Greyscale [✓]

Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

The food was rubbish.

Hannah was pretty disappointed – what was the point in organising such a grand affair if the food wasn't the best part? Everything was on toothpicks, itty-bitty slices of fancy cheeses and vegetables that she had never even heard off, alongside the smallest steaks she had seen. It was admittedly really good but she could barely get to savour the taste before it was finished in two bites.

"This is so depressing," Mohammad grumbled, glaring down at the plate in front of him as though it had personally offended him.

Becky snorted, one hand pulling at her box braids and the other holding onto her fork in a rather clumsy way. "I'm pretty sure you've had about four portions, you fat shit."

The English project set at the beginning of the year had clearly cemented some semblance of a friendship between the two, albeit one littered with insults and eye-rolling.   

"I'm a growing boy!"

Hannah slapped him over the head with a serviette, pulling her plate away from where his fingers seemed to be roaming. "And clearly it's all gone to your head, all you've spoken about all day is yourself."

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and she groaned, knowing perfectly well that his next words were going to be something about how he would talk about her and Rayne if she preferred. He, along with Becky, had been making quips about the two of them the entire day. She wasn't sure if Rayne was extraordinarily good at pretending he hadn't noticed or extraordinarily dumb but he hadn't commented on it, instead turning to talk to Carter whenever they said anything.

The boy in question was still seated beside her, so close that she could feel his body heat warm her bare shoulders like the embrace of a long-lost lover. Rayne was leaning back in his chair slightly, maple-syrup hair slicked back neatly for a change and an emerald tie around his neck that perfectly matched his eyes.

Before she could allow herself to get flustered at the way Rayne smiled at her – as though he could really see her and not what she projected to the world – she stood up abruptly. The edges of her long dress billowed out around her legs like stormy grey clouds as she ran a hand along the top of her now-empty chair.

"I'm just going to pop to the loo, be back in a bit, alright." The others were all lost in conversation, music woven into it and so, they were barely paying attention. Mohammad offered a brief nod before turning back to what Carter was saying as Rayne responded – the only one who did.

"Okay."

In a way, it was worse that he had responded to her. She was trying to push Rayne out of her mind, trying to tell herself that he was just a guy she barely knew. And it was true, she didn't know anything about him.

Other than the fact that his mother was lovely and smelt like warm pastry and sugar. His father had passed away when he was younger and his two sisters were the light of his life. She knew that he lived close to Becky and Carter, that he wanted to be a surgeon eventually and that his house felt like all the comfort in the world. She knew that he hated English but loved Biology – that he kept his head down in school to keep his grades up in order to maintain his scholarship.

'Oh shit,' Hannah thought to herself, unconsciously biting down on her bottom lip. She was wrong, she did know him. Maybe not everything, but surely everything that was important; the things that made him Rayne. Just as he knew the things that made her herself.

With her stomach twisting and turning tightly at the thought, she made her way through the Hall. How had he managed to get through the walls she had spent so long perfecting? How had he managed to get under her skin? She was so lost in her own mind that she barely noticed the way the crowds paved at her appearance, at the way smiles and muted congratulations were carried until they reached her.