The Boy Next Door

Chapter Three

Brittany Irwin
~
"How about how chocolate is better than vanilla?" I spoke, chewing the end of my pencil.

"No way, especially when vanilla is better than chocolate." Wyatt's voice was heard beside me, his fingers entangled with his hair.

We were sitting in Mrs. Q's class, a blank piece of brainstorming paper to jot down ideas for our essay. I realized this boy was my polar opposite, our music tastes were different along with our choices of ice cream, and whether or not John Green's books were heart wrenching (which they are). The boy grumbled and picked up his pencil.

"How about how Brittany Irwin is the most stubborn essay partner?" He looked up at me, eyebrows slightly narrowed.

"Har har har," I poked him on the bridge of his nose where his glasses were. "You're funny."

"I try," he snarked at me.

Useless ideas tumbled around, and I began to grow tired. My hand was holding up my head on my cheek, my eyes dropping. A little nap wouldn't hurt anyone..

He then snapped at my face, making me jolt up. "I got it, what about equal rights?"

"Equal rights? Like people of color? Women?" I questioned, liking the topic.

Wyatt shrugged and then raised his eyebrows. "What about sexuality and gender acceptance?"

I punched his arm and he yelped, leaning against the wall and his chair gave out under him and tilted, causing him to fall. "Oh come on, you big baby, I didn't even hurt you."

He let out an exaggerated gasp. "You broke my arm." I rolled my eyes and grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him up, I was obviously stronger than him.

"Anyways, that's genius, I agree." I grabbed the piece of paper and scribbled 'S.A.G.A.' at the title of the lined paper. We wrote down an outline of what each paragraph would be about, ranging from awareness to suicides and murders to acceptance. The both of us were on fire, scribbling down ideas, that's when I realized maybe he was gay?

"So, are you gay?" He asked abruptly with a nonchalant tone.

Nosey. I thought, but shook my head. "I'm grey-romantic pansexual."

I looked at him and he told me to look up people who we should use for the awareness and death paragraph on the computer. After finding some examples and writing down names, I glanced over at his computer to see what he was doing. My eyes scanned over the search bar and saw what he was typing.

"What does it mean to be grey-romantic?"

---
After English I had Choir, which was only girls. I didn't really have any friends, well, there was this one girl named Ally. In class, we would sit in chairs that were on risers and I sat on the middle riser and she sat behind me. During class, she would make snarky comments under her breath and I would always hear them, and laugh.

I didn't realize it, but she was actually in a few of my classes. She sat alone at lunch, except for this one guy. He had dark brown hair that covered his forehead and when I saw him, he was always smiling.

One day, I decided to ask Wyatt and Charlie at lunch.

"Oh, the girl is Ally Andrews and her brother, Blue." Charlie murmured through a mouthful of peanut butter and tuna (I know it's disgusting, but Charlie himself is disgusting).

"Blue? What kind of name-"

"He chose it when he was transitioning, Blue's transgender." Wyatt explained, pushing a bag of chips towards me.

I declined and then nodded. "Oh, I see, you guys friends with them?"

Charlie laughed. "We were, but Wyatt made everything awkward when he-"

"Shut it." Wyatt seemed to growl, covering his face with his hands.

"What? What happened?" I questioned, looking over at Charlie.

Wyatt covered the rest of his face. "Charles Valentine, I swear to go-"

"Wyatt had a major crush on Blue in middle school, and made a move on him, tried to kiss him on a Ferris wheel. Blue rejected him, since he was actually dating someone else, and Wyatt  decided that he'd rather avoid them at all cost then stay friends." Charlie said in one breath.

Wyatt's hands dropped from his face, which was beet red. "You're dead to me."

I only laughed. Charlie dropped the subject, obviously knowing how flustered and irritated Wyatt was. We spoke about politics, weird enough, and wondered what it would be like to have a talking horse as a president. In the end, we decided it would be best to have a talking goat as the president of the united states over a horse.

The bell rang, and it was time to leave for the next class, which I had Wyatt and Charlie in. It was history, and our teacher was this goofy old woman named Mrs. Brewster, or Mrs. B.

Wyatt is a history junkie, he's always raising his hand in that class and blurting out answers, which I have no problem with because I never pay attention in that class anyways so he helps me out.

I came into the school around September, it was October now, almost Halloween, and we were learning about Sleepy Hollow. To be honest, it was kind of a fun subject, especially because there was this kid named Matthew who was a proud teachers pet.

The first time I realized Wyatt disliked me a little more than I thought, and when I decided I was going to continue to annoy him, was when we were listening to a song for Sleepy Hollow. Wyatt was leaning back slightly in his chair and I was asking him about Ally, if he knew anything about her.

"No, now shut up and let me watch this." He said, rubbing his face underneath his glasses.

"You spend a lot of time with Blue, you seriously don't know anything about Ally?" I pestered, leaning across my desk to him.

He sat in front of me and he looked back. "Okay, I do know her, but I don't want to talk about her."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, it's none of your business." He hissed at me and leaned back further.

"The hell, what do you mean it's not my business?" I asked.

"It's just not, Brittany." Wyatt whispered.

"Why?"

"Why don't you just shut-" he leaned back too far and his chair slipped out from under him, his head hitting the corner of my desk causing him to fall to the ground.

I offered to bring him to the nurse.

---

I could tell Wyatt didn't want to cry, but I could see him biting the inside of his cheek because of an indent. I leaned against the wall of the nurses office, the walls lined with yellow bricks. The nurse tended to his head, which was bleeding a little bit.

While Wyatt slouched on a chair as the nurse fixed up his cut, I noticed something. On his shoulder, there was a black strip of clothing underneath his shirt. A part of me wanted to reach out and move his shirt, but I knew he didn't want me to touch him. Instead, I decided to bring it up later.

We were walking to our study hall, which we had with Charlie. "Wyatt?" I asked, stepping on certain colored tiles on the floor.

"What." He seemed to hiss at me.

"Well, excuse me." I grumbled, but continued. "I saw a little black thing under your shirt, what is it?"

Wyatt seemed to tense up, walking more stiffly. "Just shut up."

"Don't tell me what to do." I snapped, but I stopped talking. Obviously something upset him, so I didn't pester him.

Still, I couldn't help but