Bookish London

Chapter 4 - Kyle

After she had disappeared behind me in the school hallway, I found myself turning around to watch her go.
That was unusual, being that I do NOT have any interest in whatever might happen to her. I just…I got worried.
Since when I get worried for a useless nerd like her?! Since never, I should not even give it any value, really…I should just ignore it. But then I saw her fall.
Before I had any sense of what I was doing, I ran to her, my study bag bouncing off my shoulder, causing pain repeatedly on my waist, but that didn’t even register in my neuronic cells, I just ran to Her.
She had walked just five feet from me, maybe six, so it didn’t take me too long to get to where she had stood just minutes before. I caught her just in time…I hate her, but enough to let her hit her head on the floor…that would be my plan for Cailyn Thompson, lol.
As I was saying…I catch her with my arms open and try to wake her up…she doesn’t respond to anything my mind can think of, so I take her in my arms, her school bag in my left hand, and I take her to the school nurse.
I am not a doctor, I’m not supposed to know how to respond to such events…but this time, I felt like I should. But only for a heartbeat.
When I know she’s in the good hands of our nurse Melissa, I go to leave the room…but I stop in the doorway, just one second too much to lock eyes with her, her eyelids half closed, half open, still shaken by her blackout.
I don’t even react to this, and I simply turn and leave, just in time to disappear in between the momentum of Kayla running into the room, and then I was in the hallway, walking away and getting back to my friends, who were waiting for me at the school entrance.
“What took you so long, Ky?” Duncan asks, unknowingly. I open my mouth to answer with one of my smart remarks, but Alex intervenes, yelling, while running to us, saying: “I know, I now!”
Of course, he knows, he must’ve been in the hallway…NO this cannot happen…I don’t want their jokes….
“Shut up Al-” but my voice goes unheard. “He tried getting himself out of the boring pair work for History…we all know Mr Charleston thinks he’s one of his favourite students ever! Didn’t you, Ky?” he says. Poor lad, he really thinks I begged to get out of the lab work…genius cover story, Alex! Thank you so much, you will never know how grateful I am.
“Yeah, yeah.” I nod, blubbering the words as fast as I can. Alex throws his right arm around my shoulder and pats me on the back. I smile…in the end, what does it change if I put one white lie between us?
“And did he grant you your wish?” asks William hopefully.
“Sadly no, Will. I wish I could do it with one of you guys…” I say, melancholily. I inadvertently turn to look back at the nurse’s office, which has a window watching over the school garden and, further on, the street we’re about to start walking on.
I can still see the single bed where I laid her down…and, if I look closely enough, I can outline Kayla’s figure sitting on the side of the bed…I wish it was me in Kayla’s place…What?! That’s nonsense, brain, wake up! You don’t.
You hate the girl you just saved from a concussion…that seems weird also to me, you know, now that I think of it…
“Kyle James Carter, are you on earth?”
I hear distantly Duncan’s voice say, while something is moving faster and faster in front of my face…oh, no wait, its Duncan’s hand being waved in front of my face.
They probably think I fell asleep with my eyes open, for all I know…
“Saints guys, calm down, I’m still here you know! And Duncan, a note for the future: your hand flapping in front of me does nothing to wake me up. Now can we please go my place?”
They nod in agreement and go take the tube from Temple station on the yellow line, and after ten minutes we get to Monument station, our stop.
We step on the stairs leading to ground level and we find ourselves in the square dedicated to the single Monument to the great fire of London which took place in between 1666-1667 AD.
We walk 200 feet on our right and we get to my flat’s building. I walk inside and say Hi to Clara, my family’s maid. She’s sweet, but she’s forgetful. But anyone can be at times, so it’ no fault of hers.
I set down my bag and invite my best friends to play some video games while sitting on my bedroom’s sofa.
In the meantime, I get Clara to make us something to eat and then I give her the free time she deserves, she needs to see her family too, at least once a day.
We spend the next two hours challenging each other in individual or double challenges.
We laugh, a lot, especially because Alex ends up giving us his full comedy repertoire, which makes us laugh until we double down onto the floor clutching our stomachs and still, we don’t stop. 
I’ve known these three guys since forever, and I haven’t stopped loving-hating them, at times I got angry at them, but I care for them more than anything. 
We stay together a little while longer, and then they leave my house to go back to their own homes. 
After around ten minutes of my loneliness, I realise I cannot stand it...” But you read books on your own all the time!” my brain says. I know, and? I’m not alone when I read, I live in my book...oh my heavens, I’m talking like a nerd!
Regardless of the thoughts whirling in my head, I get changed out of my school uniform and dress casually, like a university-student casual.
I put on a dark brown sweater over my white shirt, leaving the collar outside. I grab my coat and throw it over my shoulder, holding it with my left hand, and I seize my money, my phone and my copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and head out to my favourite spot on the Thames’s riverbank, about a hundred feet far from Blackfriars station.
I take the first train I see at arm’s reach going in that direction and, after a while, I can finally say: Some peace! It’s been a while since I had some at hand!
But then I walk steadily to my spot and there she was, Elizabeth Leigh Cuthbert, sitting in MY spot! How?!
Of all London, she had to choose this silly riverbank bench which has perfect shade and good view of the Millennium Bridge and all the city’s sights-
Who am I kidding this is the best place ever, it’s not at all silly! But why do I need to find her here?! Heavens, this is not the time for me to stress out, I need my peace!
But then again, that instinct hits: I say hey to her.
Am I dumb? Or do I simply seek to unleash torture on myself? Why Brain, why do you give me the impulse to talk to the ONE person I can’t stand, besides that little snitching snake that is Cailyn Thompson and her ignorant helpers: Charmaine and Alexia. They make me want to puke. But that’s besides the point.
She, she said Hey back…and then I obviously give her a smart retort about her book, Pride and Prejudice…I’m reading The Picture of Dorian Gray for Heaven’s sake, I’m not one to judge!
But my mouth thinks otherwise…It’s her favourite book since we studied it and had to read it in middle school…hell, why do I even remember that?