The John Hughes Club

Chapter Forty Three

Chas

Inwardly, I'm buzzing.
Buzzing, because Mindy is just to the left of me, striding in sync with every step I am taking towards our Citizenship class. Even as we climb the stairs, we're perfectly in sync with one another.

That's the thing about me and her, we gel, we fit, we're cohesive. Up till now, I've been pretty restrained in her company. I've been holding it together. But now, I don't think I can anymore. The way Mindy just smiled in my direction and lowered her lashes down over her beautifully bare brown eyes, has just disintegrated my 'stay casual' resolve. As we stride into class together, we sit down together. We then start getting our textbooks out...together.

The class is full of rowdy teens, chattering on about unimportant things, while I'm sat here needing to get something hugely important off my chest. As I remove my jacket and drape it on the back of my chair, I notice that Mr. Bentley is being his usual late self to class. I've waited the entire summer for Mindy to stumble her way back into my life, and now that she has, I have to seize this opportunity...seize it now.

Shifting around in my seat, I move in close to the girl who is able to break my heart, then put it back together with just one smile. "Tell me what I want to hear? Tell me you want me again?" I blurt out to Mindy with a rasp of excitement, a rasp of hope.

Blinking with sweet surprise, she becomes adorably shy. "I can't, we're in class. Bentley will be here any minute," she whispers, eyeing the room with a smile about to reveal itself.

"Then we had better fill what time we do have left, with us." Grabbing Mindy's hands, I twist her around to face me. Determined and close, daring and playful, I can only grin. "Tell me?" I demandingly ask her again.

Moving nearer, her nose is now temptingly nearly touching mine. "I do," she happily whispers, not only giving me what I want, she's also giving herself what she wants.

Lifting her into my lap, I cuddle her in front of the entire class. As I hold her tighter, she holds me tighter. What I feel for this girl when I am with her, feels like coming home to a warm and cosy home; a home where I belong, a home that feels secure. Locked in an embrace of affectionate relief, we are together again—emotionally, physically, and fatefully—together again.

We are better this way.
Happier this way.
Stronger this way.
Now that I have her again, nothing or no one will ever weaken us...weaken what we have.

Everyone around us is loudly now hollering and whooping, whistling at our very public display of teenage togetherness. I don't care. Mindy doesn't care. Our awareness of them is insignificant to the awareness of us. With our foreheads pressed against each other's, our eyes and our attention become immersed in this moment...a moment we both thought would never happen.

"That's enough! Settle down! I feel like I've just walked in on an episode of Love Island...hashtag, please put Mindy back into her own seat, Chas Summers!" Mr. Bentley quips, being firm in a pretty cool teacherly way, putting the matter quickly aside with his good humour.

Smiling at the face I have wanted to see for so long, I do what is asked of me. Lifting Mindy from off my lap, I allow her to sit back down in her own class chair. However, I keep her hand in mine, hidden from view from Bentley. I'm not prepared to fully let her go just yet, and she knows that. The apples of her cheeks turn a shy shade of pink, because my fingers affectionately curl themselves around hers beneath the table, loving how good it feels to hold her hand again. As I steer my stare away from our clasped hands, my eyes wander up to her hair, to her profile, while she pays attention to what Mr. Bentley has kick-started his Citizenship class with. I suppose one of us should be paying attention, because just for a moment, my attention is very much elsewhere. Just for a moment, I need to drink in the surreal sight of Mindy's sable curls and her barefaced beauty. The last time I saw her without her makeup on, is a day that I prefer not to remember. Everything about Mindy on that day was bare and miserably stripped back. Today, she's just beautifully bare.

Needing her hand back, she smirks my way as she zips open her pencil case, pulling a pen from out of it. "Are you just going to stare at me?" she whispers, her grin prettily painted everywhere on her mouth.

"For as long as I can possibly get away with," I confidently declare.

Passing me a pen, that shyness once again adorably blooms across her cheeks. "You're going to get us a detention if you're not careful," she utters, keeping one eye on Bentley.

"Perfect! At least we'll be alone then," I tease, removing the pen from between her fingers.

With just one shake of her head, she throws me a sweet sideways glance, wanting to express that she's not too impressed with me, but that wouldn't be true. With the same confidence, I take hold of her hand once again, still keeping it safely out of view of our teacher. Using the pen Mindy just gave me, I start writing in the soft palm of her hand something I have wanted to say since she crashed into my chest not that long ago: I 🖤 U

Peeking down at what I have written, she transfers her gentle gaze back up to me. Discreetly, she then reaches for my hand, using her own pen to write something within the palm of it: I 🖤 U 2

If it weren't for the fact that we're in class, surrounded by pupils, and Bentley already issuing me with a joke-covered warning, I'd kiss Mindy...I'd kiss her until the memory of our summer separation becomes nothing more than a blip in our teenage timeline.

It would seem that we have survived that blip, I suppose I can survive until the end of the school day to give Mindy that kiss.