Closer Apart

Laila - 7

At the end of class, I smiled to Hunter. He grabbed his books and I grabbed mine. We both passed Mr. Lexton and I thanked him for today's class. He smiled and nodded at me and then Hunter and I continued to walk to the courtyard where we usually ate lunch.

We grabbed our usual table and sat across from each other. As we were talking, out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy with the coffee "stained" shirt walk in, Vincent. I waved him over and Hunter quickly turned around to see the new person joining us for lunch.

I got a confused look from Hunter but I ignored it and introduced the two boys to each-other.

"Hunter, this is Vincent," I motioned to each one as I said their names, "and Vincent, this is Hunter."

Hunter looked at me awkwardly before speaking, "How did you meet him?"

Vincent laughed before quickly answering Hunter's question.

"She spilt her coffee on me this morning," he said in a relaxed manner, he then questioned Hunter, "How did you two meet?"

Vince didn't seem to really care about how we had met, he might've just tried to be polite by asking.

"We've known each other for almost all of our lives--" Hunter paused, thinking, "--we're really close too."

Hunter had said something else under his breath but I didn't quite catch it. As the two boys talked about me and each-other, almost "sizing up."

I ate my spinach while listening to their trivial argument-like conversation. Then Hunter brought up something that I didn't need to hear them talking about. It's not that I was embarrassed to hear them talking about it, it's the fact that he brought it up so boldly in front of me like he had something to prove.

"So, are you still a virgin?" Hunter scoffed.

"Hunter!" I scolded, this was so unlike him.

"Don't worry about it," Vince refuted, "if he wants to know, he can know-- and a quick FYI, no, not even close, bud."

I blushed at this and Hunter's expression hardened, with the end of Vincent's words and the start of the heavy silence, Hunter stood up abruptly, and left.