Meant to Be (The Saving Angels 1)

My touch stopped him in his tracks. The connection was as strong as ever. “Everyone’s watching, you have to walk away and act like nothing happened,” I said in a low voice. “Otherwise our secret will be out sooner than we wanted.”

Mark looked at me one last time, glancing at the spot where the softball had struck my head.

“It’s fine. I’ll go to the nurse’s station and get some ice,” I said. “Besides, the nurse and I are already friends.”

Mark reached up his hand, as if to touch the sore spot.

I took a step back. “No you can’t, I said glancing around. “Everyone’s still watching.” Please go to class, I’ll meet you later,” I pleaded, suddenly choking back tears. The pain in his eyes was almost too much to bear.

Finally, he walked away and I let out a bent up breath. “So much for keeping it a secret,” I said to Sam in a shaky voice.

Sam had remained silent during the whole confrontation, but I could tell she was going to burst if I didn’t fill her in on all the details.

“Come on, I’ll explain on the way to the clinic,” I said, grabbing onto her elbow, for once my emotions behaved.

By the time we reached the clinic, I had given Sam a basic idea of what Mark and I had discussed earlier that morning.

“You again,” said the same elderly nurse from the day before. “What can I do for you today?”

“I got hit in the head by a softball and I think it may have cut my head a little. I was wondering if I could get some ice.”

“Come around the counter and let me check it over.”

I walked around the counter and sat on the padded stool the nurse pulled up for me.

The nurse clucked as she checked over my head.

“You were right, you have a cut and a small bump, where it hit your head,” she said as she placed a wet cold washcloth to the wound.

I winced as the cloth touched my head. The side of my head was definitely tender to the touch.

“I’ll get you some ice. Do you want to stay here for a while?”

“No, I don’t want to miss homeroom two days in a row. Can I take the ice with me?”

“Of course you can.”

Sam and I said our goodbyes and headed out the door.

“Are you sure your head’s okay?”

“Yeah, it only hurts if I touch it. What a jerk that guy was,” I commented.

“Oh, you’ll see many of those around here. Most of the students here were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and are used to getting whatever they want. Having mommy and daddy bail them out of trouble is the norm. You and Mark will have to be careful. That guy was Matt Farrell, and he’s a number one jerk. He seems to get a high out of messing with people. His dad’s loaded, so he’s used to getting his own way.”

“Keeping our feelings secret seemed so simple this morning,” I muttered as we walked through the classroom door.

The rest of the morning passed without anymore incidents, and even though I heard no more comments, I could still tell that many of the students were speculating about what had happened that morning.

Though I knew I should be concerned about what they were discussing, I was more anxious to see Mark again. Now that I knew who he was, and had spent part of the morning with him, I didn’t like being separated from him at all. Which left me wondering how Sam felt not being with her guy all day? She had filled me in with a few sketchy details in-between classes on how she had been able to find her dream guy. I was able to glean the basics, like the fact that he was our age, but graduated early and was taking college courses. I intended to find out more after school.

The hours seemed to be going in slow motion as I waited for fifth period to arrive. In my head, I was mentally counting down the minutes and was relieved when fourth period ended.

Grabbing my stuff, I hurried off to meet Sam.

We both opted to eat inside, hoping to avoid another scene. We settled on a bench outside of the school library.

“How was fourth period?” Sam asked, as she unwrapped her tuna sandwich.