Broken Ever After (8 page)

“
Nothing much, everyone was just practising their solos for the exam, well when they weren’t speculating” Lily sighed giving a pointed look in Megan’s direction.

I sat staring out across the school grounds in a world of my own when I saw Jamie leaving the building from the opposite door
, he walked straight across to the dinner hall. He didn’t glance in my direction once despite knowing that this was where I sat every lunch time. I watched as he passed through the doors and dropped my gaze to my lap to my lunch which sat there, feeling oddly rejected. I started fiddling with my sandwich absent minded; when I realised what I was doing it was too late, I’d turned my lunch into mush. I leant back against the tree ignoring Megan as she spoke about something I wasn’t interested in again and kept my gaze firmly fixed on the dinner hall doors waiting for him to come back out.

Ten minutes later he came out and met my eyes instantly. He lifted his index finger to his lips like he had the night before and I felt a surge of heat flash through me as he blew a discreet kiss to me. I copied him as I had the night previous
and watched a small smile tug the corner of his lips. I couldn’t help but ogle him as he walked his usual route back to his classroom.

He was wearing fitted black trousers that I knew cupped his behind perfectly and I blushed thinking about it; he had on a white
, button down shirt underneath a navy, light-knitted sweater that fit him so well, clinging to his muscles perfectly. As he walked, he ignored all of the girls that tried to get his attention. It felt like one of those cheesy moments in a movie, where the lead male walks towards his girl not seeing anyone else but her, right before he picks her up and sweeps her around in an embrace, then dips her low as he kisses her like it’s the last kiss they’ll ever have.

I wished that that could happen without us both getting kicked out. I widened my eyes at him in horror when he didn
’t walk into the building; instead he carried on his path towards me.
What the hell is he doing?
He squared his shoulders and dropped the hint of a smile that he had as he walked. He looked serious as he approached me.

“
Miss Stevens” he nodded curtly to me. “Given that you slept through my class on Monday, would you mind if I had a word about the points that you missed before class? You can finish your lunch first.” He looked down at the mushed sandwich that sat in my lap and raised an eyebrow at me.

“
Do I have to? Lily already went over what I missed.” I asked, pissed off with him for sounding so grumpy with me, when he was playful not two minutes previous.

“
Yes you
do
. I need to know you understand it all.” He raised his eyebrows at me and flicked his gaze towards the door and back to me.
Ok… I get it.

“
Fine!” I said sounding exactly like a stroppy teenager, earning a few strange looks from Lily and Violet; Megan looked indifferent as per usual. Lucas had migrated in the vicinity to hear what was being said; he was scowling at the back of Mr Matthews’ head and throwing death glares my way.

Jamie walked inside the building and I waited a couple of minutes for him to get to his classroom. I threw my things in my bag and scowled at Lucas as I made my way into the building; as soon as I was at the stairs I took off running to his classroom. I closed the door and quickly locked it with the key that was placed in the lock
, dropped my bag on the floor and ran over to Jamie. He was sat in his chair at his desk waiting for me; he turned outwards so I could stand between his legs and pulled him in to kiss him passionately.

“
What was that?”

“
A kiss.” I said breathlessly.

“
No, outside.”

“
I could ask you the same thing, but Luke was behind you.” His eyes widened as he realised what that meant. I pulled him in again for another quick kiss, missing the feel of his lips on mine already, before backing off towards the door again.

“
What are you doing?” He whispered across the room as I unlocked and propped open the door again and retrieved my bag.

“
He watched me walk up here, do you not think he’s going to follow me to try and catch us doing something other than going over Monday’s work? Do you not think he’ll be instantly suspicious at finding the door locked? Now hurry up and sit over here so we can look like we are actually doing what you said!” I pulled out my textbook and maths jotter and landed them on the desk I usually sat at. “So what did I miss?”

Jamie opened up my textbook to the right page and I instantly began copying down the work I
’d missed, even though I’d already done it with Lily. I couldn’t help but yawn and remembered that I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since breakfast; I’d need to have the energy drink I’d brought if I had any hope of getting through the next two and a half hours of school.

“
Late night, Miss Stevens?” He asked with a hint of sarcasm. I looked at him and rolled my eyes before turning back to my writing.

“
You could say that, Sir.” I stifled another yawn. “I knew I’d start failing by lunch time. When I get home I’m going straight for a nap!” I whispered and looked up at him through my hair which had fallen down in front of my face as I wrote. “So what’s up?” I whispered.

“
I just missed you that’s all. I wanted to be alone with you for a while.”

“
I thought we agreed we shouldn’t be?”

“
I never agreed to that. I can’t. I won’t.” he sighed as he pressed his leg against mine under the table. “I loved my present by the way… They are in my pocket!”

“
Your pocket now?” I pointed with my head towards his trouser pocket and he nodded. “You are so bad!” The grin was wiped from my face when I heard something in the hall and held up my finger to my lips to quiet Jamie. I knew there was someone there just outside of the door, I saw a shadow cast on the wall which looked suspiciously like Lucas.

“
I’m not sure I’m going to get these ones” Jamie gave me an odd look as I pointed to nothing in particular on the page; it could have been a blank space for all I knew and kept my head down. I saw movement in my peripheral vision and knew straight away that Lucas had entered the room.

“
Can I help you Mr Fletcher?” Jamie bristled beside me, squaring his shoulders preparing for confrontation with Luke.

“
Since when did you become a psychiatrist?” I asked Jamie, chuckling.

“
Since when did you become a whore?” Lucas asked.

