Read My Lips: Chapter 21

Chapter 21

“Maisie, come on. Get up!” I briefly heard someone call from outside my door. Letting out a groan, I rolled over in bed so I was now facing my clock which read six thirty am.

Time for school.

A sigh accompanied me as I walked into the bathroom to get ready. After brushing my teeth, I tied my hair up and got ready for the day ahead. I wasn’t looking forward to school in the slightest. Having to face Zach again was something I’d gladly miss out on.

I wasn’t sure if he was going to talk to me or not and that scared me. Talking to me required me talking back to him and I didn’t know how I’d act. I didn’t want to talk to him. But then Zach not talking to me also scared me because then it was like he didn’t care at all.

After plenty of thinking the previous night, I’d decided on taking both my mums and Rebekah’s advice. I was going to go to school with my head held high and not let Zach see how I was truly feeling. If he wanted to intentionally hurt me then I wasn’t going to let him see that’d he’d succeeded.

Walking into school was like it was before Zach and I got together. People were staring at me. This time though, they weren’t talking… Probably because they all knew I could hear them now. Not that I thought they’d care because that never stopped them before.

Although now, they were all probably staring because of two different things. One, I could finally hear. They were likely looking to see if anything was different. And two, the breakup. They all would know; Zach was a rather big figure in this school, everyone knew who he was.

I ignored them all the best that I could and hurried to where I was meeting Rebekah. She was already waiting for me by the lockers when I arrived and she automatically pulled me into a hug. The hug was comforting, something I’d been seeking since yesterday.

“How are you?” She whispered in my ear before pulling away. She tucked her hair behind her left ear whilst waiting for a reply from me.

“I good,” I smiled slightly. I dropped my bag onto the floor and opened my locker, pulling out the folders I needed for today. “Have you seen him yet?” I asked quietly, my heart rate picking up; I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to know her answer.

She shook her head causing me to let out a sigh of relief. My heart rate slowly began to go back to normal when I heard that she hadn’t seen him yet. Maybe I’d hit lucky and he wouldn’t come to school. My guess is that’s highly unlikely, though. He wouldn’t miss school because of me.

“Not yet, anyway. I don’t know if he’s in school or not.” She explained further. With her current situation with Jake, it was obvious that she didn’t want Zach in school either. Because no Zach meant that he wouldn’t come near me which lead to Jake not coming near us either resulting in Rebekah not having to see him.

I didn’t blame her. If I was in her position, I’d want neither of them to be in either.

“We just have to see.” I replied, locking my locker again. I put my bag on my shoulder and we headed off away from the locker room.

We were both silent for a moment before Rebekah spoke up again. “So, where are we going for lunch? I’m guessing we aren’t sitting with Zach and his friends.”

I let out a laugh at her statement. Obviously we weren’t going to sit with them. “Outside, maybe? Or we can just sit in the cafeteria; we shouldn’t let them stop us.” I requested playing with the folders in my arms. The amount of folders and how much were in them were ridiculously heavy.

“This is ridiculous,” Rebekah began. She dodged a younger child from the years below before continuing. “I don’t see why he done that to you. It was obvious how much he liked –or likes rather- you.”

“No one can control what he did. It’s his choices- he made the decision. Not that I-” I was cut off by someone shoving me from behind. My folders fell from my arms and clattered to the floor- the papers flying all over the floor.

“What the hell?” Rebekah demanded. She turned around to see who was behind me, anger taking over all the emotions on her face. “What do you think you’re doing?”

A voice from behind me let out a laugh and I automatically knew who it was- Amy. Turning around, I stared at her, trying my best not to look weak. I gathered up as much confidence as I could- which wasn’t much.

“How are you doing, Maisie?” Amy smirked. Luke wasn’t in sight so either he wasn’t with her anymore or he was just late. I’m guessing it was the last point.

“Fine.” I deadpanned. I wasn’t going to talk to her; she’d made my life hell for months. Amy was nothing but a bully and I wasn’t going to acknowledge her, she wasn’t worth it.

