It's You, I Suppose

I sat down at his lunch table, and Luke followed seconds after. I had my lunch tray full of processed school 'food', he had his carefully packed lunch box. I knew his mother had woken up early this morning to pack his nutritional and energizing lunch, and it almost made me giggle to look at his expression of disdain as he pulled out his sandwich.

"At least my apple looks better than yours," he teased, rolling the big red apple in his hand. I looked at my small green one and shook my head.

"School lunch has character," I argued playfully, taking a bite of my less than perfect apple. I smiled upon discovering that despite it not looking as good as his, my apple was juicy and sweet. It may not have exactly been the epitome of produce, but it was good enough for me to prove a point, which made me comfortably content.

"What are you smiling about now?" Luke asked, and it made me smile even more, which in turn caused him to grin like crazy too. We just sat there, in the middle of the chaos of lunch, and smiled at each other. 

I saw a shift of blue out of the corner of my eye and my smile instantly fell when I looked across the table. Matt's eyes met my own and my heart skipped a beat. I could tell by the way he flinched that he had felt the same.

"You two are sitting with us today?" Bren sat down too as his voice broke the awkward silence Matt and I had created. I tore my gaze away from his face to look up at Bren.

"Yeah, I didn't want you guys to feel like I had forgotten about you," Luke answered, and I could tell by their tone of voice that neither if them had noticed what had happened between Matt and I. 

Good, I thought, the last thing I wanted is for them to know.

 I ate the rest of lunch in silence, half heartedly listening to Luke and his friends conversation. The football game went through one ear and Call of Duty came out the other. Occasionally Luke would look at me and smile his sweet 'you're everything to me' smile, and I would force a happy expression on my face. An expression that concealed the heart ache, the pain, and the hurt I so carefully hid from my boyfriend. 

Suddenly I was pulled out of my head by Matt's voice asking me, "Ella, did you finish Formell's assignment?" 

It seemed to everyone else to be an innocent enough question, but we both knew there was a higher message. Maybe not in the words, but the fact that he had spoken to me was a deeper meaning in itself.

"Yes," I told him unsure of my own voice. "Why?"

He shrugged in that nonchalant way that I liked so much. "I was just wondering if you had it done if I could possibly look at it, at the beginning of class..."

I nodded, confused. It was unlike him to not have the world history homework finished. We had often joked that Formell's last hour class was our study hall, our cake class, the course that was forced upon us to boost our already pristine GPAs. 

Just as I was about to ask him what circumstances had not allowed him to finish his homework the  bell rang and the entire lunch room stood up as if we were all connected to puppet strings. Across the table Matt and I shared another look that carried electrical currents. I sucked in a breath, holding it, waiting for him to speak.

"I'll talk to you at the start of last hour, ok?" but it wasn't so much of a question as it was a code. He wanted to talk to me, and that was all that mattered.

I stood frozen, and Luke came and grasped my hand. "Everything alright babe?" He asked, his genuine concern obvious. 

"Yeah, everything is perfect," I lied, walking with him away from my unseen problems. "Everything is perfect." 

Because I couldn't tell him the truth. I couldn't tell my boyfriend I was in love with his best friend.