Damaged

3 | friend

We were all sitting in the table but i wasn't really there. The girls promptly ignored me, talking about gossip i haven't heard or parties i didn't attend and my chest was rapidly constricting with anger. I kept quiet, trying to eat my salad but i still listened to their tiresome bickering and petty talk. I started chewing a piece of chicken when a boy approached the table.

"Well, well, well... Isn't it the suicidal bad girl," He said, and i looked up into his eyes, annoyed.

Hunter had his hand draped against Selena's shoulders, with his long fingers close to her breasts. She looked up at him and smirked, her light brown hair falling down her back and her chest puffed out for him to see. Ew.

"Fuck off, Hunter," I say to him and roll my eyes at the new couple. We had a on-and-off fling for a year until i went to the clinic. I should have guessed that Selena would have started going out with him, it's so typical of her.

"Feisty aren't we Luna?"He smirked at me and i looked at him with my face wiped of any emotions, "thought you would have finally turned tame in that mental asylum of yours."

The girls giggle at his words and Selena twirls her hair around her red-nailed finger. I feel anger bubbling in my chest at his narcissistic demeanor and at the way he talks, supposing he knows everything about me.

"I'm afraid that that's quite impossible to do, loser," I say, trying to contain myself, "now go suck a dick and fuck off."

I turn my attention back to my salad and i watch the surprised expression on his face as he walks away. Kate, Alexis and Selena look at me with equally surprised expressions, their perfectly carved out brows raised. Did they really think that i've changed? Fuck no. I'm still the same girl who doesn't take shit from anyone, but I'm different now. I may be a fucked up person with mental illnesses, but i'm no saint and definitely not someone to mess with.

The bell signaling the end of lunch rings and i leave the table without a second glance. I throw the rest of the salad on the trash can and head towards history.

With the nervousness of entering the classroom and seeing everyone again gone, i enter the room feeling numb. I sit on a spare seat and look at the blackboard while waiting for the class to start. Students pile into the classroom, talking to each other. when i sense movement happening in the desk besides mine, my vision snaps into focus again. I watch as a girl with long red hair plops on the seat besides mine and gives a huff.

"God I hate this lesson," She says to me and rolls her eyes. I look at her face and try to recognize her but i can't seem to place her in my mind. She looks at me and smiles.

"I'm Octavia, but everyone calls me Ava. Nice to meet you," She introduces herself, and i decide that we definitely never met. She's probably new, but so am I in some ways.

"I'm Luna," I reply and she gives me a small laugh.

"I know! You're all this godforsaken, prying school is talking about. These people don't know how to mind their own business, do they?"

"No, they don't" i laugh with her. I'm refreshed to talk to someone who isn't talking about me negatively or gossiping about my return. I curiously ask, "are you new here?"

"Kind of. I moved here last year from Boston and joined school around that time," She replies to me, "I guess we missed each other."

"I guess we did," i say, giving her a small smile

For the rest of the lesson Ava and I talked. We've followed each other's instagrams, added each other on snapchat and facebook and all of that. I genuinely liked her, and thought she was a breath of fresh air. I've never met someone in this school which didn't have a superiority complex or only did things for their social standing. She didn't try to be superior or seem cool or anything like that during the class, and we just talked casually. Ava treated me normally but at the same time she didn't treat my attempt as something taboo, and that was golden.

As the school day ends and i grab my assignments from my locker, i feel relieved to be getting home. I step outside the brick building and walk down the stairs, into the patio in front of school. Students driving their cars home are in the driveway in front of the patio, as well as some drivers. I notice that I don't have a way to go home as my parents drove me to school in the morning, and i start fishing my phone out of my bad to call an Uber.

When i finally grab my phone I spot a silver Range Rover approaching me on the driveway and i'm relieved to find that it's my family's car. I walk towards the car and open the door, hopping into the black leather backseat.

"Hey Claude," I greet the driver. Claude was my family's driver until i got my license last year, when he started working for my father's company instead.

"Good afternoon, Luna," He replies, smiling at me. He starts the car again and drives away into the busy streets.

Although i live in a small town, the houses are anything but small or simple. Most inhabitants of the town are executives or business men from New York which got married and decided to live somewhere calmer to raise their families. My father is one of these men, he goes to Manhattan three times a week to manage his companies. We have a apartment in the city, and sometimes we spend the winter and summer holidays there.

The clinic where i stayed for the last year was in Manhattan. There were all types of people there, people with parents with deep pockets to buy the best help their troubled child required.

My house looms in front of us in the residential street, the french style facade illuminated by the warm sun. Claude opens the wrought iron gates with the remote control and drives into the gravel driveway, turning around the fountain and parking near of the front entrance. I thank him and leave the car with my things in hand, going straight to my bedroom.