What If

Chapter 47

I walked all the way out of the school with my free hand held up to the side of my face in a failed attempt to cover myself from being noticed any more than I already was. Going down each floor was just a sea of students' stares and whispers. This may as well have been happening the entire week without me noticing; I tend to be an oblivious person. But now that Natasha has brought my attention to it, it was more than obvious and it was all that I could see.

Once outside, thank God, there were less people, but I was still met with a few staring faces. I put my hand down and took a deep breath. My face felt red, not from the cold, but from the blood rushing to my cheeks from thorough embarrassment. What the hell is going on here? I thought, though I knew the answer quite well.

Near the gate of the school were Paul and George who were talking amongst themselves, noticing nothing out of the ordinary. They were both smiling, seemingly having had a good day and discussing something interesting. And when they saw me, I was met with grins and emanating happiness.

"Hello, Colleen," Paul said, striding over to me with that classic grin on his face and George right behind him. "Ya ready to go?"

I looked at them both with a shocked and upset face. The emotions weren't directed at them, but I was in no happy mood like they were. "Paul, why didn't tell me about that closet?" I whispered to him, in a harsher tone than I meant to.

Paul's face dropped and he narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What are you talking about? What closet?" he asked, matching my quietness.

"The janitor's closet, Paul! The one we were in on Monday! The one that the whole school apparently knows you use for sex!" I was whisper-yelling. I was in a minor panic, which was more than obvious to Paul and George.

"Oh," George whispered back to Paul with wide eyes. "She knows about that?"

Paul lightly shoved George with his arm in response before talking softly back to me "Colleen, I haven't used that closet like that in months, since a couple weeks before I met you. Why does it matter? How'd you even find out about that?"

I shifted my eyes to all of the people looking, more and more of them were adding to the pile outside now that school was out for the weekend. "Natasha told me," I said. "But I guess someone saw me go in and now the whole school is calling me a whore."

George blew it off, not thinking it was a big deal. "You're not a whore, Colleen," he chimed in.

"Well, you know that and I know that, but everyone knows I went in there and now that's what they all think!"

Paul brushed it off as well. It meant basically nothing to either of them. "Just ignore them, Colleen," he said, going back to a normal tone. "They're going to think what they think and there's nothing we can do about it. Let's just to the warehouse to play guitars like normal as if nothing happened. We know the truth, let them think what they want."

I knew they were trying to help with their 'move on' advice, but them asking me to do that was only making me more upset. I felt that they didn't care that I was frustrated and embarrassed and they were treating it like it was nothing. Subconsciously, I knew they meant well, but in the moment, it made me furious inside.

"What do you mean 'just ignore them'?!" I whisper-yelled, a tear rolled down my cheek. "In case you haven't noticed, I take pride that I'm not an easy girl. The girls you've been with may be okay with that image and maybe you would be too if you were a girl, but I'm not!" I looked down to the ground and gave a hard-earned sigh. I was very sensitive to the 'whore' thing. For unknown reasons, it just struck me in a horrible manner on the inside and was emotionally eating me alive. "I'm proud of being a good girl. It's always who've I been. I don't fit into this impression and I don't want that title given to me." A few tears fell down to the grass like the beginnings of rain while a few stayed on my cheeks.

Both Paul and George just stood their awkwardly. Neither of them really knew what to do and my upset behavior and crying was making them uncomfortable. They glanced at each other uneasily, silently asking the other what to do. I knew I was doing it to them too, but I couldn't help it. I hated being stared at already and having people silently whispering nasty things about me made it even worse.

"I'm sorry, guys," I cried. "I don't mean to be crying. I really don't. Just everyone looking at me and talking about me-"

"Why don't you and I just go to my house and talk it over?" Paul cut me off.

Getting out of the school's judgmental eye sounded more than pleasant to me, so without much hesitation, I agreed. I nodded, wiping my cheeks clean and said through my sobs "Y-Yeah, that sounds good."

Paul put a protective arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him, already starting our first steps off school property.

"Sorry, George," Paul said to his friend. George said nothing, but didn't seem all too disappointed in being left behind. I'm sure any guy standing next to a girl who's crying uncontrollably and being unnecessarily bitchy would want nothing else but to get away either. I would've been the same way.