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Author: Kirsty Moseley I nodded, thankful for the reprieve. His hand tightened in mine as he stepped away and opened the door, leading us out into the now deserted hallway.
Chapter 14
Being the centre of attention really wasn’t my strong suit. The staring and curious glances that were directed at me made my head ache and my shoulders stiff. Whispering erupted everywhere I went that morning, excited gossiping as I walked past people. ‘That’s the girl that I was fighting with Sandy,’ or ‘Apparently her boyfriend cheated and now she’s lost the plot’. I tried to ignore it, I really did, but it followed me around like a grey thundercloud, dampening my mood with a wave of depression and humiliation.
By lunchtime I just wanted to go home and cry. Luke and I had eaten together again, which was slightly weird after the fact that I’d kissed him in the morning, but thankfully he didn’t mention it. The rest of the day was much the same. People weren’t getting bored of staring at me in the slightest. Gym was especially hard because Sandy was there too. I noticed with some measure of satisfaction that she looked a little weary of me, and didn’t really make eye contact with me at all. That, coupled with the fact that she had a subtle bruise forming across her cheekbone, made me feel marginally better. Of course Zach was there, making jokes, fooling around, being sarcastic to the teacher and generally not doing anything he was told to do. As usual he made the class more bearable for me. I even managed to laugh a couple of times, despite Sandy, the boyfriend stealing hoe, being within a hundred yards of me.
By the end of school I was well and truly ready to go home and crawl into bed, maybe get a huge hug from my dad and curl into his side when we watched TV like I used to when I was a little girl. I didn’t want to wait for Alex to finish his football practice, so I decided to walk home instead. Lucky for me it was a fairly pleasant day, so I enjoyed the sunshine as I walked. After a couple of minutes my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.
I pulled it out and answered it without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?” I was met by nothing but silence. “Hello?” I tried again, frowning. “Hello?” When no one answered I sighed and disconnected the call.
I barely managed to get the phone back in my pocket before it vibrated with another call. Glancing at the screen I saw it was an unknown number. “Hello?” I answered. This time it wasn’t dead silence. No one spoke, but I could hear quiet breathing. Someone was on the other end of the call, they just weren’t talking.
“Alex, is that you fooling around? Because it’s not funny!” I snapped, glancing around the deserted road as I shifted my bag on my shoulder.
The breathing continued on the line.
“Who is this?” I asked, pulling the phone away from my ear and looking down at it again as if the answer would magically appear. “I think you have the wrong number. ” I disconnected the call again and suddenly the phone buzzed in my hand - unknown number calling again. What the hell? I decided to just leave it this time. It was obviously someone playing a joke on me and I wasn’t rising to it this time. I rejected the call and turned the phone off, shoving it in my jeans pocket.
Anger built up inside me. Had I not been through enough recently? Now someone had decided to heavy breathe on a call? People sucked! My mind suddenly wandered to Sandy again. But she wouldn’t call me, would she? Not after this morning, surely.
I huffed and lifted my chin, pulling back my shoulders, trying to appear unaffected. Whoever was calling me - probably Sandy - was obviously trying to upset me and was probably watching my reaction. Well she wasn’t getting the satisfaction of upsetting me, not this time! I marched home angrily, my thoughts only on her and how much she’d screwed up my life. I’d never hated anyone more.
The following day was better in the sense that someone had broken into the school overnight and vandalised the Principal’s office with wet toilet paper and silly string. Talk was therefore no longer on me, it was more guided towards speculating who had pranked the principal. For that I was grateful at least.
My day passed quicker than the previous one. At lunchtime I did however get another of those silent calls from the unknown number. I had been sat with Charlotte and Beth at the time; I’d passed it off as nothing, just a wrong number, when in the back of my head I was wondering when this was going to end. I’d noted at the time that Sandy wasn’t in the lunchroom; she was probably holed up in the bathrooms, giggling with her friends as she tried to torment me into making another scene. I was convinced that Luke was right in what he’d said the previous morning - the hag was trying to get me into trouble. Therefore I just wouldn’t rise to it, I’d pretend as if it weren’t happening and hope that she got bored before it started to play on my mind.
Today was Friday, so thankfully I had a whole weekend of relaxing to look forward to. I just had to get through tutoring Zach first though, and then I could relax, but even before that I had to go with him to watch his parkour training that he did on a Friday night with his group. I really had no idea what to expect.
