Unexpected Love

Revealed

I was sick about going to school in the morning. There were purple bruises everywhere, from head to toe. Luckily there were next to no bruises on my head. I slipped on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved black shirt.

I knew that something was going on. On the way to school I thought about everything. Chelsea's bruises were now very similar to mine. Could it be possible that this had happened to her as well? Was that why she was scared of Reece? Whatever was going on I needed answers and this time I wasn't going to give up.

When I arrived in the school gates I was relieved to find that no one was there yet. I had left extra early to avoid Sam and his gang when they arrived at school. I sat in the girls locker rooms in the corner. No one would see me from outside. I busied myself by sketching on a page of my maths book. Eventually more people arrived and my stomach did flips. I was scared about what horrors would follow last night. I pushed a strand of auburn hair behind my ear and scribbled little patterns for the border of the page.

I jumped when I heard Chelsea say my name. She was squatting in front of me, anxious.

"Is everything okay?" She asked. "Your usually on the oval with Jake in the mornings. He was worrying about you."

I gulped. I couldn't make myself tell her about what had happened last night. I stood up slowly trying not to trigger the pain in my stomach from Sam kicking me last night, but my face scrunched up the tiniest bit at the pain.

"Alana?" Chelsea asked. She looked me up and down. "It's quite hot today. Usually you would be wearing shorts and a singlet."

"Wardrobe issue," I replied softly, gathering my books together. As I reached for one of my books for second period my shirt sleeve revealed a dark splotch on my skin around my wrist. I quickly covered it and heard Chelsea gasp. She pulled up my sleeve quickly and then rolled it down in a flash. She definitely wasn't stupid.

"You have to get out of here," she instructed. "Quick."

She literally ran out of the lockers gripping my arm and pulling me along. We ran out of the school hiding behind students to avoid being seen by teachers. We stopped once we couldn't view the school anymore.

"Will you give me answers?" I begged.

"I'm going to have to," she replied walking down the street with me tagging along. We walked for a while until she led me into a bunch of trees. I hesitated. I couldn't bear to see the trees swaying back and forth. It only reminded me of the moment I was pulled into them last night.

"It's our only choice," Chelsea said cautiously. She looked around and then hid back in the little forest. I followed her cautiously.

Once we were deep into the forest I asked, "do you know how to get out of here?"

"Yes," she answered. "I come here all the time. You have nothing to worry about. Now, I have a lot of explaining to do."

"Do you even know what happened-" she put her hand up to silence me.

"Let me talk. Before you bombard me with questions it was complicated. I'll give you the full story but you have to try not to judge me. This is hard for me to tell." I nodded and she sighed deeply.

"Jake was my best friend," she began closing her eyes, remembering. "We spent nearly all of our childhood together. We grew up and thought nothing could tear us apart. We were young and didn't understand that fairy tales weren't true. Everyone has their struggles and battles to fight but this knocked me to the ground. It was halfway through year seven when things got weird."

"What do you mean weird?" I enquired.

"Sam's gang were always staring at us," she said, still not making eye contact. "They would sometimes point and it was very scary. Sam always freaked me out. I used to spy on them sometimes, I wanted to know what their plan was. I sometimes heard them say my name, but they spoke softly whenever they did talk about me. I couldn't really hear what they were telling eachother. I became sneaky, eavesdropping on them often. I taught Jake how not to get caught and together we tried to solve the mystery."