Silent Lies - Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Just as I thought today was going to be a long and painful day, I was proven right. In math we have a test, when all I want to do is have my head down. I'm the last to turn mine in because the pain makes it impossible to focus on anything. I also just don't understand half the questions.
The walk to art just makes everything worse, unfortunately Mrs. Scarlett notices and asks right away, "What's wrong, Olivia?" I shake my head as a way to say nothing. "Something is, you look like...you're in pain?"
I grab a paper, just a headache, I write. She's hesitant when she nods and lets me go to my desk. Since I said I have a headache she doesn't bother me like other teachers would when I have my head down all of class.
She stops me before I can walk out of class when the bell rings, though.
"Teachers aren't really allowed to do this, but I have some ibuprofen in my purse, the nurses would just tell you to rest for a few or else I'd send you there." She waits until we're the only two left in the classroom before getting the pill bottle. I let her give them to me even though I don't want her to, but I need something.
She hands me a water and I take the pills, hoping they kick in soon. We're both surprised when I give her a hug, my way to thank her because she just helped so much without even knowing it. It's new too because the only person I hug is Divine. But just like Divines hugs, she feels safe, something I'm not used to feeling.
I don't want to pull away from the hug but she has another class starting to come in.
At lunch I sit at mine and Divine's table as always, and when she gets to lunch she lays her head down just like mine, facing me.
"You okay?" I nod. "Sure...what's wrong?" I point to my head, my signal for a headache. "You always have headaches." She frowns and sits back up, opening her lunch. I always apparently have headaches because that's my lie when her or Mrs. Scarlett can tell when something is wrong. Although I'm not always lying about having a headache.
She pushes her whole sandwich towards me and I narrow my eyes. "Have you eaten today?" I shrug. "Eat, maybe it'll help." I shake my head and push it back, but then she pushes it back again, then so do I, and it continues for five whole minutes before she sighs and accepts it back. But she still makes me eat her grapes.
When the bell ring she hugs me as she always does, I wince a little this time but she doesn't notice thankfully. I walk to my locker, getting everything for my last two classes. When I sit in my seat in English I sigh in annoyance, the pills have done absolutely nothing for me so far.
I nearly fall asleep in English a few times, pain becoming unbearable. When I walk into physics I roll my eyes when Adrian is in the seat next to mine, again. I just want to sleep this class and not get woken up by a teacher, he better not talk to me.
"Not happy to see me?" I shake my head as I sit, him acting like he's offended from my bluntness, his dark brown how falling around his face. "That's quite rude, because I'm happy to see you," I give him a thumbs up. "How has your day been, Liv?" He pushes his notebook to me.
I keep my head down. I can't tell if he's genuinely being nice or just trying to use me, in a way I'm thinking he's genuinely nice, damn nickname caught me off guard. But I still don't give in and think he's actually being nice. When I don't write he sighs and rests back in his seat.
"Well, my day has been pretty good." I wish mine was. "I passed a math test with an A today, first A of the semester." I smile because he sounds proud of himself. "I'm excited for tomorrow too." I sit up, face him, and signal for him to tell me why, he's clearly not going to stop talking so why not. "I'm going down to see my dad, it's been a few weeks since I've seen him so it's what I've been looking forward to."
I give him a smile, a real one, for him sounding happy. Then he asks again how my day was and I finally write. It's been good, the third lie I've told today. When the teacher starts doing her teaching I lay my head back down and Adrian goes quiet.
Adrian wakes me up, "Class is over, Liv." I finally notice everyone leaving. I flinch away from his touch when he shakes me gently, he gets the signal and moves away. "I wrote down all the notes from class for you, since you slept the whole time." I take the paper from him and smile, thankful for him. I quickly write thank you on the notebook he tried pushing to me earlier to get me to write.
I get all my things together to try and get out of here as soon as possible so I'm not late to getting home, I can't take another beating like last night. I stand up quickly and black spots cover my vision, I grip the desk and wait for a few seconds to regain my vision. I walk towards the door but they appear again but I keep walking to my locker to grab things from other classes to go home.
I hold onto my lock on the locker, my only support currently, to keep myself from passing out. The black spots cover all of my vision to the point I can't even put the combination in. I'm begging god to not let me pass out now, not here at school at least, wait until I'm home.
"Olivia," I hear Adrian say my name but it's faint, but reality comes back when I feel his arm around my waist, giving me support so I don't fall. "Hey, you okay?" My vision finally becomes clear again and he's literally holding me so I flinch away when I realize and lean against my locker for any more support I need. "I'm sorry, I just didn't want you to fall and hit your head or something."
