Always

Chapter 2

We were halfway through lunch before I realized I had plans to meet Harry but no way to contact him or any clue where we planned to go.  I was sitting where I did everyday with Lydia, Haley, Jack, Will, and today, Colt in the cafeteria.  I looked around the room, trying to find Harry to clarify our plans, but couldn’t see him anywhere.  On second thought, I wasn’t sure I had ever seen him in the lunch room, or if I had, I hadn’t noticed.  Upon my fourth or fifth sweep of the room, I was certain he wasn’t there.  I only had the one class with him, so if I wanted to find him, now was my best chance.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to the table, not paying attention to the fact that it was right in the middle of Haley’s sentence. 

“Uhh, okay,” she said before launching right back into whatever she was talking about.  I got up from the table and walked toward the door on the side that led to the rest of the school.  As soon as I was through the door, I paused, trying to think where he could possibly be.  Only one place came to mind for someone like him: the library.  I started down the hallway towards the room I was now almost positive he was in.  Our schools library was huge, with little seating nooks hidden throughout the shelves and two levels.  Awesome.  Why did his potential hiding spot have to be so vast? 

I decided to start on the upper level and started toward the stairs.  He wasn’t on the first set of chairs I came across on the landing, so I started weaving through the shelves.  The second level search was nearly complete when I heard a soft, “Hi,” come from behind me.  I had walked right past him.  He was seated on a small couch with a book in his lap nestled between a row of shelves, with more shelves starting and ending on the other sides.  It was like a small cave of books; no wonder he liked to sit up here. 

“Hi,” I smiled at him. “I was just looking for you.”

He swallowed and pushed his glasses up on his face before saying, “You were? Why?”

"Well we made plans to work on our project but I realized we didn’t say where, and I don’t have your phone number or anything so… here I am.”

"Oh, right,” he said, as if this had already occurred to him but was hoping I wouldn’t work it out until too late.

I ignored the slight disappointment in his voice that I had realized this.  “So, what should we do? Do you want to come over to my house after school?”

“Um… s-sure,” he gulped.

“Okay, here I’ll write down my address for you,” I said, reaching around for my bag to grab some paper and a pencil.

“I know where you live, Joey.”

"What? You do? How?”

He just stared at me, blinking once.  “I live just down the block from you…”

This was new information to me.  I had no idea that he was practically my neighbor and guilt flooded through me. “Oh, right, I think I knew that…” I tried to cover, unconvincingly.

"Should I just come right after school or..?”

“Yeah that should be fine!” I said, feeling as though I were the flustered one now.  “See you later, Harry.”

He just nodded at me and returned to the book perched in his lap.  I noticed a bit of sandwich crust sitting on a plate on the table next to him, a water bottle half drank, and an apple core.  I had been right- he was eating his lunch in the library.  I felt a wave of sadness sweep through me as I started back down the stairs towards the lunchroom again. 

He seemed perfectly nice, a little shy and awkward maybe, but nice enough to not be sitting alone.  Did he really have no one to eat lunch with?  Or did he simply choose to eat alone in the library?  I hoped it was the latter, because the former seemed so desperately lonely to me.