Chapter 3: Two Birds, Two Stones.

Some mistakes get made, but this… this was no mistake. This was Aliah asking me to smash her head against a brick wall.

My entire life, I trusted Aliah. She was my best friend, the only person I could truly trust.

Before I could even head out of the building I'm stopped by a teacher, Mount.

"Move." I hiss at him.

"Amber, what's going on?"

I attempt to push past him but he blocks my way again.

"Amber, I need you to calm down and turn around because you're not going anywhere. Now head to my office please."

I turn around and walk slowly, waiting for him to walk ahead of me. As he does I turn around and run out of the building. I look behind me to see a very disappointed Mount looking back at me.

He was definitely going to tell my parents, but that's not was I was worried about right now.

As I set foot out the gates I begin bawling my eyes out while walking to a nearby park, I sit on the swings sobbing my eyes out like the loser I am.

I was so hurt. So sad. So angry.

Aliah was the reason he left me.

"Amber..?"

I jolt my head up and see a very worried Trevor.

"What?" I respond in a taut tone, embarrassed that he's seeing me like this.

"Amber, get up." He says in a soft tone, trying to show some sort of empathy towards me, which is not what I needed, not from him.

"Go away!" I hiss at him.

He grabs my arm and pulls me into a tight hug, my tears flowing onto his shirt along with my snot on his shoulder. He wraps his arms tight and says nothing, only sighs as I muffle my cries with his shoulder.

We stood like this for what felt like forever, interrupted by the vibration in my pocket.

I pick up my phone and see 'Mom' across the screen

"Oh god.."

"What's wrong" He asks worried.

"It's my Mom, she's going to kill me… I have to go!" I turn around but he grabs my arm.

"We're going to talk about this later."

"There is nothing to talk about, Trevor. Mind your own business!" I say as I wipe my nose and head towards home.

Text after text as my mom expresses her anger through the phone, threatening me to wait until she gets home from work.

I walk into the house, my dad peeking his head through the living room.

"Why are you home so early?" He asks.

"I wasn't feeling well.. So I left."

"Oh, ok. Do you need some Panadol or something?" He asked.

"No, I'm just going to head to bed." I tell him as he turns his head to continue whatever project he was working on.

I changed into my pyjamas and went into bed, the cover covering my entire body, including my face. I soaked my pillow in tears as my mom continued to call my phone.

I pick it up, "Hello?" I say in a croaky voice.

"What's wrong, why do you sound like that?" She asks.

"I'm sick.." I say.

"Oh, that's why you ran away from Mr Mount before?" She asks.

"Yes."

"Why did you run? You should've told me, I would've came and picked you up!" She says in a tone where she tries to keep calm.

"I don't know."

"Ok, I have to get back to work. Take some Panadol or something, I'll check on you when I get home."

"Ok." I say as she hangs up.

Thank god that went well...

I unlocked my phone, a message from Nicole, Aliah and a request from Trevor.. what did Trevor want? I told him to mind his own business.

I opened Nicoles message to read 'Are you okay? Where did you go? Please text me back, I'm worried.", I left her on read.

A message from Aliah 'Amber, it was one time. Please, I'm not the girl he left you for.'

Girl he left me for? Oh my- He left me for another girl...

I began typing but erased my message and decided to block her number instead along with Rubens.

I went onto social media, ignoring the request from Trevor and typing Rubens username into the search bar. There was a post with a girl.

It felt like somebody had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart at this point, my crying was so hard that my nose had started bleeding.

I got up and hurried into the bathroom looking for some tissue to stop the blood with.

I grab some toilet paper and held it up my nose.

I couldn't stop the tears from coming, I couldn't stop my nose from bleeding, the thoughts in my head wouldn't stop. My head was throbbing.

I dragged myself back into bed, crying myself back to sleep.

"Amber, how are you feeling?" My Mom asks as she touches my forehead to check for a fever.

"Huh.." I say as I was up, struggling to open my eyes.

"You're burning, drink this." She says as she shoves the medicine down my throat.

"Mom, ew!"

I drink down the water she hands to me.

