Page 141 of Take My Hand

“Well, if you ask me?—”

“Zak,” I whipped around, interrupting him. “We talked about this.”

When he pouted, I wanted to kiss him, he looked so cute, but he needed to know that it was my decision where Ana was concerned.

“Okay,” he finally said, throwing his hands into the air. “I’ll keep quiet.”

Giving him a tight smile, I continued walking. I knew he was following because I could hear him muttering behind me. His accent was more pronounced when he was angry, which wasmaddening. I loved his accent, it made me feel all squishy inside, so I hated that it was sounding all sexy while I was trying to be mad at him.

Pushing through the door, Ana was the first person I saw. She was sitting at the desk opposite the door and picking at her fingernails. There were a couple of text books on the desk in front of her, but they were closed. I knew that she was purposefully ignoring everyone while still taking in everything that was going on around her. It was the tilt of her head and the slight upturn of her lips that told me as much.

“Please don’t let her totally off the hook,” Zak said close to my ear. “I get that you want to deal with it, but make sure she realises how wrong she was. How dangerous it was.”

I took a moment to exhale and then nodded. “I will.”

Zak gave my hand a squeeze. “I’ll go and sit over with Liam.”

As I walked to Ana, she glanced up for just a couple of seconds, barely acknowledging me, before going back to examining her nails.

“Can I sit next to you?” I asked her, already pulling out a chair.

“Surprised you want to, but yeah, I suppose so.”

My back stiffened because I knew if it was me, I’d be begging her for forgiveness. Evidently, Ana didn’t feel the same level of remorse. Sitting down I cleared my throat, trying to give her a cue to say something, but she just sighed and reached for one of her text books. As she thumbed through it, she started to hum and bob her head, pausing on certain pages every now and again. We sat there for ten minutes, and still she said nothing. With each passing second of silence, I was getting more and more angry. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer.

“You know I was still really ill last night.”

Slowly, her head lifted, and she stared at me with a raised eyebrow. “You’re not the first person to get pissed and puke,Maddy.” She looked over to where Zak was sitting with Liam. “Did he tell you that you should feel violated?”

“No,” I snapped. “Not at all. He’s angry because it was dangerous, and he was worried about me. Liam is too.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She rolled her eyes. “They’ve been your boyfriend’s for about two minutes. Sticking their bloody noses in. It was a joke, that’s all.”

“But we could have ended up with alcohol poisoning, you put so much in.”

“I didn’t,” she scoffed. “It’s not my fault you can’t take your booze or know when your cider isn’t just cider.”

“You really don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, do you?” She shrugged, making me shake my head in incredulity. “What the hell is the matter with you, Ana? We’re you’re friends. We helped you with your mum.”

“I know.” She leaned closer as the door opened and Miss Rubin, one of our teachers walked in. “And I’m grateful for that, but it was a bloody joke, and I’m sorry I made you sick, okay?”

I would have believed her apology if she hadn’t been looking over my shoulder in the direction of Liam and Zak. If she hadn’t then chewed on the inside of her mouth and looked bored. However, at the end of the day, she was my best friend, and I was determined we weren’t going to fall into a habit of not talking or being bitchy to each other.

“Listen, we’re all going to London at the weekend to a party. It’s one of Zak’s friend’s and he says we can all go. Do you fancy it? We’re staying at Zak’s uncle’s house.” At first, Zak and I had disagreed about whether to include Ana in the invite. When we’d talked about what she was going through with her mum and dad, he eventually agreed that she deserved a second chance.

“I’ll check with my mum.” That was all she said. No thank you or I appreciate it, seeing as I was a bitch at the last party we went to. She just picked her book up and went back to reading it.

It crossed my mind whether to get up and move over to Zak and Liam, but when Miss Rubin called for us all to be quiet and start studying, I decided to stay where I was. I just hoped that the next party we all went to was a hell of a lot less drama.

“How are you feeling?” Liv asked, pulling me into a tight hug. “Em told me about what Ana did. I hope you gave her shit for it. Honestly, it’s just not what you do. I mean, she’s like your best friend.” A few inches shorter than her, I was smothered by her chest.

“I’m okay, Liv. Honestly I’m fine, can you let me go.” She held me tighter. “Okay Liv, I’m tapping out now.” I smacked her back and groaned.

“Oh, sorry.” She pushed me to arm’s length and looked me up and down. “You do look a bit sickly.”

“It was two days ago, Liv!”

Zak and Liam snorted a laugh behind me, so I twisted around and gave them a glare.

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