all this progress as well.' Olive said.

'Progress?'

'She didn't tell you?' A voice burst out. It came from a skinny guy whose name I couldn't quite remember. He wore a pair of thick black rimmed glasses that were obviously too big for him as every five seconds he pushed them further up his nose with a slender finger.

'Tell me what?' I looked at each and everyone in the group for an answer but it was only when my eyes landed on Olive that she shook her head and sighed.

'Paige she...she gets depressed. It's a very long story but Paige used to go to a private school across town from here. She got bullied a lot and it got so bad that she had to move schools. We obviously took her into our arms when we realised how cool she was but unfortunately some people here are friends with her old tormentors. For the last couple of years things have been good for her though. Then when you arrived and started talking to her it was like she completely gained her confidence back. Now though it's like we're back to square one. She hasn't had an episode like that in years.'

All of a sudden things started to click into place. The way she practically jumped out of her skin like a timid mouse when I first started talking to her.
'Now I understand why her Mum's so...you know.'

'Yeah...'

'God this is all my fault. I'm the one that convinced her to go out with him.'

'This is not your fault! You don't know what she was like before. I don't think you realise how much your friendship means to her.'

'Our friendship means everything to me too but you didn't hear her. She was...'

'That wasn't her. Not really anyway.' Glasses guy said. Now that he was trying to comfort me, I felt bad that I couldn't remember his name.

'I'll tell you one thing though. I'm going to kill Matt when I get my hands on him.'

My sources told me Matt was back at school today but so far I hadn't seen him. He must've been keeping a low profile because he hadn't been with his usual friends at lunch. My only hope of catching him was after school. Hopefully I'd manage to corner him before he could rush home. So that's why at bang on 15:30 when the bell rang, I flew out of my seat in History and rushed to take my place leaning on an oak tree outside the school gates. From here I could watch everyone leaving so Matt wouldn't be able to hide from me.

'You look like you're pretending to be in some crappy spy movie.' Nora said as she appeared at my side out of nowhere. I wasn't sure if I should be concerned because her doing that no longer seemed weird to me.