Desperate

Chapter 29

Elizabeth's POV:

Today was going to be a great day, and there was an excellent reason for it. No school which meant no questions and no worried glances concerning her 'strange' behavior. She was finally free from all of that for a weekend. Hallelujah.

Lifting her jacket onto her shoulders, Elizabeth winced when she accidentally moved too fast for the wound on her shoulder. "Ow," she muttered and gently rubbed the throbbing area as an attempt to ease it a bit. She had to be more careful, especially now that she was home with her Dad and the other workers. No doubt someone would try to talk to her about her situation or ask her if she could help them with something.

It'd been a week since she received her gash, and it wasn't as horrible, but it still caused pain. If someone noticed her wince or flinch from their touch, questions would be asked and who knew what would result from the lies she would be forced to tell.

Her head turned to the right when her phone vibrated continuously on her nightstand, and she picked it up then smiled at the caller I.D.; it was Matt. One perk that resulted from the accident was the fact that they now shared a secret, and they have been closer than ever because of it. "Hello?" she greeted, answering her phone.

"Hey, Lizzie. How are you doing?" Matt greeted, his tone unusually tired for nine in the morning on a Saturday.

"I'm fine." She held the phone between her shoulder and ear as she rummaged through her nightstand drawer. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." He let out a long sigh, and she stopped as she listened to it with concern. "I had a long night."

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Something like that." Her brow furrowed in confusion but before she could ask what happened, he cleared his throat and prevented her from asking. "So, how's your arm? Any improvements?"

"Yes, the gash is pretty much closed now." She continued rummaging through the drawer, looking for something in particular. "But my arm still hurts to move."

"Frick, Lizzie." Her eyebrows raised in surprise at the sudden venom in his tone. "We should have had that looked at."

"Matt, I just said that it's healing. Plus, I'm pretty sure the staff there would panic when they saw that my blood color wasn't the normal red."

"We'll tell them it was a 'science experiment gone wrong' or something like that. You're wounded, and you need to-"

"Was wounded." She pulled out a light blue folder in lousy condition, it barely holding the numerous papers shoved inside of it. "I'm doing much better than I was a week ago. I'm okay now."

He sighed. "Alright, fine." She smiled as he yielded to her persistence. "But I want to see it before we go out today."

"Out?" she questioned, confused. "Where are we going?"

"Don't you remember we were going to go to the Stadium? My sister's dropping us off at the bus station since she's going to her friend's house."

"Oh." She face-palmed, silently berating herself for becoming so focused on the alone time she was going to get this weekend that she forgot Matt and her were training together. How could she have forgotten that?

"You forgot, didn't you?" he asked, bringing her attention back to the conversation.

"Yes." A disappointed sigh escaped her thin lips. "I'm sorry, Matt."

"Hey, it's okay. Our lives have become much more complicated ever since the accident." Her hearing picked up a car door slamming on the other end of the phone. "Honestly, I think we both need a bit of a breather from this. Maybe we need this weekend to do whatever the heck we want without having to worry about our secret."