Alex’s POV:

After another boring day at school consisting of me wondering why I hadn’t asked my mom if I could just skip school today for ‘emotional healing’, we finally got to my favorite period of the day: Lunch. It really was the greatest time of day. I got to talk to my friends without being constantly interrupted by teachers telling me to either keep it down or shut the hell up.

We were at our usual table, in our usual seats. There was only one thing missing. Right next to me was an empty seat where a girl with bright red hair occasionally sat. After the whole breaking-her-arm incident, I would have expected her to have warmed up to me a little. She had called me to help her out, she didn’t have any bitchy remark when I told her I knew she was crying, she let me help her remove the smudged makeup, and I was there the entire time with her. You would have expected she would have at least shown a little gratitude.

But no. She hadn’t been in the classes we shared, she didn’t even show up during lunch. It had happened multiple times that she skipped classes, but then suddenly appeared later. This time, however, I didn’t see a trace of her, which was pretty difficult with that hair of hers.

“You think she skipped again?” Jack asked, stuffing a sandwich down his throat in three bites.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Rian scoffed. Usually, he had some sort of update since he was often forced to hang out with Mickey or he’d see her leave when he looked through his bedroom window. But there was nothing this time, only what he had seen happen in the past.

Before I could add my own comment, wanting to tell them to cut her some slack because of what happened, a figure was stood beside me and heavily sat down on the seat next to me. I was immediately blinded by the fire-truck red hair, not just surprised that she was sat there, but also because she did it completely out of free will. Every other time, I basically had to drag her with me.

“I’m going to take a nap now,” she announced without any further information on where she had been the past three days, “wake me up as soon as it would no longer be acceptable for me to be in here.”

She crossed her arms over the table and leaned her head against it, closing her eyes almost immediately.

“Did loverboy keep you up all night?” Rian laughed, knowing that this was most likely true in most cases.

But no, not in this case. Mickey’s eyes shot open as she turned to scowl at Rian. “No, I broke things off with him. He was kinda getting boring.”

“Last time I saw you with him, you certainly weren’t bored of him,” he scoffed, not believing a word she was saying.

Even I was skeptical. Only, I felt like she was lying for a different reason. I didn’t know what her motive was, but something told me she was bending the truth a little. But then again, it was Mickey who we were talking about, she was infamous for bending the truth. If she actually was lying, we wouldn’t have noticed.

“Last time you saw us together was weeks ago,” she snapped back and reached back to put her hoodie over her hair before resting her head on the table again. “Now, shut up, I need sleep.”

“Goodnight, Mickey.” I had to fight back my amused smile. She looked so done with everything.

“Shhh!” She put a finger to her lips and gave my arm a push after she was done shutting me up.

So, much for being able to talk loudly with my friends… but I’d rather be silenced by Mickey than a teacher any day.

Unfortunately for Mickey, it seemed like everybody was against her. A girl who I had only mysteriously seen around a few times was stood just beside Mickey. I had no idea what she wanted from us, but it seemed like she was there for Mickey. That only made it more suspicious. The other girl didn’t seem like anybody who Mickey wanted to associate herself with, with a white flowery-slash-frilly top over some jeans, which only the preppy students at school wore. Some part of me actually believed Heather might have sent one of her ‘friends’ out to do some dirty work.

The girl, however, managed to beat me to speaking first. “Hey, umm, Moni-- wait, you go by Mickey now, sorry… I, umm, I just wanted to give you this.”

She placed a book down on the table and hurried away, not looking back. Mickey, however, slowly raised her head in confusion and looked at the item. Her face contorted even more and she looked up to see who the girl was. Despite only being able to see her from behind, Mickey’s eyes widened in recognition, her eyes flickering back down to the book and back up to the girl.

“What’s this?” Jack rudely reached out and took the book from its place, opening it to a random page.

“Don’t you fucking touch that!” Mickey seethed and ripped the book, which was covered in pen and stickers, out of his hands. She quickly went to put it in her backpack, but in the process of doing so, a photograph fell out.

Jack’s curiosity took over his fear and caused him to pick up the photograph and take a look at it. “This is you? Holy shit!” He pointed at the girl on the right in the photograph.

