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Chapter 11: Punched

"So?" Mason questions the moment I enter the house. I look up from the my laptop screen at the same time that my Mom does.

"What?" I ask.

"What's wrong with Odeletta?" Brenda squeaks, shutting the front door.

I am not in the mood for her voice today.

"Nothing." I snap. Mom sighs, looking at me. "I don't know."

"Well let's talk about it, maybe we can figure it out." Mom suggests.

I run my hands along my face.

"She knows whoever the people are." I say. "When I found her outside, she was crying. She wouldn't tell me that she knew, but she was crying." I say. "She has to know them. She told me not to ask about it...said she doesn't have time to help me in French, we can't be friends, and then asked me to leave her alone."

"So just leave her alone." Mom says.

"I can't." I shake my head. There's no way I can leave her alone, I'm way too emotionally attached to her.

"Sure you can, it's not like you guys were ever friends. You have no attachment to her, so who cares?" Mom says.

I just look at Mom.

"Right, Nathan?" She asks.

"It's a bit more complicated than that." I say quietly.

"Well why? Do you like her?"

I like her features, but I hardly know her personality.

"It's just complicated." I say.

"What makes it complicated?" She presses. "Do you like her, Nathan? Have you kissed or something?"

"Can we not talk about me?" I sigh. "It's too complicated and I'm telling all three of you that I can't just leave her alone. Whatever it is, I think she's been dealing with it for a long time."

"Okay, so we've come to the conclusion that she knows the people." Mom decides. I already told her what happened and I'm sure Mason told Brenda.

"What has she told you about her family?" Mason asks.

I sigh.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing. Every time I even remotely mention her family, she shuts me out."

"So maybe it's her family." Brenda says.

I think back to yesterday morning, before we had sex.

She had worry lines when I asked her why she's bitter.

"She asked me not to google her." I say, confused.

"Google her?" Mason repeats. "So there's the answer."

He walks over to my laptop and goes to google, and just as her starts typing, I grab his wrist.

"What?" He demands. Mom's face is full of disapproval.

"Don't." I say. "She doesn't want us to know. She asked me not to google her."

"So?" Mason asks.

"So she doesn't want us to know, she asked me not to do what we're about to do, so I'm not going to do it."

"She didn't ask me." Mason starts typing again, and I pull his hand off the keyboard and shut the lid.

"No. Mason, please. Don't google it."

He studies me for a second.

"Two weeks ago, you'd have pulled out your phone in front of her and looked it up."

I look down.

"I don't know what's happening to me."

"Well you like her." Brenda says. "That much is obvious."

I press my lips together.

"I don't know that." I say. "But I do know that she doesn't want me to bother her, so I'm not going to. She doesn't want to be friends, and she doesn't want me, or anyone else, in her business. She's independent and keeps to herself. Whatever it is, she doesn't want us to know."

"But I think it's her family." Mason presses.

"So do I." I say. "But I'm not going to dig and find out. It's not my business."

_____

Motorcycle Girl was thirty minutes late to class on Monday. She walked in with no makeup, in sweat pants and a black long sleeve t-shirt. She looked like she was wearing a sports bra, and her brown hair was pulled back into a messy pony tail that looked as though she hasn't brushed her hair. She has dark bags under her eyes, and she walked in with her face buried in a notebook, nearly walking into my table on the way.

It was the same thing on Wednesday, and again on Friday. She hasn't said a word to me, she hasn't talked to Professor Gaillard. All she does is show up to lessons for attendance and finished her tests or worksheets in minutes, and then she leaves.

I spotted her in the library the other day working in the same notebook, a look of pure frustration and stress on her face.

Now it's Monday, a week and three days from when we found out about the executions, who I think are her family.

I want to know what's in the notebook, so as we sit in French, Professor Gaillard teaching us about how to greet people and how to have simple conversations, I get up to throw paper out, and the trash is behind her.

I make a point to glance guiltily at her notebook, and I mentally curse.

It's in French. All of it, every last bit, is in French.

But there's writing, bullet points, paragraphs.

I know it's not for another class because she's in America and no other class would have her writing on French, and we aren't working on a project or anything in here.

No, whatever that is, it's private.

I slump back down in my seat as Gaillard passes out assignments.

When she reaches Odeletta, she slams her notebook shut.

Professor Gaillard doesn't comment on it, she just gives her the work and goes on her way.

I look at Mason, sighing.

After a few minutes, Odeletta finishes her work and she puts her things away.

This time though, when she heads for the door after turning the page in, she walks over to Mason and I. I look at her with raised eyebrows.

She's looking at me.

"Uh..." she bites her lip, her eyebrows pushing together in frustration. She shakes her head and then walks out. I look at Mason and he shrugs.

_____

"You know, you're pathetic." Brenda says at the mall a week later. We leave for France this Friday and I'm honestly nervous. Whatever Odeletta has been cooking in that notebook is going to come out in the open when we get there. My Mom leave in the morning. She said I'm being nice and she misses Dad so she's going to leave. I look at Brenda with narrowed eyes. I've been even more bitter than usually but I've tried not to snap on Brenda even though she's making me want to stick my head under a car tire.

Brenda literally whined to Mason to go to the mall, so here we are.

"Excuse me?" I ask.

"You're pathetic." She repeats.

"Brenda, leave the man alone." Mason sighs quietly.

"How am I pathetic?" I stop walking. She turns to me.

"You literally just fucked her because you were horny, but not because you cared about her. You used her to get us off your back. You're pathetic. You have no respect for anybody, you are rude, arrogant, selfish, and the list goes on and on."

I was literally just walking and keeping to myself and she's going to say that shit right now?

"God, I swear I fucking hate you." I say, seething. "You were the one that pushed me to do it! 'You need a girlfriend.'" I snap in a falsetto voice.

"You do need a girlfriend!" She practically yells in the middle fo the aisle between stores, causing heads to turn. "I didn't tell you to fuck whoever had a vagina, I told you to get a girlfriend!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'd didn't realize you were in fucking charge of what I do?" I growl. "Don't you fucking talk to me, you stupid bitch! I know you've cheated on Mason. Wait until I find fucking proof. When it comes down to it, Mason picks me over you any fucking day! We've been best friends since elementary school!" I snarl.

"Hey man, don't talk to a girl like that." Some random guy next to me says. He's practically my age, so I whip around and punch him in the mouth.

"Stay the fuck out of it!" I yell. I turn back to Brenda. "Don't you dare comment on my relationship with Odeletta! Don't think about her, don't talk about her, don't fucking look at her!"

"Nathan." Mason says quietly.

"You don't know her, you don't know me. You don't get to sit there and call me pathetic because I had sex with her without being in a relationship! I'm sure you've done your fair share of dicking around with guys while Mason sits around and waits for a text back!"

"Nathan, your Mom is behind you." Mason whispers.

I whip around.

Mom was on the other side of the mall in Yankee candle. We were here for dinner but the girls wanted to do some shopping.

The guy I punched is gone and there's some blood on the white tile, and my Mom is standing there, her eyes wild with a fire I don't think I've ever seen before.

Fuck.