"Your eyes are so puffy, are you okay?" She worriedly asks.

"Yes" I reply grabbing the cover and covering my head with it again.

"Okay, I'll come check on you in a bit."

She walks out and I hear the door shut.

The thoughts rushed back into my head.

He left me for someone else, gave her everything he was meant to give me.

He even asked her to be his girlfriend…

I blocked his account, and laid back in bed. Tears rolling down my face as I went back to sleep

…

It had been a week since I was last at school, my mom wasn't allowing me to take anymore days off. She doesn't like that I spent a week in bed, depressed.

She offered to take me to a therapist a few times, and for a moment my sister and I thought she was being more dramatic than I myself had been the last week. But, a week away from everybody allowed me to focus on finishing any work I was missing out on at school, I didn't want any of my teachers annoying me about it anyway.

I walked through the gates, making eye contact with Trevor who was sitting with his friends. I immediately look away, Nicole coming up to me and wrapping her arms around me.

"I was so worried about you!" She cried out, "I'm so sorry I didn't tell you earlier, I had only found out that morning but Aliah had made me wait until the end of the day so you didn't do anything stupid."

I took a deep breath.

"Okay." I say.

"You're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad at you? You didn't betray me in any way."

She sighed and gave me a small smile, in which I returned even though at that very moment, I felt like I was being stared at by everybody, I felt like the biggest loser standing around. But in reality, I doubt anybody other than Nicole and Aliah knew what was going on, but Trevor must have been suspecting something.

Great, I have to avoid two people now.

I walk into the hallway, immediately making eye contact with Mount. He didn't have to say anything, I followed him to his office.

"That was unacceptable. The way you walked ran out, the attitude, everything."

"You're right. I'm sorry, I was feeling unwell."

"You should have made your way to the sick bay then, huh?"

"Yeah.." I say keeping my head down.

"Head to class." He said as the bell rung.

My head hanging down as I felt embarrassment and shame, I made my way to my locker.

"Amber."

I slam it shut and take a deep breath.

"Don't." I tell Trevor, "Not right now." I say hoping he'd leave me alone.

I look back as I walk past him, so does he.

I head to my maths class, Aliah sitting right next to the only available table, I had no choice but to take a seat next to her.

I pull out my pen and open up my book, copying down the notes that my teacher was writing on the board.

"Psst.."

I ignore her as rage grows inside me, I try to control myself but at that moment she was about to strike a nerve, and a complex one at that. I look at the board, unaware that missing a week of school would mean missing out on so much that I wouldn't understand even the simplest equation.

"Amber, can we please talk..?" Aliah whispers.

I turn to her, "Your face disgusts me, if you keep talking to me I will rip it off."

She hadn't said anything to me for the remainder of the class, but as soon as the bell hit and I made my way out of the classroom, she followed from behind calling my name and making me angrier.

"Amber, wait! Please." She begged.

"Aliah, I'm going to tell you this once and once only. There is not a single thing you can say or do that will make me forgive you, so leave me alone because it's not looking to good for you as of right now."

She says nothing, she stares at me with her brows furrowed as we maintain eye contact, both angry at the other. But she had nothing to be upset about, this was all her fault. Of course he had a part to play in this, Ruben was nowhere near innocent, but to have the girl that I called my best friend go and betray me knowing how in love I was with him? Now that did some damage, more than Ruben did, because when I found that out, something deep in me had clicked and after a week of processing what had happened, I think I'm past the hurt stage and entering the stage where I'm filled with rage. I stop glaring at her and walk away.

I spent the entire day ignoring all my friends, I wasn't ready to face anybody just yet and as soon as the bell went, I grabbed my bag and headed out the gate.

"Did you see Aliah today?" My sister, Kennedy, asked.

"Obviously I saw her, she tried to talk to me saying that she could explain, but how could you possibly explain what happened? She betrayed me, there's nothing more to it, it's over."

"What did you say when she said she could explain?" Kennedy questioned.

"Nothing, I glared at her and told her to never speak to me again or it won't look good for her."

Kennedy chuckled.

As we were walking past the park, there he was.