She took a step closer to me. “Aw, nothing more to say?” She cocked her head to the side, staring at straight in the eyes. Amy was one of those girls who were beautiful and knew it. But that beauty only made her arrogant and a horrible person. Her personality made her ugly.

“I not talking to you.” I finalised, not adding anything else. I didn’t owe her anything and I wasn’t going to explain myself to her any further. She wasn’t worth my breath, no matter how harsh that sounded. I wasn’t acknowledging someone who made my life hell.

Amy just scoffed, flipped her hair over her shoulder before she looked me dead in the eye. Her eyes pierced into my own. “I heard some brilliant news before.”

“Really?” I asked, feigning curiosity. I didn’t care what she had to say, I didn’t care what news she’d heard. Why would she tell me about her news anyway? I wasn’t her friend, she didn’t need to come and tell me all the latest gossip.

“Yeah, it’s quite interesting actually, I’m sure you’d love it,” She began making sure she didn’t take her eyes off me. It was like she was waiting to see my reaction. Staring at me like she wanted to talk note of even the smallest body change. “I heard that Zach’s now single.”

I shrugged. “Yeah?” I asked my voice monotone. Although on the outside I acted like I didn’t care, on the inside my heart was pounding. I didn’t want to talk about our breakup… especially not to someone like Amy.

Her smirk faltered a little bit; obviously she was annoyed she wasn’t getting a reaction out of me. “Good on him, he can do better than someone like you.”

“Hmm.” Don’t bite, don’t bite, do not bite.

“I want to thank you though,” She began with a big, bright fake smile on her face. She made her smile wide, showing her perfectly straight, white teeth. “You made him single so now I can get with him.”

My heart beat picked up as she said that. She wasn’t going to go after him, was she? She wouldn’t… she couldn’t…

Well obviously she could. Amy was the type of person who’d do anything to get what they want, despite how much it affected anyone else. She didn’t care how I was affected. As long as she had Zach then nothing else mattered.

“Do what you want.” I replied as bluntly as I could. I had to try and show her that I wasn’t bothered about the fact she had admitted that she wanted my ex-boyfriend. As much as the thought of it made my stomach sink, I couldn’t let her see she was getting to me.

“Oh?” Amy questioned with a smirk. She continued to stare at me before she spoke up again. “Then I’ll tell him that I have your permission to see him. You know what? I don’t see why he went out with you. You’re nothing special, you have no friends. You were obviously just someone to keep him entertained until someone better came along.”

She sent me a sickly, sweet smile before strutting off in the opposite direction. My heart was pounding in my chest and my breathing was faster than normal. Amy was going after Zach and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

Zach had left me, I wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. I couldn’t control what he did (nor would I if we were still together) and I certainly couldn’t dictate who he decided he next wanted to go out with.

However, that comment about me being someone to keep Zach entertained hurt. Surely he wouldn’t use me like that? And even if he did, why choose me? Why me when he could’ve had someone so much better to keep him entertained.

I wasn’t an entertaining person, I was far from that. I couldn’t even hear until recently and even now, it still wasn’t clear. It was still quiet.

I bent down to pick up my folders and papers, Rebekah joined me. She piled them up neatly, making sure everything was together. I took the papers and the single folder from her outstretched hands, thanking her as I did so.

“That was so uncalled for.” She scoffed, folding her arms across her chest. Rebekah glanced in the direction of where Amy left before she turned back to me.

I shrugged. “There nothing I can do about it now, let’s just go.”

We walked together before going our separate days. I just wanted the day to be over with already.

----

Lunch time arrived without me running into Zach. I didn’t think he was even at school today; no one had seen or heard from him. For some reason, there was part of me that actually wanted to bump into him. I wanted to see if he was ok, however, I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t think that I could handle seeing his face.

As I turned the corner heading into the cafeteria, I bumped into a body. I stumbled back slightly before steadying myself. Looking up, my eyes came into contact with another pair of eyes. Luke’s eyes.

“Hey, Maisie.” Luke smirked, moving closer to me so that I could hear him better.

“Hi.” I answered as simply as I could. Hopefully with my short answers he would take the hint that I didn’t want to talk to him. He still made me uncomfortable considering how he’d treated me in the past.