“
Luke, if you have something to say-” Jamie started to say, but a red haze descended and I couldn’t hold my tongue.

“
Luke… Firstly, if I was a whore do you not think I’d have slept with you? Actually… Even whores have standards.” I raked my eyes up and down him, with my distaste showing on my face. “Secondly…” I paused trying to think of a witty remark but came up blank. I settled for “Piss off!” Whatever did I see in that boy? Sure enough he was cute, but even if he looked like Jamie, he was a complete and utter arsehole.

“
What so you can be alone with lover boy here?” Lucas retorted gesturing to Jamie. Yup… Arsehole.

“
Seriously? Do you even know how much you are embarrassing everyone right now? Including yourself! Do you even know what you are on about or what you are even doing?”

“
Yes. I’m going to teach you not to mess with me. I should have listened to Nate when he said you were nothing but a cock tease, he was right.”

“
You and Nate know nothing about me. All either of you care about is what is in your pants! Or rather what’s in the girl’s hockey team’s pants. Don’t think I don’t know about you and Stacey or even Annalise or… you know what… forget it.”

“
And he’s different is he?” Luke pointed to Jamie, completely ignoring me telling him I know about him fucking girls behind my back.

“
Luke…” I sighed. “I know what you think is going on, but it’s not and it’s making Mr Matthews and I uncomfortable. How is he supposed to help me if you keep this up? I’m surprised he can even look at either of us right now.” I could see by the set of the sneer on his lips that he wasn’t taking in any of what I was saying. I obviously wasn’t a convincing liar; Dad always said I’d make a rubbish actress.

“
Lucas, do you need me for anything or did you just come up here to cause trouble and make wild accusations?” Luke looked between us and shook his head.

“
We’ll see how cosy you two are when I’m done talking to Mr Wright.” He walked out laughing as he went down the corridor, obviously wanting one of us to follow him and beg him not to.

“
I swear I’ll fucking kill him!” I was so angry; I moved to stand up to go after Lucas but Jamie pulled me back down.

“
Liv, just let Mr Wright deal with him. Did he find you?”

“
Yeah, I sent you a message about it. Let’s just say waterworks, work wonders!” I winked at him and smiled. “I’ve never actually had to make myself cry… that was weird… and surprisingly easy!” Maybe I could make a good actress after all.

***

The next hour of English dragged as we went through poem after poem, reviewing the works of famous poets like Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. My mind kept wandering to Jamie, wondering if he’d be thinking about me too; if there were other girls in school whom he’d ever done anything with, if there were girls that felt the same way I did. That was a stupid thought; half of the girls in school were crazy for him. Lily and I left English and I almost dragged her to our Maths class.

“
Someone is eager for class today.” She remarked as we neared the door.

“
What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked her as I walked through the doorway. She shoved me in my back and I stumbled forward awkwardly but managed to avoid landing flat on the floor. I straightened myself out and looked back at her scowling. “Lily! What the hell?” She laughed at me as she looked over my head towards Mr Matthews.

“
Ooo…” Lily pulled me close to whisper in my ear. “He’s watching you.” I looked around the room noticing everyone was looking, my eyes finally landing on Jamie’s.

“
Nooo… He’s looking at you assaulting a student in his classroom.” I laughed as did Lily and I turned to see Jamie raising an eyebrow questioningly at us both. I shook my head slightly to tell him it was nothing and carried on to my seat.

Again I couldn
’t concentrate on my lesson; Jamie was right, he did have a lot of writing to put up on the board today so I got a fantastic mostly uninterrupted view of his sexy behind for the whole lesson. He turned at one point leaving my gaze right on his crotch; he caught me looking and smirked at me as I blushed scarlet. Near the end of the lesson I could hear a few of the boys at the other side of the room all laughing about something and looking towards Jamie. Then one of them shouted out.

“
Sir?”

“
Yes David?”

“
What happened to your hand? Was it your girlfriend?” Jamie laughed as if to brush off the comment and I visibly sank down in my chair to dip out of his line of sight.

“
Well if I told you that I’m sure my girlfriend would probably kill me. If you think that’s impressive; you should see my back!” The boys all started whistling and cheering while I blushed even more and covered my eyes with my hand.

Why would he do this?
I couldn’t believe Jamie just said that out in front of the whole class! I didn’t even remember doing anything to his back. I desperately wanted my seat to open up in to a hole and swallow me down, deep in to the Earth’s core.

“
Mr Matthews has a girlfriend?” whispered Lily.

“
I’ve no idea! I didn’t think so. He’s never mentioned anyone.” I really had no idea if he had a girlfriend and I felt dumb for not asking him.

“
What a snake! As if he has a girlfriend and goes around flirting with other girls.” If he did have one, it wasn’t just flirting he was guilty of and I felt awful.

When the bell rang I felt too humiliated to stick around; I didn
’t bother to pack my bag, I just grabbed my things and ran to wait outside for Lily. Lily had mentioned that her parents were working late and mine usually did anyway so I tagged along with her to study for a while.

Jamie kept messaging me and I had to switch my phone to completely silent as Lily kept asking who was trying to contact me
, I lied saying it was my parents. I was still angry at him for embarrassing me in class; I knew no one knew he was on about me, but it still left me uneasy. I quickly checked through the messages he’d left for me.

From Jamie: Hey where did you go? I was talking to someone about their revision and I turned around and you had gone!
- J X

From Jamie: Are you ok Baby? I miss you x

From Jamie: Look, I get it, you’re mad at me. Can you just tell me you are ok and got home safely? I’m worried about you especially after everything with Lucas. Please just tell me you are ok x