After dad, the next person I needed to talk to was Sheebah as I felt the girl knows more about me than I could ever imagine. I decided to wait on her outside her class, ahead of lunch, so I could spot her without hassle since she has proved to be invisible over time.
I could recognize her very well given that I had seen her twice and could remember her face vividly from the past. Furthermore, I had left class with the excuse of going to the toilet about three minutes to recess and instead headed for her class.
Standing not too far from the door I waited till the bell rang for lunch and pretended to be passing by. Unfortunately, Becca was one of the first set of people that came out and on sighting me was about to call out when I hastily hushed her with my hand and pulled her to my side.
I guess luck is not on my side today, I thought as I faked a happy expression and pretended as if I had come for her.
"It's been so hard to see you nowadays, thought I might as well wait outside for you" I lied as we made our way to her locker.
She despises the food they served at the cafeteria, so she usually ordered takeout from a famous French restaurant. I on the other hand do not have any problem with the food since I wasn't picky and rather even thought the food they offered were better than the past.
Becca scrunched her face in disgust when she saw me take a bite of the beefburger and I shrugged. It wasn't like I had a choice, my mom hasn't been cooking for the past few weeks and our help had taken a two days leave to take care of her sick son, Junior dislikes homemade food and since I had no knowledge on how to cook, I had no other option than to put up with the awful food in the cafeteria.
In fact, I saw nothing wrong with the food except that the beef was a little overcooked, and I didn't mind, so I kept chewing. I might have made Becca lose her appetite because she was now holding her French fry looking absent, and I noticed she was lost in thoughts.
"What is up with you?" I asked out of concern but when I got no reply, I knew she might not have heard me, so I snapped my fingers in front of her face, trying to get her attention.
"Ooh sorry what did you say?"
I didn't bother to tease her, since I saw she was not in the mood, so I repeated myself.
"What is up? You seem off. You sick?" She quickly shook her head before dropping the fry and sighed. I immediately knew it was serious.
"It's my dad. He's at it again." She said briefly and we both knew what she meant by that.
Becca's dad is a renowned actor and Becca's mom is well… His mistress. Anytime the husband and wife duo get into a disagreement, her dad would always take his anger out on her mom, getting violent with her till she passes out or lands in the hospital.
Becca had tried to encourage her many times to get a restraining order, but her mom was just too infatuated with him to do such, in fact Becca thinks her mom was the main cause of her abuse, since she never voiced the slightest of complaints, even sometimes being too compliant to his every attack.
"It's going to be alright" I tried to comfort her but I myself knew I wasn't doing a good job.
On hearing my words, she grinned and heaved a sigh before pulling my cheeks.
"What would I do without you" and then everything went back to normal. She passed me her fries and snatched the burger from me.
"The way you eat it makes it enticing"
I tried to collect it back, and she stopped me with a finger outstretched. I was distracted for a moment, and before I knew it she had already stuffed the burger inside her mouth and we both stared at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing.
"Hum do you guys have like a newcomer in your class?"
I tried to indirectly inquire about Sheebah, and she shook her head before suddenly stopping as if she just remembered that they indeed had one, and she twisted her face in such a way that even without having to say it loud, I knew what she meant.
Sheebah had finally made it to Becca list of dislikes. I guess that girl doesn't have a very likeable attitude after all.
"Sheebah, that sly fox, I wish I could strangle her"
She squeezed my burger hardly, to push the point and I couldn't help but silently apologized to the burger that was now trapped in a sorry state in her fist. I quickly nodded to let her know I got the point before she tries something extreme.
"Did she do something to annoy you?" I probed further, hoping to get more out of her before the bell rings.
"She did more than annoy me. She is so slutty with her fake innocent attitude. Managed to get the attention of Meurer, and she has been riding on his fame since then."
"Why are you concerned, I thought you liked Joseph" I reminded her, and she smirked before going on
"Don't even get me started. That guy is a total asshole, he tried to spike my drink once we went out on a date. Thankfully it was a place I frequented and the waitress tipped me before I could even drink it. Later I found out he wanted to rape me together with his friends. I was so disgusted when I heard that I tried to break his head. Unfortunately I wasn't able to. What I would do to make him pay" She gnashed her teeth as she finished.
OK another attribute of Becca is that she is a very big fan of revenge, what you do to her, she would repay a hundred times.
"So you like Meurer now? That playboy?" I found myself laughing, and she shot me a murderous glare.
"I do not like Meurer!! I hate the fact that she is able to get the attention of every guy in the class. That was my place!!"
OK this girl's offense isn't light. If there was anything Becca liked, it was attention she would bask in the praise and flattering of those who fawned over her. Sometimes she would even pretend to hate it when in fact she more than loved it. She always topped the popularity chart as the 'queen of headlines', sometime she had even told me that she befriended me because of that.
That time I had topped the popularity chart because of Jenny's incident after which I became very withdrawn socially, and she had persisted, appearing wherever I went like a moth attracted to a flame and when I saw that I couldn't shake her off no matter what, I started accommodating her bad habits, and we gradually became friends.
I smiled at the memory and I knew enough not to try to chide her in case I also got caught in the crossfire.
She became silent for a while, before clapping excitedly. I immediately knew she had something on.
"Yeah why didn't I think of that. I'll make sure I overshadow during Diane's party She smirked at her own idea, and before I could ask more details about it, she was off, probably to think more and devise her plans.
I thought about it for a while and decided if Sheebah was going to be there then naturally, I had to be there too.
....
Third Person P.O.V
Two years ago, there had been an incident that shook the entire campus, and within minutes rumors spread like wildfire.
The juicy news was none other than, Catherine Amelia Collins running mad. After the accident that costed her her memories, Cather changed her school, which was a surprise as patients with memory loss would be advised to be taken to familiar places shown familiar objects, people or whatnot that had a special place in their mind, so their memories can be triggered.
However, the reverse was Cather's, her parents were strictly warned not to let her near anything that could trigger her memories. But why is that? It is said that her case was special.
Unlike normal cases, whenever she remembers, she would feel a splitting headache and out of pain she would scream or collapse and sometimes do both. If the headache persists, her mental state would then slowly depreciate till she starts hallucinating.
It was also said that the past her had been depressed, as there were traces of antidepressants in her blood and the continuous intake of it was what resulted in her memory loss.
What was more confusing was that she hit her head in an accident, so the doctors couldn't conclude which was which. Thankfully the memory loss was partial as she could still remember basic things like who her parents were, her favorite food and some incidents of the past.
But what still remained a mystery was the cause of her depression. Or was it really depression?