High School Dreams

Chapter Two

I watched horror-struck as Emily marched down the hallway and into another corridor. My body slammed against the locker behind me and I slid to the floor. When I looked up I noticed that Sara had gone. I hadn’t noticed Sara yelling at Emily to come back and I definitely hadn’t noticed Sara running after Emily. Five minutes later Sara came back and I was still sitting on the ground.

“Oh Elias!” she wailed, tears silently streaming down her face. “What have I done? I couldn’t find her and its all my fault. My best friend is pissed off at me and now you don’t even have a girlfriend. I should’ve just told you to talk to her by yourself. Its all my fault. I’m so sorry!” With that she ran to the closest girl’s washroom. As I watched the door slowly close my mind was buzzing. What had just happened? Emily had come and gone so fast that I swear I had missed over half of it. She must’ve only heard part of what was being said I resolved. The way we were talking it must have sounded like we were hiding something very important we did not want Emily to know.

“That must be it,” I said out loud. My eyes flicked to the doorway which Emily had walked out of. There was no way she would still be around there so I walked to the end of the hallway where a different doorway led to a set of stairs. I went downstairs to the basement. My search carried me all over the school but I still couldn’t find her. The bell rang which meant I finally had to give up. Bags brushed me and bodies pushed me as I made my way to my locker. Then all of a sudden, there she was, walking on the other side of the hallway. “Emily!” I yelled, “Emily, wait!” It was pointless. With the sound of my voice lingering in her ears, she pushed her way through the crowd to her next class.

My first class of the day was Social. Unfortunately, Catherine was in my class. When she saw my downtrodden face, hers broke into a hideous grin. “Awww,” she said mockingly when I sat down, “Is ickle little Ly Ly sad. Did Ly Ly’s new girlfriend turn him down? I could’ve told you that would happen.” That was the last thing she said to me all class but I still had to endure eighty minutes of scrutinizing side glances from her.

I had a spare next period so I spent the time in the library, trying to figure out how this had happened. All I had to do was figure how much of the conversation Emily had heard. After that I would be able to decide how to deal with her. It all depends. “It would be a lot easier,” I decided, “if I even remembered what was said.” Today had to be the worst day of my life.

By lunchtime, there were various rumors all concerning me. Some people were saying that Catherine had dumped me. Others were saying that I had dumped her because I had got her pregnant. None of them, however, said the real reason. Catherine wouldn’t have said any word at all about why I had broken up with her. I would’ve preferred it that way if people hadn’t been coming up to me while I was trying to find Emily and asking me what happened. It was a big nuisance.

I had talked to some of Emily’s other friends but no one had seen her except during class. “Maybe I should find Sara,” I thought. So I walked my way up the stairs to her locker. Just like I had thought, there she was leaning against the wall, chatting amiably to her friends. This was going to take some nerve. “Ahem.” Everyone looked at me including Sara but she held back the tears. “Could I talk to Sara, please, in private?” They seemed reluctant to move so I grabbed Sara’s arm and dragged her to a remote corner of the hallway.

“What?” she asked, “Have you found Emily yet?” I explained how I had seen her in the hallway and how she had pushed her way through people to get away me. I looked down at my feet when Sara looked at me with those puppy eyes of hers. “Elias? Are you okay? I mean seriously. You dump the most gorgeous girl in the school for a girl who is barely known and she thinks you’re going out with me, her best friend. If that isn’t rough I don’t know what is.”

“Yeah I’m okay,” I replied, “I just wish I could talk to Emily about all this.”

“Emily? Emily James?” I whirled around. Behind me was a girl I did not recognize but that didn’t matter. I nodded. The girl continued, “Well she has a spare last period and I think she spends it in the cafeteria. I don’t know whether or not you will be able to find her or not. Half the school has a spare last period and most of them are in there with her.” With that she walked off.

It was the happiest I’ve felt all day. I spent the rest of the lunch hour hanging out with my friends, laughing and joking around just like I always do. Fourth period was actually bearable even with half the class casting conscientious looks my way. I would have to skip fifth period but it would be worth while. Unfortunately, in order to get to the cafeteria, I have to walk by the class I am supposed to be in. My teacher caught me walking by just as I saw Emily walking through the cafeteria doors. I couldn’t skip now. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

The bus ride home that day was not fun. I was in a bad mood again and I had to endure questions about the break up from everyone I hadn’t seen that day. It was not fun. “Please please,” I thought, “Let tomorrow be better.”

When I got to school the next day, I went straight to Sara’s locker. She came running at me at the first sight of my face. “Elias!” she basically screamed, “It’s perfect. We have an assembly this afternoon in the gym! It’s mandatory even for the students with spares. Teachers are supposed to track down everyone and rally them to the gym.” I looked at her, my mouth wide open about to say something but she continued. “And Elias! I have an awesome plan. You just wait. It will work. It will work so well.”

Sara left before I could ask any questions about her “awesome plan.” I had a bad feeling about the plan Sara had. Whatever it was, it was almost certain that it would embarrass me. It would embarrass me even more if the plan didn’t work. Regrettably, there was nothing I could do about it right now. I would just have to hope and wait for some miraculous idea to pop into my head. Ideas jumped into my head very seldom as it is so how are miraculous ideas supposed to.

Despite my concerns of Sara’s plan, it was spirit lifting just to think that something might make Emily talk to me. I’ve been waiting for that moment for so long and at last it may be time. Even Catherine couldn’t discourage me. With the rumors spreading that I had got her pregnant, she was not in a very good mood. Apparently, she thought I had started that rumor which means that she wasn’t planning on being very nice to me today.

“How’s that new girlfriend thing going?” she whispered in my ear. I smiled at her. That may have been why she gave me the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen. I learnt later that she had heard that I had been talking to Sara. “I guess it isn’t that hard to believe I wanted to go out with Sara,” I whispered to myself.

The rest of the day passed without excitement. After lunch, I made my way towards the gym with the rest of the school. I spotted Sara with a whole crowd of her friends. We caught each others eye and she winked then she began to whisper excitedly to her friends. This reminded me that I didn’t know what Sara had planned. I decided to sit down somewhere close by. My friends didn’t know what I was doing so they sat down around me.

The assembly could not have gone any slower than it did. I kept chancing looks at Sara but she was never looking my way. She was leaning back on the bleachers with her eyes closed. It looked like she was sleeping. Finally, the principal said we could leave. However, I noticed that Sara and her friends hadn’t moved at all. They just sat there, watching the throng of people walk by. Then one of her friends poked Sara in the stomach and whispered something to her. Then all at once they jumped up and ran towards the furthest exit. I ran after them, leaving my friends behind.

In the crowd in front of me I could barely see a blue head bobbing up and down. Sara and her friends reached the exit just before Emily did. I pushed my hardest through the crowd. “I had to stop them” I thought desperately but it was too late. They had blocked the entire doorway and would not let anyone through. Turning around, I saw that there was no where I could run and I stuck out in a crowd like a sore thumb. Why did I have to be so tall? I saw Sara step out, away from her friends and then I saw Emily try to go back just as I had but somehow some of Sara’s friends were there too. We were both trapped. There was nothing I could do except to hunch down to make myself as short as possible.

Sara had a steely glint in her eye which I had never seen before and when she spoke, it was with such authority that everyone stopped talking at once. “Emily,” she began, “you are being a royal pain in the ass. You have been avoiding me and Elias for days now.” I tried crouching even lower but it wasn’t working. Catherine was a few people over and she stared at me.
“But I guess you have a good reason,” Sara continued, “You have it all wrong though. You didn’t hear all of what was said. Elias didn’t want to go out with me; he wanted to go out with you.”