THE GIRL AFTER

C H A P T E R 5

"Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future."

Robert H. Schuller

    I didn't know how long I had been running; a couple of minutes, maybe even a couple of hours. All I knew was that I was completely lost. There was not a single building in sight that I recognized. People milling around the sidewalks and buildings kept yelling at me as I ran into them.

    Anxiety and fear coursed through my veins as I finally stopped running. I had no earthly clue where I was, and I knew nobody around.

    "Athena?" I quickly turned around. Standing there, in front of me, was Percy O'connell. His eyes were drawn into a worried look and his arms were crossed in front of his chest. "Are you okay?"

    "I'm fine," I didn't expand on that, just turned back around and started walking away. A hand roughly grabbed my arm and spun me around. Fear rippled my body as I met the angry eyes of Percy. I had never seen him look so angry before, usually, he was the guy in class that made everyone laugh and kept everyone's moods up, but at that moment he looked exceptionally angry.

    "Athena, don't walk away. Just tell me what's wrong. If you want, we could go get breakfast while you talk." His eyes had softened through his sentences, causing some of the fear to go away.

    "No thanks." It wasn't that I didn't like Percy, it was that I didn't trust him. We had been classmates for our entire lives but after Cameron, I knew not to trust someone just because you had known them for a long time.

"Please, just let me help you. I'm almost certain you don't know your way around here." I took a deep breath and nodded my head. I followed behind him as he led the way to a run-down diner across the street.

    The bell rang above them as they opened the door. The diner was practically empty, with just one other person in there. A waitress with a scowl on her face led them to a booth in the back.

    "So, are you going to tell me what happened?" I just shook my head and waited for the waitress to come back to take our orders. I wasn't hungry, but I felt bad that he was taking time out of his day to do this, even if it meant missing school.

    "Why weren't you at school?" I asked.

    "I didn't feel like going today." It was a simple, nonchalant answer, but I didn't feel like questioning him further, and instead, just nodded. "Athena, did something happen at home?"

    "Not like your thinking, but yes."

    "You know you can talk to me. We may not be the closest of friends, but we have known each other all of our lives, you can trust me."

    "Just because we've known each other since kindergarten does not mean I can trust you. I've learned that the hard way." I had muttered the last part, but he still heard me, giving me a look of concern.

"What do you mean, 'I've learned that the hard way'?" Thankfully, that was the moment the waitress had chosen to come back. As she set the drinks we ordered down, I took the time to look at Percy.

    Even though we had been classmates for as long as we had, I didn't really know him. We had never been friends and we only talked if we were partnered for a class project, but sitting there with him, I felt like I could trust him. It sounded dumb, but I felt safe.

    "So, are you going to tell me what's going on or are we going to ignore it and eat?" I smiled at him, making my decision.

    "I would go into details, but just know someone betrayed my trust." I kept it simple, not wanting to relive it. I still couldn't fathom the fact that he had turned it around on me and gotten my parents to believe him.

    "Alright. Just know I'm here if you ever need to talk." He smiled at me causing one to grow across my own cheeks.

For the first time since that night, I felt halfway normal. There was normalcy once again, and I didn't want to let go of that feeling, the feeling of everything being okay again. In that moment, I forgot about Cameron and what he took from me. I forgot about how I hadn't told anybody because my mind kept going over what he said to me that night. I even forgot about the lie he told my parents, getting them to turn on me. I forgot all of that for the first time in a while and just had fun.

Percy and I stayed at the diner until it was noon and they kicked us out for not ordering anything after the breakfast we ate. We laughed the entire time, sometimes crying from the laughter.

"Thank you for today. It was really needed." As we walked out the diner, we both became aware that we had missed half of school. There was no point in going if we had already missed so much of it, so we walked to a park down the road.

"So, I know I promised to bring it up again, but who betrayed your trust? I know you don't want to talk about it, but sometimes it helps if you get it all off of your chest." I took a deep breath trying to keep calm.

"You know my brother's friend, Cameron? You guys are on the same basketball team, right? Well he did something and I realized I can't trust anyone."

"Is that why you said it didn't matter if we had known each other for a long time?" I nodded and watched as he sighed. "I'm sorry about him, but you can't let it control your life anymore. I promise I will never hurt you like he did." I just smiled at him.

If only at that time I would've known what he was about to do.