Feelings

17: Breakouts

Normally 6 hours is a lot of time. Not in this case. Every time I blink it's like another hour passes. Geometry, lunch and Drawing flash by. Somehow, it's already 2:50.

Zoe comes up to me while I'm packing. "Jae?"

"Oh, hey," I reply.

Her eyes are glued to the floor. "I heard, um, you asking Wren out and, uh, that you're meeting up."

Is she going to try to change my mind? "Ok..."

"And I just wanna say, good luck. With her." She blinks hard and envelopes me in a hug. This is nice of her to do, especially with what happened earlier. I hug her back. Then she lets go and quickly leaves. Now to meet up with Wren.

I come out from a different exit. One facing south. There are garbage bins taller than me and a pungent smell strikes my nose. I run right, past the corner until I see the nearest window. Inside is an empty window. Wrong. I check the next one. Another empty room. It takes 3 more tries until I find the detention room.  Wren's twirling her hair at the back. She spots me and it looks like she's panicking. She's using her finger under her desk to point at someone. I follow her finger to the teacher at her desk. I instantly crouch. Did they see me? I hope they didn't. My phone buzzes with a text from Wren:

[3:12 PM]

[W_fox]
DONT LOOK INSIDE JUST WAIT

Just wait? How am I supposed to wait? 5, 10, 15 minutes pass. Did she forget? Suddenly one of the windows start shaking. I'm dead.

Actually, it's one of the empty classroom windows. Judging by my memory of people that climb out windows, it's hopefully Wren. And it is. She's fiddling with something. "Ur...e...ob."

"What?" I place my ear against the window.

Now her voice is way more clearer. "Turn the knob."

"Knob?" At the bottom of the window is an oval-shaped knob. I twist it and Wren swings it open. A corner of the window smacks me in the forehead. "Ah! Owwwww..." Searing pain spreads all over my head as I clamp the hit area.

Wren quickly climbs out. "Oh my god, are you ok?"

I have to wait until the pain passes before speaking. "Mmn..."

"Here, let me look." She brushes away my arms arms to part my hair. Let me say that again. Wren is touching my hair! "Hmm, I can't find it." I know she won't be able to find it buried under my messy hair. Meanwhile I am freaking out because each touch sends jolts of excitement through me. Our faces are just centimetres apart. I can count each of Wren's freckles. Her brown eyes seem to glow in this shaded place.

Another wave of pain as Wren finds the bruise. "Ooh, that's big." She lets go of my hair and steps back. "I don't think it's too bad.

"Thank you, Doctor Fox," I joke. Surprisingly, Wren laughs. I made her laugh!

"Anyways, what do you wanna tell me?" she asks.

I forgot about the entire reason why I'm here. My prepared speech in my head disappears from my memory. "Uh, do you want to, um, go, um, ice skating? Maybe?"

"Like a date?"

"No! I mean, um, if you want, to call it that, then, uh, sure..."

Wren smiles, "Sure. I'd love to."

"Oh, ok. That's, um, cool." She'd love to! Dad is right. She would say yes. It was so easy, what was I worried about? Behind Wren, someone bursts out of a pair of double doors. They look mad. Really mad.

They point at Wren. "You! Get back here!" I recognize them as the detention teacher.

"Let's go." Wren takes my hand and pulls me away from the angry teacher. I run to keep up with her. She starts laughing, so I laugh too. With us running away and Wren holding my hand, this could be one of the best days of my life.

*****

Eventually we're far enough that we stop. When I look around, tall trees surround us. We must be in some sort of forest or park. There's also a river that follows the path we're on. Wren's panting when I look over at her. Our hands are still holding on to each other. Her warm hand kind of soothes me. It's soft.

"Where are we?" I ask her.

She looks around "I... don't know. We might be lost." She squeezes my hand. I think Wren's worried.

We followed this gravel path here, so if we keep following it, we should arrive at the edge of this forest-looking thing. "Probably should follow this path. We'll be fine." I squeeze back.

"Ok."

We walk for a while, long enough that I can tell it's sunset. Mostly Wren talks about her life issues and a bunch of other stuff. I'm marveling at the fact that my hand found Wren's. It fits and it feels so perfect, and it happened so naturally, like it was meant to be, but I'm stretching it there. The gravel path we're following abruptly ends and a wide field takes its place. This must be the park!

Wren loosens her grip on my hand. "We got out." I tighten my grip so we still hold hands and I see a flash of annoyance on Wren's face. I'm guessing that she wants to let go, so I loosen my grip and our hands fall apart. That just makes her more annoyed. Oops. "Isn't this the park?"

"Yes it is," I reply.

"So um, when do we meet up? For the thing?"

Well, since we already held hands, maybe I might as well do it now. "Now?"

She groans. "I really, really would, Jae, but you know I ditched my bag, and fucking Mr. Tran took my skateboard. Mom's gonna ground me anyways." Her hand finds it's way back into mine. "I promise we'll ice skate tomorrow. Name the time and place. I'll be there."

Wren's eyes glow with honesty. She better stick to her word. "Ok," I sigh.

"Thank you, so much." Wren's smile screams gratitude. She squeezes my hand one last time before running back into the forest.

I don't know what to feel. Am I brimming with happiness after holding Wren's hand, or disappointed that we couldn't go out today? I originally planned to ask her out and go out in the same day. Isn't that how it normally works?

At least I have something to look forward to tomorrow.