He smiled a fake smile before talking. “I heard some new today and I wanted to see if you were ok.”

I frowned at him, since when did he care how I was? “I’m fine.”

“Good. Listen, do you want to eat lunch with us today?” He asked, waving his hand in the direction of the cafeteria. He smiled brightly… an obviously fake smile.

“No thank you.” I answered politely as I side-stepped him, walking into the cafeteria. All I wanted to do was get there without another run in with Amy or Luke. And I most certainly didn’t want to have a run in with Zach… if he was even at school.

Luke was silent behind me before he spoke up. “Well, you know where we sit if you change your mind!”

Like I’d change my mind about sitting with him and his friends.

Walking into the cafeteria, I automatically searched the room for Rebekah. She was sat at the back of the room, by herself. Knowing she was in there, I headed to buy my food before making a bee line for the table she’d claimed.

I took the seat beside her, opening up my sandwich and taking a bite from it. “You ok?” I asked noticing the way she was staring into space.

“Huh? What?” She asked, her head snapping in the direction of my voice.

“I said, are you ok?” I repeated.

Rebekah nodded whilst finally taking a bite from her own food. “I just have a lot on my mind… Rather, I have a lot of Jake on my mind.”

I nodded in understanding. “You miss him.”

She let out a sigh, putting her food back down. “I guess I do. I never really thought that I would but I really do.”

“Would you go back to him?” I asked, genuinely curious. Rebekah was amazing; she really deserved someone who would treat her right.

She remained silent after my question, obviously thinking about how to reply. “Probably.” Was all she replied.

“Have you seen Zach?” I asked after the pair of use were silent for a while. I wanted to know whether he’d bothered to turn up to school. Moreover, I just wanted to know if there was a risk of running into him.

She shook her head. “I did yesterday but not today. I don’t think he’s turned up today.”

Silently, I looked down at my sandwich, picking at the remains of it. “Do you think he’ll do something stupid?” The thought of him doing something stupid hadn’t crossed my mind until now. Knowing that he fought a lot scared me now. What if he done something seriously stupid and got hurt?

“No. I don’t think he’d do something that was seriously hurt him. He’s not stupid enough to do something like that.” She answered. I wasn’t sure if she was been serious or she was just saying it to put my mind at rest.

Rebekah didn’t know Zach- she was new. She didn’t know what he would or wouldn’t do. This was all based of knowing him for a few months. I was the same though; I hadn’t spoken to Zach until a few months ago. Even after knowing him for a while, I wasn’t sure what he was capable of doing.

“I hope he doesn’t.” I sighed. I lifted my hand to play with the necklace from Zach. Even though we were broke up, the thought of having a necklace from him somehow made me feel closer to him. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

“Where did you get your necklace from?” Rebekah asked, pointing to my neck. She’d obviously only noticed it for the first time today.

I smiled slightly of the thought of the necklace. “It’s a Christmas present from Zach.”

Her eyes widened as she stared the chain. “Are you serious? Why are you wearing it then? You guys broke up. I don’t get it.”

So I explained the story to her. “Zach wrote me a letter and delivered it to my house yesterday. He put it in the box with this necklace and left it at my front door and rang the doorbell. I opened the door, obviously, and found this waiting for me. So I read the letter and put the necklace on. Even though we’ve broken up, I still feel that bit closer to him when I wear this necklace.”

Rebekah smiled sadly at me. “You still like him a lot.” She stated. What did she expect?

“Obviously I do. We’ve only been broken up for a few days; I’m not going to completely lose all of the feelings I’ve ever had for him. He meant a lot to me.” I answered. He was my boyfriend; my feelings for him weren’t going to switch off after a few hours.

“I understand, Maisie. I really do.”

He meant a lot to me and I don’t think that that was going to stop anytime soon.

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I deleted this by accident and it made me too angry to re-write it so that's why it's so late.

Oh, I got my GCSE results back; 1A, 4B's, 3C's. Apart from one of those C's (because I needed a B) i'm super happy with them.

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