Nathan Northwood is simply living the perfect life every teenage boy dreams of. He is rich, handsome, captain and star player of the basketball team, could have any girl he wants and is basically the king of EverGreen High. However, Nathan wears a c...
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NATHAN
I was wrong about Hope Lance.
I thought she was different, and she was, but not completely different. I also thought we didn't have anything in common, and we definitely didn't, except for one thing.
Unlike me, Hope didn't give a damn about what other people thought about her, but she was at least genuinely hurting. It was obvious. She was just a master at concealing it like Maya and I. Like everyone.
Today's events proved that. Kaitlyn Summer proved that. The tears in Hope's eyes when I found her gripping the edge of the sink with her shaky fingers in the girls' bathroom proved that.
As we agreed on, I waited for Hope outside of the diner. After solid ten minutes, she rode her skateboard towards me in dark blue jeans with holes in them, a white t-shirt and a black and green flannel. She halted her skateboard in front of me and surprised me with her usual eager grin plastered across her face. The sadness was gone, flawlessly masked.
"Hey," I said, shortly.
"Hey! Ready to have some fun?"
"Yeah. I just wanted to give this to you first." I handed her a red lunchbox.
"Ooh! A gift!" She quickly opened it and her jaw was quick to drop when she found herself taking in the sight of all the brownies pieces that filled the lunchbox.
"My mom's homemade brownies. You know, those you stole a plate full of when you left my birthday party? My mom was making some when I was leaving. I remembered how much you liked them and thought that you may be...yeah," I trailed off, my voice fading along with the crisp breeze drifting past us.
"Holy hell! Thank you." She shut the lunchbox and squealed before throwing her arms around me. Smiling, I wrapped my arms around her and let her silky ginger curls tickle my face for a moment as I exhaled deeply.
I expected her to quickly pull away and dig into the brownies, but she remained in my embrace and tightened her arms around me. And then she mumbled, "I'm sorry for kind of snapping at you at school. You were just trying to be there for me. I just have a super annoying temper and I wanted to be alone."
I chuckled and patted her back before closing my eyes. "It's fine. I get it."
That was her cue to pull away and flash me a bright grin. "Okay, so I know a perfect spot where we can eat these. No, not the factory this time. I know another super cool place."
Impressed, I raised my brows. "You know a lot of super cool places in this little town, huh?"
"Well, gotta find something to kill time with when I can't do the one thing I love doing."
