The Life of An American Orphan.

Matt’s P.O.V
I pull the keys out of the ignition of my car and open the door, I take my backpack from the passenger seat and fling it over my shoulder as I close the door.

I look around before I start to make my way inside the school and over to Jennifer’s locker. A smirk comes on my face when I see her back is to me.

“Guess who” I say with a smile on my face as I place my hands in front of her eyes.

“Matt, stop it” Jennifer said and took my hands away from her eyes.

“What’s up?” I ask gently knowing that she’s in a bad mood.

“Nothing” She says and takes a book out of her locker and slams it shut.

“Come on, you know you can tell me anything” I say and take her left hand in both my hands.

She pulls it away “Can you please just stop it?” She asks and the walks away. I frown and turn around when I can’t see her in the halls anymore. I look around before I make my way outside to look for Sarah and I find her sitting under a tree reading some kind of a book (cliché I know.)

I make my way over to her and she looks up when my shadows is over her small figure.

“What?” She asks as she looks at me.

“Are you reading?” I ask with an arched eyebrow.

“Homework” She says and I nod, we stay silent for a few awkward seconds.

“Something tells me you didn’t come over here because I was reading” She says and close the book and put it on the ground on her right side and then pats the left side of her signaling me to sit down beside me.

I sigh and sit down and put my backpack beside me.

“What’s up?” She asks and I can hear a little concern in her voice.

“It’s Jennifer” I say and look down at the ground playing with the grass.

“Something wrong?” She asks.

“It’s just that every single time when I ask her if she wants to go out and do something she says that she’s busy” I say.

“She’s working” Sarah said and I could feel her eyes on me.

“Yeah, that’s what she’s saying to” I say sounding defeated.

“You don’t believe her?” Sarah asks and I look up at her.

“I dunno, doesn’t she like me anymore?” I ask and Sarah laughs.

“What?” I ask with a frown.

“I’m sorry” She says “Continue” She says after she stops laughing.

“And now she is all mad, it’s not because I nagged at her all the time is it?” I ask and look at Sarah.

“No, it’s not that believe me the girl is crazy about you.” She says and gives me a soft smile.

“Then what could it be?” I ask to no one in particular.

Sarah sigh and looks around a little before her eyes land back on me.

“If I tell you a secret will you promise not to tell a living soul?” She asks serious.

“Yeah, promise” I sound.

“You have to really promise, I swear if you tell Jennifer about any of this I will not be afraid to go to your house and slowly torture you with my bare hands until you die.” She said and pointed her index finger at me.

Holy crap, I think I just pissed my pants.

I nodded furiously and stuttered an I really promise.

She let out another sigh before she licks her lips and then takes another look around probably looking for any signs of Jennifer and when she can’t see her she turns around.

“You know that fancy thing you took Jennifer to” Sarah asked.

That was only a few days ago, does she think I’m stupid?

“Yeah of course, the charity event” I said and looked at her a little weird.

“Yeah that, well that required a fancy dress and Jennifer doesn’t really own one of those and neither does anybody else at the orphanage really, nobody she could borrow from that is.” She started and then let out a short breath.

“So, we had to go buy one for her and we found the perfect one, seriously even she thought she looked pretty in it and that doesn’t happen very often so of course we had to buy it but when we looked at the price we saw that it was 230 bucks, 230 bucks! Seriously who can afford something like that” She said waving her hands and then looked at me.

“Except from you” She said.

“And me being the smart person I thought I was I said she could just use her credit card and then return the dress, god I was stupid. Of course when she got home the fancy thing the dress was a little wet and dirty at the bottom and even though we both tried to both wash and scrub it away it didn’t work so she has to keep the damn dress.” She continued.

“So now she’s working as much as she can, she starts after school and comes home at midnight, then she does homework usually for three hours that depends and when she finally goes to bed she has nightmares. I don’t even know how she manages to stay awake in her classes.” She said and then let out yet another sigh and ran her right hand through her hair.

“Holy shit” I whispered, I didn’t want her to have to buy a 230 dollar dress, especially if she couldn’t afford it.

“She didn’t have to buy a dress” I said and suddenly felt guilty, I mean I am the reason she has to work late, do her homework ‘til three in the morning and then nightmares.

“Wait, she’s having nightmares? About what?” I asked, she couldn’t be having nightmares about the dress right?

She shook her head “It’s not my place to tell” She said.

This time I’m the one to sigh, the bell rings and we both stand up ready to go our separate ways until she grabs my arm gently.

“Seriously, don’t ask her about her nightmares. She may have some huge crush on you but she barely knows you and if you push it upon her you will just push her away and from the way I see you looking at her I’m guessing that is the last thing you want. You’re just going to have to way until she opens up to you, if she opens up to you” She said and I could see the softness in her eyes and hear it in her voice as she talked.

I nodded my head gently and then she let go of my arm.

“Later” She mumbled and walked away.

I took my backpack of the ground and flung it on my back and made my way over to the front door hearing giggles of girls as I walked by them but I didn’t bother to look at them because my mind was set on one thing.

I have to find some way of helping Jennifer out.