Keeping Secrets (Book I)✔️

Chapter Seven

Eric:

"What are you doing?" I pushed Michael, a guy I knew from the football team, away from another figure that was now on the ground of the school halls.

"None of your business man. Stay out of it." Michael and his friends laughed. They had clearly been picking on the person on the ground. He looked up, he looked kind of shocked. That was when I noticed it was one of Flo's friends. I knew his face from around school when I saw him with her.

"What's funny?" I moved closer to one of the other guys there how and he instantly stopped laughing, gulping loudly. I moved away and turned to Michael and the rest of his friends.

"Stay away from him." I said angrily, sure I could have a joke and a laugh but bullying was just something I hated. My words seemed to have scared them a bit; the four boys looked at me with wide eyes. "What the hell are you all still doing here?" I grabbed Michael by his collar and moved my face closer to his. He shrugged out of my grip and the group scurried off.

"You okay man?" I asked, looking down at Kevin and holding my hand out, offering to help him up. He looked at my hand then at me, hesitantly taking my offer and getting up from the ground.

"Yeah I'm fine." He said quietly, I didn't know much about him but hearing Flo talk about him, he sounded like a loud, overly happy kind of guy. Whenever I seen him with her, he doesn't stop talking. "Thanks." He said before we walked away quickly.

Soon enough, it was lunch time. Mick and I walked into the cafeteria and got lunch. We sat with Evan and the rest of our friends. Evan was texting on his phone, a little pre-occupied. He kept on grinning and laughing at his screen until we finally asked what he was doing even though we didn't need to. It was obvious he was talking to that girl Charlotte from the party last weekend. She was Flo's friend too, the one I had to convince it was okay to let me take her home when she was majorly wasted.

My mind went back to that night and how we finally got home. How she cuddled into me while I lay awake, fighting with my thoughts. She could be so comforting sometimes even when she wasn't even trying. That night was rough. After hours of lying awake, worrying about what we had between us and what was going on in my head about her, was I finally starting to like her more than I liked anyone else I had a thing with? I finally drifted off into a restless sleep and woke up to find she was gone. At the beginning of all of this, sure, I didn't want her to stay the entire night but recently it sounded like a much better idea. It was ironic how now, when I wanted her to stay she never felt like it. Sometimes, it was nice waking up and seeing her.

We hadn't spoken properly since though, I texted her the following day asking her did she want to go out but she declined the offer. Can you imagine? Half of the school wanted that opportunity and she just turned me down. But she never saw me like that; I wasn't someone she pined over childishly, that's one of the things that drew me to her at the start. She was different.

I scanned the vast amount of tables in the cafeteria, searching for her face. My eyes landed on her, she was talking animatedly and pointing at her phone, showing her friends something. Her short brown hair was wavy and messy, like it always was and it bounced as she threw her head back with laughter. I wished I sat closer so I could hear her but what felt like a million conversations going on at the one time drowned out her warm chuckles and sweet voice. I wished everyone would just shut up so I could hear her talk.

She was sitting with her three friends, who were listening and laughing along with her. Kevin was there, he seemed to be back to his usual self, along with Charlotte who would look at her phone every so often to reply to Evan and some other girl who was petite and had a short pastel pink bob. Flo never looked over at me once, she was too busy. She seemed like that a lot lately, brushing off my attempts to see her. Was something wrong? This was second time she had done this and recently it felt like we hadn't been talking properly or communicating that much at all. I need to talk to her, soon.

"Hey, Eric." Mick shook my shoulder. "What are you looking at?" he looked in the direction I had been looking and realized I had been staring at Florence for the past few minutes. "Oh-h-h, I see." He winked at me and the rest of the guys laughed.

"What's he looking at Mick?" One of them asked.

"That girl, what's-her-face. I can't remember her name. Hey Eric, is she new or something?" I didn't say anything. "She got wasted at Evan's party last weekend, passed out on his floor, do you remember her?" Mick replied to the group.

"Yeah, she's kind of hot." One of them said which made me immediately glare at him.

"She's been going here since freshman year, she's not new at all." I told Mick between gritted teeth.

"You sound very protective there bro, especially towards a person you've only talked to once." Mick squinted at me, challenging me. Whoa, was I getting protective? No, maybe a little defensive but that was just because I knew her and they didn't right?

"Whatever." I grumbled and continued eating my food. Mick was really pissing me off.

I looked up at Florence again when no one was watching. She was smiling and then our eyes met, her grin disappeared and turned into a frown before she quickly looked away again. What was her problem? Did I do something to annoy her? She was confusing me, she never usually got like this. We definitely needed to talk.