I shake my head, a way to say it's okay, because I'm thankful he did hold me up or I would have fallen and everything would've gotten worse than it is. Even with how much I don't like touch, I'm thankful.
"Olivia? What's wrong?" Divine is by my side now, giving Adrian a skeptical look.
"She was about to pass out," Adrian tells her. "Are you her friend?"
"Best friend," she says looking back at me. "Something's wrong, more than a headache," she says so only I hear, but I shake my head. "Olivia...if that's what you say." She doesn't pry thankfully. I move over a little when she goes to open my locker, grabbing what I was originally trying to get.
"Do you guys have a ride home? Or the bus?" Adrian asks, making Divine look back and forth between me and him, I shrug.
"Yeah, my mom, why?" She takes my backpack off my shoulder, putting whatever from my locker in it and carrying it now. I'm thankful for the weight taken off of me.
"Just making sure, didn't know if she was walking cause clearly she shouldn't be," he says. "You okay now, Liv?" No, but I still nod.
Divine keeps looking at him, skeptical, she has just as many trust issues as I do with these well known people around school. "Okay...my moms waiting for us we gotta go." Me and Adrian nod as Divine is interwrining our arms together.
I know I shouldn't take the risk of taking the ride from Divine's mom and dad already being home then him seeing me with someone, but if I walk home I will pass out for sure.
Her mom is surprised to see me, but I can tell she's happy from the way her eyes light up, it's been awhile since I saw her last. Divine sits in the back with me.
"Olivia! How have you been, sweetheart?" I give a thumbs up while smiling so she believes it, then point to her. I never learned sign language and I know I should, but I don't have the motivation and the only other person who would learn it with me is Divine probably.
"I've been good also. How's your father?" My heart sinks, but I keep up the smile and give another thumbs up. "That's good." She smiles too.
She asks more questions, about school mostly, I give nods or shakes of my head, also thumbs up and thumbs down. I look over at Divine, she's giving me a soft, empathetic look. I'm scared she's starting to figure out all my lies but either way I'll keep them up, until I can get out of here at least-away from dad.
Divine and her mom still look like twins despite Mrs. Abaras growing age, not calling her old, she's only thirty-nine as long as I've been keeping track correctly.
They both have beautiful dark skin, the same fluffy, coiled hair, and even both have the same two different colored eyes, one blue and the other green. The one thing different about them is their height. Divine has always been taller, probably five foot nine, Mrs. Abara is short, like five foot one short. Divine got the height from her dad, and it saddens me to talk about him.
Just a couple years after me and Divine met he passed away, he was like a second father to me and Hadley, they were all a second family really. I remember how me and Hadley, also mom and dad, were with them a lot during that time. Mom making dinner the nights Mrs. Abara couldn't because she was too sad to get out of bed, dad distracting us kids in anyway he could.
Thinking about mom and dad like that makes me wonder what happened. Why did mom just up and leave with a new guy, according to dad, one day? They were so happy.
Why did dad turn the way he did? His wife left him, so I knew he was heartbroken but me and Hadley were also heartbroken our mom left, he was barely there for us when it first happened, then never again at all. Abuse started months after, everything went so downhill. I'm still always confused how everything got to how it is now.
When Mrs. Abara stops in front of the house, I shudder in fear when I see dad's car in the driveway. I'm thankful that Divine's out of the car so she doesn't see my reaction.
Mrs. Abara turns her attention to me again, "You should come over sometime, Olivia, your father too." If only she knew what he's become. But I still nod and smile as I always do.
I lean over the console despite my body yelling at me not to and give her a hug as Divine opens the door. Her hugs have stayed the same, safe and warm just like her daughters.
When I'm out of the car Divine shuts the door for me, handing me my backpack. "If something's going on, you can tell me Olivia, whatever it is," she says as we hug. I shake my head as a way to say nothing is wrong, but her look tells me she doesn't believe me. "See ya tomorrow?" She doesn't pry more, and I nod.
They wait until I'm inside the house to drive off, and I'm thankful dad isn't in a mood where he hurts me the second I'm in the house or they would've seen me. But he is sitting against the filing cabinet, another beer in hand making me scared.
"You still talk to Divine?" I nod as I sit on the couch, waiting for whatever it is he'll do tonight. I've given up on running straight to my room because it only makes things worse. "You're not telling them things, are you?" I shake my head. "Good, you know how big of a mistake that'd be." The sinister smile he has tells me tonight isn't going to be good.
And it told me right, because tonight was far worse than last night.