Page 87 of Finding a Melody
The guys around us fell silent as they listened in on us and when I turned back to them, Paxon and Toby pretended their food was distracting them while Justin and Bryan didn’t bother hiding that they were eavesdropping.
“What?” I asked.
“What, what?” Toby asked, looking up at me from his tray.
“You guys are being weird.”
“Just thinking about how we can get you to our house. You only ever go to Seth’s,” Toby said.
“Who’s Seth?” Micah asked.
I smiled. “Another friend of ours. He actually lives across the street from me just a couple houses away. He graduated last year.”
“Oh nice,” Micah said. “It seems like I worried for nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Friends. You have a nice group of friends here. I’m glad. You never talked about any before so I never knew.”
“Well.” I awkwardly looked away. “I just met them this year. So, really, you weren’t wrong.”
“Seriously?” Micah seemed so surprised. “But...”
“But what?” Bryan asked defensively.
Micah blinked before answering. “Well, you guys all seem so close, like you’ve been friends for years.”
“They’ve known each other since like diapers or something like that.”
Paxon chuckled. “Not since diapers, but it definitely feels like that. We’ve been together since kindergarten or around there I imagine.”
“We ran the playgrounds. It was our turf.” Toby puffed up his chest like he was overly proud.
That got the guys laughing as they shared some of their own stories about their initial meeting. They admitted it was so long ago that they had to go by what their parents said, but basically, they did meet in primary school, mostly on the playground at first before they started being placed in the same classes. And they loved to cause their own little innocent chaos while playing.
I drank up all their stories, loving how much more I was learning about them. I wanted to learn as much as I could, but didn’t want to feel intrusive, so this was exciting as they told about how Toby hurt himself on pretty much every part of the playground from climbing all over the place, especially where he shouldn’t be. Or how Bryan would sneak in toys for them to play and often get taken away from them, like remote control airplanes, drones, balls, water guns.
Paxon liked soccer, even in elementary school, always kicking the ball at others. He dominated in kickball too. Seth and Justin were usually the ones getting them out of trouble.
Listening to everyone share stories made lunch fun and the perfect distraction from all the rumors going around about me. While I wasn’t quite lying to them when I said it didn’t matter, I wasn’t quite telling the truth. The rumors were disgusting and I hated the thought of strangers thinking of me like that. But how could I voice my concerns when I knew nothing could be done about them? Rumors weren’t just going to disappear because I wished them away.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
After talking about the rumors during lunch, I had thought it’d get easier. I knew the guys were on my side. Micah. Even the twins. There were other students too who didn’t seem to care or respond to the rumors.
But they were still rampant, even through Thursday. Toby and Paxon did their best, using their influence with other students to get some to stop talking about it. Once people realized the guys weren’t tolerating their idiocy, they quieted down, only a little bit though.
I also had a sneaky suspicion that on Thursday morning, Toby nearly got into a fight even though no one would tell me what happened. I kept trying through gym class, not willing to give up until I got an answer, even as they only shook their heads at me.
“Okay, this is seriously not fair,” I said, finally snapping. It involved me, I should know.
“What do you mean?” Paxon asked.
“Something happened and you won’t tell me. What did Toby almost do? Did he get in trouble?”
“He’s not in trouble,” Justin replied. “And it’s been handled. Don’t worry.”
“I’m going to worry because no one is telling me anything.”