Chapter 23

                                    

                                          
The lunch room. I was positively dreading it. Mostly because of Graham, but also because my phone had been spammed this weekend by none other than Maddie and McKenzie. They had called me, each, three times on average a day. I wasn't going to get into the statistics of the texts. 
                          
But I needed to eat, and I had come too far to go back to the library. Yeah. That was my freshman year in a nutshell. But when Seth skyrocketed to fame, so did I, and very quickly Graham and I found ourselves at the best table in the lunchroom. 
                          
It was, without a doubt, the best table in the lunch room. It had room for eight people, my group. A round table to make sure it favored no one. And it was surrounded on three sides by the glass windows of the cafeteria. But what made it special? It was the only table on a small but raised platform that overlooked the entire cafeteria. Seriously, there were stairs. 
                          
Freshman year it belonged to the queen of my middle school, Kylie Parker. She and her best friend Lindsey Harmon sat there, surrounded by the starters of the freshmen football team. But they fell from power when, at the start of sophomore year, Kylie's nudes were leaked, and she was ridiculed for small boobs that she had previously tried to hide with push up bras and tissue. 
                          
Seth had found himself the junior quarterback that was on his way to leading the team to state. Naturally I fell into the good graces of the football team and my friend group came together pretty quickly. But Graham and I were the core, the originals. We had ruled ever since. 
                          
When I entered the cafeteria, there they were, not even hiding their stares. It had been a week, maybe a little more, since I had last spoken to them. Maddie and McKenzie had left it alone last week, but it was Monday of the week before Homecoming. And their calls told me they were desperate. 
                          
I took a deep breath. It sucked for all this drama to fall on today, because I had packed a chicken Caesar salad that I had planned to bury my face in to avoid both them and Graham. But my salad was not big enough to avoid them for the entire lunch period. 
                          
I approached the table. I was the last one to arrive, on purpose, because usually I came with Graham. Obviously that didn't happened today. They all watched me take my seat in between Graham and Connor. And I swear to god the whole cafeteria stopped talking to look up at our table.
                          
My stomach grumbled. 
                          
Yeah this crap will not go on. I'm sorry stomach. 
                          
"Maddie," I said slowly. "McKenzie. Your calls have gone through my data, so let's address this now. What do you want?"
                          
"Alexa," Graham scolded quietly from the side of me. 
                          
I looked over at him. "Graham, for your personal safety I would stay out of this, unless you want claw marks on your face," I warned. 
                          
"Alexa," Maddie said, "don't be like that. You don't have to make this a big deal."
                          
"Trust me, I'm not the one that made the whole cafeteria stare at me as I walked over to the table. I just wanted to eat my salad, but hey, I guess that isn't going to happen," I shrugged. "You and McKenzie were always the ones for dramatics."
                          
McKenzie glared at me. "Don't be like that. How many more texts and calls and pleas is it going to take to make it clear that we are sorry?"
                          
They both set down their spoons, and the handles were dipping into their soups, which meant they were in this conversation for the long haul. That was dedication, I would admit. 
                          
"Fine. You're sorry. But for what? Do you even realize what you did, and why it was so bad that I would be mad at you this long?" I crossed my arms across my chest. This would be good.