We pulled up in the parking lot of what looked like an old abandoned building instead of a gym like I was anticipating. I was still clinging to him like my life depended on it, grinning with unbridled excitement because of the ride on his bike. He smiled over his shoulder at me as I unwound my arms from his waist and scrambled off, pulling the helmet off and ignoring his chuckle as I smoothed my hair back into place.
Apparently Zach met up with a group of likeminded friends on a Friday evening, and they spent an hour or two going through new stunts, or plans that they had to jump over certain stuff the following week. I had no idea that people actually paid for traceurs to put on performances at shows and stuff. Apparently Zach and his group of fellow freerunners had a show coming up in a couple of weeks, so they needed to build up a routine that looked polished, but at the same time, looked like it was made up on the spot. It all sounded intriguing, but I still just didn’t get it or its appeal.
“Ready?” Zach asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and nodding off to my left.
I shrugged. “Yep. ”
He grinned as we started walking across the parking lot, skirting along the edge of the building that looked like it was extremely close to falling down. The windows were either missing panes, broken or boarded up. Graffiti covered almost every inch of the walls as we walked along. I looked at it all in awe, it wasn’t just people tagging stuff and scribbling crudities like usual graffiti, someone had made a kind of mural on the wall. It was incredible, and I looked at it in awe as we walked, taking in all the colours and noticing how perfectly they blended together. It was all segmented off, different scenes in each little section. My eyes stopped on a perfectly spray-painted picture of a geisha in full costume, her little umbrella shielding her from a bright sun overhead. It was beautiful and took my breath away. I stopped, wondering how someone actually created that with paint cans.
Zach smiled, watching me as I looked over the wall slowly, taking in each segment, shocked by the intricacy of each one. “Like it?” he asked.
I nodded, swallowing loudly. “It’s incredible. I had no idea people could do this. ” I’d never seen graffiti like this in my life, usually it was limited to scribbled words that someone had done in a rush, but this, this looked like someone had spent hours, days, even weeks creating it.
Zach took hold of my elbow. “Reggie did that. You can tell him you like it when we meet him,” he replied.
“Reggie?”
He nodded, guiding me along again as we walked along the edge of the building to some unknown place. “Yeah. He’s one of my group. He’s in art school. ” He led me around the corner where four other guys were all standing, talking and stretching their muscles as they laughed easily. They were all dressed the same as Zach, sweatpants hung low on their hips, T-shirts or vest, and a hoodie. I barely had time to notice that all of the exposed walls around were also covered in Reggie’s art - I couldn’t bring myself to call it graffiti because that would take away from the beauty of it. They all turned to see who approached; an easy, friendly smile broke out on each face. I let my eyes wander over them all quickly. They were varying in ages, skin tones and builds, but at the same time they all had that mischievous glint to their eye that Zach had.
I smiled timidly as curious glances fell on me. They obviously wondered who I was, that was clear on every single face. Zach’s hand released my elbow as he grunted a greeting to everyone, slapping people on the back or shoulder in a friendly way. He turned back to me when he was done saying hi to everyone. “Guys, this Maisie,” he announced.
I gave a weak wave; slightly unnerved by the way they were all looking at me, like hunters assessing an injured deer. Before I knew what I was doing I’d stepped closer to Zach, my insides fluttering with nerves. I’d never liked meeting new people at the best of times, but these guys were certainly intimidating and looked like they wanted to eat me or something.
“Hi,” I greeted shyly.
One of the guys looked back to Zach with one eyebrow raised curiously. “Girlfriend?” he grunted.
Zach nodded; a hand was placed possessively on the small of my back, pressing and making me step even closer to him. “Yep,” he replied. I felt the frown line my forehead because of his lie. What the heck is that about?
The four guys’ postures seemed to change immediately at Zach’s word. Shoulders loosened, eyes that seemed to blaze with fire merely seconds before, now regarded me with just casual interest. The change in attitude was startling.
“Maisie, this is Jase, Stu, Reggie, and Newt,” Zach introduced, waving a hand at each of them in turn. Newt? Nice name…
“Nice to meet you. ” I smiled politely.
“Ready to watch your man blow your panties off with his talent?” Jase asked me, smiling a friendly smile now. He was fairly young, probably about seventeen I would guesstimate. His eyes glittered with amusement as he raked a hand through his short blond hair.
I laughed uncomfortably, not knowing how to answer that. “I guess,” I replied.