𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒔 // 𝙰𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙶𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚣𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚗

Chapter 37 - Class

𝑾𝒊𝒍𝒅.

Jadrien's Perspective

It's strange how after all that, it can just end so easily. Life goes on. Time doesn't pause for our convenience. Well, we drove Antoine to his mum's house, by his request. Gabe helped him inside, and I watched from the car window. Then we went home and life went on.

On Monday, Antoine is absent, and I assume it's because he's still sick. I feel just a touch of worry about this, hoping he'll get better soon. It's not familiar to have goodwill towards Antoine Griezmann, huh? It felt strange at first, but now it's starting to feel natural. Just as natural as my hate of him for years was.

On Tuesday, I was thinking he must be absent again, until the seventh period. We have the seventh, eighth, and ninth period classes together, because they're classes for kids that are way below gifted. I think we're both mostly in the lowest classes, but we only share those classes for the last three hours of the day.

He's sitting in his seat in the back corner, the farthest seat away from me, in the other front corner. I tried my best to avoid him as much as possible. Now I regret that. Now I long to be able to sit close enough to him to pass notes, since this teacher generally doesn't care and is half-blind anyway.

He's sitting there hunched over, obviously not caring one bit about the literature discussion going on. He's clicking his pen a lot, staring into space, and his notebook laying out on his desk is completely empty.

I get horrible grades, but at least I try.

So I'm a little scared to see how his grades would look, by the way he's giving not even an ounce of his attention to the class. His light brown hair is messy, and a little bit wavy, and he keeps fiddling with his strands, pushing his hair away from his forehead. I'm pretty sure his hair is brown. I just think sometimes he dyes it weird. Because it's been that light-ish brown  for quite a while now. He's got his arms crossed across his chest, and he's wearing a plain red t-shirt, blue gym shorts, and plain white socks halfway up his calves with the Nike check on them.

I then just realise how long I just spent taking in Antoine and his appearance, and what he's doing. I quickly look away, embarrassed, hoping no one saw me staring at him with googly eyes for so long. He sure didn't notice. He's in his own world.

I guess I am, too, though, because of him. I mean, I'm no longer listening to the literature lesson one bit. I'm listening to my brain and those thoughts about Antoine Griezmann, who's apparently, going to make me fail literature.

By simply sitting there and being him.

Why is it that he's just hunched over and being authentic and not even listening and completely zoned out, yet my heart flutters and I just want to keep looking at him?

He's not anything special right now.

Sitting in the corner all by himself, his mind off in other worlds.

What is he thinking about? I'm thinking about him. I'm sure he's not thinking about me, though.

Maybe he's thinking about football... Maybe he's dreaming about football. Being a pro. Maybe he's thinking he's going to be a pro, and you don't need to know about complex literature in order to be a professional football player.

I can't help but smile at that, and suddenly, I'm snapped out of it, when the teacher said, "Miss Abbott? Did you read the chapters?"

I look over in surprise at her. "Yes, Ma'am, of course I did. I always do."

She smiles. "You usually have much more insight. You seem distracted today. I just wanted to make sure." She asks me a question about the chapters, and I wrack my brain for the answer, before coming up with something lame, which a few people chuckle at.

"Not exactly," the teacher responds, "but at least that proves you read it."

Antoine's Perspective

I laugh a little bit at Reese Mallory's surprised, confused face when she's cold called on. I decide, though, to sit up in my seat, and scribble down a few lame notes, just so I don't get cold called on next. Because at least Reese Mallory actually read it, even if obviously, not very well. I didn't even read it.

I'm good at guessing on tests and quizzes, though. I just skim an online summary of the book and I'm always good to go.

As in C- good to go.

I mean, hey, it's not failing, and that's all that matters to me. All I have to do is finish high school and get through it. All I have to do is graduate.

I look at Reese Mallory from the corner of my eye. Her brown hair is wavy and down, tumbling over her shoulders. She's sitting up straight and confident, like she always does. Like she always does, at least from the start of this school year, I mean. Her eyes are fixed on the teacher, very focused. Those hard, confident, very dark brown eyes. I think they're a lot different from my blue eyes. My blue eyes are what makes me look weak. She's got makeup on, and it looks really nice. I guess I'd never tell her that, though. She's wearing an over sized unbuttoned button down shirt with a few paint stains on it. It looks old, but she kind of rocks it on top of that white crop-top and with her light blue, high-waisted blue jeans. She's very stylish, compared to my outfit, which is basically the most normal combination of clothes you could ever find. Go into any high school guy's drawers, and you'd find this outfit, probably. I guess I don't care. People hate me now, anyway. In fact, they'd probably end up hating me even more if I tried to look good.

Sometimes it's fine to be real, right?

I turn my attention back to faking writing notes, not wanting to be cold called on again.