A Bleak Kind Of Happy.

22: Ditching.

I step out of Riley's car taking a second to stare at the building. School. I could go on and on about how much I loathe this place, the insecurities it has caused me, a major factor in my sadness, but today, I smile.

I walk over to Riley and sling an arm around her shoulder.

"Ooh, someone seems a little excited today." Riley says. "Orange scarf." She points out once again shaking her head in shock.

All I do is nod.

Is it normal that my mind is fixed on one person? Is desperation of becoming happy actually making want to hear whatever corny thing Farkle might say today?

As usual, Riley has first period; English with Lucas otherwise she's going to be unRiley. Not so luckily for me, I have English with them too. How do they actually expect me to pay attention and not be washed away by sadness during their rain of public display of affection?

When we enter the school building, we receive stares. That's quite the norm here, everyone taking their turns to greet the ever happy, lucky girlfriend of Lucas Friar, while I'm hover beside her like a dark mist no one notices.

Today the some portions of the stares seem to be directed at me. I even get greeted.

"Riley!" One girl named Juno Waters calls and stops us to give Riley a hug. I'm automatically a dark mist again.

While they engage in some chit chat about horticulture my eyes linger through the crowd looking for some little Justin Bieber look alike.

There! I spot him coming in through the school's main entrance with the crowd. We make eye contact for like three seconds and he turns and leaves the building.

My heart sank.

"Oh, and you! How are you?" Juno says realising I've been standing there after like two minutes of discussing horticulture with Riley.

"Yeah, I'm good." I say trying to sound nice.

"Awesome, okay, bye girls." And she quickly walks away.

Riley starts moving through the crowd of students calling to say hi. I'm still frozen. Did he really do that? Is he avoiding me?

"Maya!" Riley calls from about three feet away. "We're gonna be late."

"Yeah." I say mouthing 'washroom' and pointing to it.

"Oh." Is all she says and dashes off.

Huh, the strip of orange silk around my neck seems to be making me more noticeable even without Riley. People stare and smile and wave and stuff.
I even waved back tried to force a smile.

It's all part of playing happy. When they actually take a chance to glance at you, you have to look like everything is all peachy and you're not dying inside. Or to almost die and be in a coma before some people actually take time to acknowledge my presence in this school.

Farkle.

That two-second stare flashes before my eyes. It could mean anything but I feel so dejected. It looked like he was embarrassed. Like he was avoiding that hug I thought of giving him with the crowd watching. Did he see it in my eyes that I was falling for him? Isn't that what he wanted?!

I have to know why. I needed to follow him.

I walked past the washrooms and towards the entrance to the parking lot.

Black Honda Accord, Black Honda Accord. My mind was chanting.

What the heck? He could've brought any other of his cars by the looks of it. He was freaking rich.

I spin on my heels back towards the school and-

"Good morning, Maya."

I yelp a little.

"So, looking for me?"

"Uh..." I had no idea what to say. Yes I was looking for you but why was I ?

"Hey Farkle." I say shyly. I had zero idea what to say.

"Mmm," he starts moving and I move along with him. "I'm not even gonna ask how you are we can do that later."

"Uh...okay?"

"So, what do you think about ditching in a general sense."

I stop walking and give him a blank look.

"Ditching." He says, "an informal term meaning to abandon or get rid of. How do you perceive this idea generally among students."

"Well," I say and we start walking again. "In my opinion, once a while ditching is healthy."

"Healthy?" He says chuckling.

"Yeah, healthy. Unless you want your brain to explode from all the trigonometry, cells and genetics sh*t like that."

He laughs. "Ooo, cells and genetics is under biology and if you put it that way, it must be healthy. But I'm not endorsing a ditching diet."

I smile a bit. "Yeah."

We take a tour around the parking lot not saying anything the Farkle stops.

"What if we ditched? Are you open to the idea?"

It takes me a second to absorb this. The well-known rich nerd with the perfect attendance wants to ditch? Or at least asking my take on us ditching?

"Uh, I don't know Farkle. With your perfect attendance and stuff." I say.

I never liked school. Honestly. But I never considered ditching. I might ride a motorcycle and be dressed in head-to-toe black but I'm not a bad girl. I'm a sad girl.
I'm playing happy and how will ditching be viewed in others' eyes? Is it a form of happiness? Or a form of saying 'I hate all of you and I'm sad' ? I choose the last.
I know for sure that Riley would kill me if I ditched.

"I'm willing to take a risk." He says somewhat confidently.

I simply sigh. "Sure."

He smiles his goofy nerd grin. "Sure."

He stretches his hand for me to grab it. "Shall we?" He asks.

I take in every bit of this before making any move.

He wore a gray shirt black skinny jeans,
His hair swept back in a beanie.
His hand reached out for me,
It indeed felt like a dream.
What if I could happy,
What if just maybe.

"We shall." I say smiling wider than I have ever and grabbing his hand as we walked behind the building.

We were only ditching,
But I felt finally free.

A/N: Are people still reading this? Tell me what you think😊😊😊.

Pleeeaassse.