Claw Marks

Lyra's Pov

After the incident between Norman, Adam and I, I couldn't wait to meet Adam in school the next day. I kept turning on my bed as the butterflies in my belly were bugging me.

' Oh, we forgot to exchange contacts. How could we have left out such details?' I thought to myself.

'But seriously, the ride he gave me back home was quiet and weird. He barely looked at me. Does he even like me? I mean… he sits right next to the beauty queen, Hariette. And compared to her, I am just a… augh!! That cheap slot couldn't wait to take the good things all to herself, could she?

What am I even thinking? There is no chance for me to be with Adam. Any chance I had had been seized by this absurd marriage arrangement.'

These thoughts and mixed emotions plagued me the whole night until it was morning again, and another day for school.

Thank God, my car had been repaired, so everything was back to normal, well…. Kind of.

When I arrived at school, I was relieved to see that Norman and his two friends had skipped school that day. And I also noticed that Adam had changed his sitting position. He no longer sat next to Hariette, but on a seat located three rows behind her. For some reason, this was the first seat switch that I was very happy to have witnessed.

As for Harriette, well… she wasn't happy. She kept looking behind to see if Adam would notice her mood, but Adam was focused on something else. I wonder what went down between the two of them. I always thought they were a perfect match.

And finally, leah and sarah were on their seats, with big smiles on their faces. They gave me big waves and I returned them as I took my seat. It wasn't long before Miss. Ambrose came to begin another boring day of past events.

Finally, the beautiful melody of the bell rang in my ears, signaling the end of Miss Ambrose's class. I had to admit that I learned something just because of the fact that Norman wasn't behind me to talk trash.

--

When it was lunch break, as always, Leah and Sarah approached me and we headed to the cafeteria. We went and grabbed some snacks and headed to an empty table.

While we ate and chatted, I paused as I saw Adam bypass us and headed to the counter to grab his lunch. Sarah and Leah noticed that I had paused and followed my gaze only to see Adam grabbing lunch before heading to an empty table.

" Woah, what is happening here?" Sarah asked in a hushed tone, giving me suspicious looks.

" Nothing," I scoffed, rolling my eyes.

" With that attitude just now, something is definitely happening here,"Sarah insisted.

" I don't know what you are talking about." I defended myself.

" Come on Lyra, you can deny the fact that you paused when you saw Adam." Leah chimed in.

" So? It was just random, nothing to it. Now let's eat before lunch break gets over." I said, trying to keep my face as serious as possible, not to let my guard down.

With that, Leah and Sarah looked at each other as they raised their shoulders before eating. But before long, a dark shadow was casted over our table, and when we looked up, it was no other person than Adam, standing there with his lunch in his hands.

He had a slight nervous look on his face as he breathed out the words "Can i join you guys? My table has been taken." He said as he took a quick glance back at his table.

When we looked at his table to see who could have done such a thing, Harriete was sitting there with embarrassment and anger on her face. She must have done something to upset Adam.

But still, I was in no mood to let Adam sit with us as it could stir up gossip around school. However before i could turn him down, Sarah and Leah stood up " sure," they said as they carried their lunch and headed over to table where harriette was currently sitting. Gosh, Those back stabbing…. Bad girls.

Adam stood there a bit confused why Sarah and Leah had to leave. " Did I do something wrong?" He asked in confusion.

" Not at all." I replied with a forced smile. I was still getting over the back stabbing, dont judge me.

Adam took his seat and smiled at me, however, I couldn't smile back when I saw wound marks on his jaw. The wounds looked strange. They were lines like he had been attacked by a bear, or something.

"Are you okay?" Adam asked when he noticed my sudden change in mood.

" Your jaw… what happened to it?" I inquired.

Immediately he made it as if realization had hit him. " Oh it's nothing, don't worry about it." He responded as he raised the cap of his hoodie over his head, to cover the claw marks or whatever they were...

" Are you sure you are okay? You don't want to talk about it?" I asked, hoping the answer would be different, but he replied saying. " I am fine, they are just minor bruises, I have endured the worst." He then gave a nervous laugh. Before he started eating his food.

When I glanced at his plate, I noticed his food was a hundred percent made up of meat. I found this both mysterious and interesting. " So you are just going to eat only meat for lunch huh?" I scoffed.

" Yeah, I love meat a lot. I grabbed the habit from my dad. We used to go hunting most at times and we would bring home a big catch and enjoy it just by ourselves." He explained.

Well.. that sounded sensible to me, so i didn't think much of it. As we kept eating, Adam paused and started speaking. " Actually i wanted to ask, since the weekend has arrived, will you…"

"Can i join you guys?" Another voice came out of nowhere and interrupted Adam's little speech. When we looked up, it was no other person than Harriettte. I couldn't believe it. What was going on?