I could recognize the other girl as the one who had just given Mickey the notebook. They looked way younger. Mickey had her natural brown hair which fell in some loose curls. The other girl had slightly darker hair than her, and it was way straighter, more like how Mickey’s hair was now. They were smiling brightly at the camera, embracing each other and wearing matching pink dresses.

I wouldn’t have recognized Mickey if it weren’t for her facial features.

“I swear to god, Barakat,” she pulled the photograph out of his grasp too, nearly ripping it, “I will make sure you will never be capable of having sex ever again.”

With both the new items in her bag, she stood up and was getting ready to leave. Before she could, though, I grabbed her good arm to stop her and gave a warning look toward Jack. I was never the peacemaker, but I wasn’t going to let Mickey walk away after she finally came to us by herself. He was not going to ruin what I had built up.

“I’m sorry…” He quietly mumbled, staring down at his food in shame.

“Ok, there we go.” I nodded, taking a mental note to thank him later on. “Now, Mickey, if I recall correctly, you were going to take a nap.”

She huffed but put her bag back down and took her seat again. Without me having to tell her twice, she resumed her sleeping position and closed her eyes. And, yes, she did actually sleep until I woke her up just before the bell went.

----

That evening, after band practice, when I went out to my car I was met with Mickey leaving her house. I was confused why she would be leaving her house. After hearing she broke up with Devon, I thought she wouldn’t really go out as much anymore. But what confused me the most was that she was going out the front door while her dad’s car was parked out on the driveway.

“Hey, Mickey!” I crossed the road to the place where I had been waiting for her in my car just a few days prior. “Where’re you going?”

“On a walk,” she replied as she went down the two steps that lead to the front door, “just down the road to the small park and back.”

“Mind if I join?” I asked, taking my chances and hoping that I didn’t overestimate them.

She shrugged and let me walk beside her as she started her way down the pavement. I was kind of surprised at first that she didn’t make a snarky comment about me wanting to join, but then I remember that slowly but surely she had been changing and was reacting less cold to me. It was only a good thing, of course, but it took some time to get used to.

Eventually, after walking in silence for a few minutes, I decided to speak up. There was something on my mind that I wanted to ask her about. “So… what actually happened between you and Devon?”

“Huh?” She looked at me, putting on a perfect confused face; most people wouldn’t notice she was faking it.

Yet, rather than calling her out, I tried to explain more. “You said you broke up with him because you got bored of him, but I call bullshit. What actually happened?”

She sighed and refused to look at me, instead focusing on the road ahead of us. “Technically, I was getting bored of him…”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“But,” she finally glanced at me for a short while to show that I was correct, “the break up was a more spontaneous kind of thing. He tried to steal a car--I’m pretty sure he succeeded by the way--but it didn’t sit right with me. I am cool with doing anything but stealing. So, I ended things right there and then, which is why I got no sleep last night. I had to walk all the way home.”

“What? You know you could have just called me, right?” I told her, a little confused as to why she would call me when running away from her house, but not in an emergency like this.

“No phone, remember?”

“Right…”

“Anyway, long story short.” She went back to what she was telling me before. “He was being a dick, I broke up with him, he thought he said some hurtful things to me--they didn’t hurt at all--and I used you to make him mad because he was being a dick.”

“You used me?” I tried to think back if I noticed anything that could confirm this, but nothing rang a bell.

“Well, I told him we were sleeping together, which isn’t true, and that you were way better than him, which--”

“Which isn’t true.” I finished the sentence for her, not having to hear the words come out of her mouth again.

She shrugged, at first not deciding to say anything back, but then eventually opening her mouth. “Some aspects yes, some aspects no.”

“How so?” I asked, curious as to how she could possibly think that, but also to check that she wasn’t lying.

“You’re nicer and you don’t only think about yourself.”

“That all?” I dared to inquire despite already being satisfied with the answer.

“I’m not saying that you’re bad,” she defended herself, “I’m just saying that Devon is really good. Except for the nice and thinking-about-somebody-else aspects.”

And that was where that conversation ended, but there was more to come when we turned right and went through the gate that let us into the park.

Notes

I have so many ideas! I'm so excited for the next few chapters that are to come. Hopefully, you guys will like them as much as I hope you do! I'm just contemplating whether to work on these chapters or to work on Hospital Beds and Memories...