Scales [ON HOLD]

Chapter Fifteen: 'Lyceum'

   Walking through the empty music corridor, I took glances at my hands. They were all scarred and red. The bleeding had stopped, and the pain was barely still there. 

   "O-octavia! Wait a second!" Jack was behind me near the entrance. I stopped walking and turned to him. He was panting and leaning on the doorway. He had a violin bad strapped to his back. When he caught his breath, he jogged over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'm so, so sorry. Please forgive me. Well, even if you don't, I will understand." His eyes widened and he began well up.

   "Jack, it wasn't your fault," I patted him on the back, my hands slightly hurting. He adjusted the strap on his violin and smiled sadly. "If it was your fault, I wouldn't have forgiven you!" I added. His faced formed a surprised look as he laughed doubtfully.

   "Have you really forgiven me? Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am absolutely ecstatic!" He started jumping up and down. Smiling and beaming happily, he grabbed my hands, completely forgetting about the acid incident. "Oh God, I'm so sorry."

   I looked down at my hands surprised. They didn't hurt at all when he touched them. He quickly let go, and then they really stung. I winced in pain.

   "I am so sorry. Shall I get Mrs. Roby? Do you need to go home? Oh no," He combed his hair with his hands stressfully. I smiled at the frustrated expression he had on. "Huh, well you're laughing, and so you must be okay. Well are you? I don't want to be thinking falsely. Don't lie now."

   "I'm fine, honestly," I lied. I noticed he wasn't wearing his bag. "Where is your bag?" I asked. 

   "Oh, in the lyceum. The Chess Club room," He added, acknowledging the confusing word. I knew what it meant though. He looked over his shoulder at the violin. "You know I am learning to play violin, don't you?"

   "Yeah, I do. I've always wanted to be able to play the violin. Well, actually I've wanted to play an instrument. Either the piano, violin or harp."

   Jack chuckled to himself, scratching his hand.

   "I could teach you Piano. You could attend lessons with me, well, I sort of teach myself through the valiant help of YouTube. Not the harp though; I can't play that."

   I stepped closer to him, but not awkwardly close. I tapped the side of my leg happily.

   "That would be amazing! My mother can't be bothered to schedule and pay for lessons, and so I am left to my last resort, singing." I sighed. I had always been good at singing. In fact, I had once entered a singing competition and won first place. Jack cocked his perfectly shaped head to one side.

   "You sing?" An idea flipped through his head. "I know! You could sing to the sound of my playing, or we could make a band. Ooh! Vinariah plays the drums! She could participate too!"

   I went along with it and nodded. I told him I was going to the chess room, and it turned out he was too. After going into the library, we spoke to the snooty looking librarian.

   "What book are you looking for?" She questioned Jack, pushing up her glasses. He was reading a story on his phone, and so he didn't realise she had asked a question. "Ahem." She 'coughed'.

   "Oh," He said, finally looking up. "Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick." 

   The librarian nodded, and ushered us into the cupboard. He pulled back a book off the shelf, the same one Vinnie had, and the wall slid away, revealing the chess club. There were already people inside; Vinariah, Lydia, that weird boy on the windowsill, Sam and another boy with black hair polishing his boots. Sam and Vinnie were playing a game of chess on the table.

   "Sam, I don't even know how to play chess and I'm beating you." Vinariah giggled. Sam had the cutest look in his eyes I had ever seen, making me smile.

   Jack walked over to them and set down his violin. They both looked up at him.

   "Jack! My brother whom I love dearly and will always pull through for me when I am in my darkest time of need. You know I love you right?" Sam queried suspiciously. Jack sighed.

   "No, Sam. I will not play for you." Jack plainly commented. His brother stood up, his naturally brown and white hair flying about randomly.

   "But Jack! What about when I helped you with your homework? I came through for you then. Do something in return for me!" Sam crossed his arms and frowned.

   "Right," Jack held up one his hands with his fingers outstretched, one by one he folded them into his palm as if he was counting. "Number one, I didn't need help. Number two, I payed you to do it, and way I say 'payed', I mean you stole it from my wallet. Number three, you did it wrong, and number four, I had to stay in at lunchtime to redo it."

   I laughed. Because they were both so intelligent, their arguments were hilarious. Sam placed a hand on his heart as if he was shocked by what his brother had just said.

   "I did nothing of the sort! I was borrowing the money to bribe the teacher not to give me detention for not doing the homework, which, by the way, did not work and so I had to stay in lunchtime with you. So really, you should be thanking me for allowing us to spend some quality time with each other." Sam corrected Jack. Jack gave him a look of denial.

   "We were on opposing sides of the room and we weren't even allowed to speak. And if ignorance is your definition of 'quality time'," Jack made quotation marks in the air with his hands. "then you shouldn't be in set 1 english."

   Their argument went on for ages. Vinariah signalled for me to sit down with her. She looked as though she was ready to ask me a question.

   "How," She began. "do you know Robin? He barely knows anyone." 

   I thought back to the day on the beach. Images of the hole, the cafe and the game shop flashed into my mind. I told her everything. I said about how I injured myself and how he saved me. Then, about the cafe and when he gave the waitress the number to the local psychiatrist. She laughed very hard at that, stopping the twins' argument. They both came over and so I retold the story. After another minute or two of hardcore laughing, I finished by telling them about the T-shirt and the jewellery shop. Vinnie wiped a tear away from under her eyes.

   "Are you sure that that's all that happened? He never would have carried on talking to you if you weren't... special." Sam interrogated.

   "That's true," Jack intervened. "Like I said earlier, you must be important if he spoke to you, let alone saved you! You didn't kiss him, did you?"

   I blushed. The thought had run through my mind once or twice, but no, we hadn't. I turned away from them.

   "Of course not. Why would I?" I retorted. I knew why I would, he was smart, kind, funny, interesting and handsome as hell.

   "Although," Vinnie added to the conversation. "You would make a cute couple," I blushed even harder, if that was possible. "You're exactly the same! Smart, sarcastic, good at chess. But then again, you and Jack look good together!"

   I didn't dare to look at his face, but I could tell he was staring at her, irate at what she said. I flinged a curl of my hair off my shoulder. Sam was smiling hard, unlike Vinnie who seemed to be totally serious at her remark.

   "Listen, I don't like anyone here. Well, not like like, and I never will. I don't love Robin, Jack, Sam or anyone. Sorry Sam." He wafted his hand as if to say that he didn't mind. I slumped back in my chair. Well, that's my friendship over. Just then, someone grabbed the back of my chair and tilted it backwards and dangerously low. I glared up at the smirking person who did it... Robin.

   "I'm hurt, Octavia."