Being the best

A little heart to heart

I reached the room door and took a deep breath, breathing through my nose and out my mouth in little puffs of air, as my nerves skyrocketed. Finally, I pulled down on the handle and steeped in. Nathan turned to face the door, his expression mildly surprised as though he wasn't expecting me to come back. I sat down and smiled at him, as though was totally normal and I wasn't freaked out, the same way you would if you were visiting your gran in hospital who has just a hip operation or something.  He raised an eyebrow at me, with a quirky little smile as though he knew how fucked up I was over all of this, in fact he probably did know, he knows me well enough to be able to read my expressions pretty easily.

"So how are you?" I started the conversation, mentally face palming as I thought about the fact that he obviously wasn't okay with all the weird tubes coming out him and the bandages across his body.

"Again, really Vesper, the best you can say is "How are You?"" He replied back snappily.

"Sorry, just thought maybe we should start a different conversation this time! Should I ask another question then, Do you know when you are due out?"  By this point I could feel the heat slowly building onto my face as I got more and more embarrassed at his bitchy little comment.

"They haven't said yet, I suspect they will have more of a clue, once my scars heal and all that, but I hope in at least a few days, because I have finals and I don't know what my parents would do if I failed."

I nodded, Nathan always was worried about his results, his parents where pretty relaxed but he always took exams super seriously, to a degree that there was a stage he would be studying before and after school and during school, while doing nothing else.

" I could bring you tomorrow or something any of the homework you might of missed, I can speak to the teachers they would be pretty understanding, I imagine."

A look of relief passed over his face like a shield as though that was one less worry gone. His shoulders relaxed and his frame became better.

It worried me the fact he was so worried over exams. Yes they are extremely important, don't get me wrong I am not saying they aren't. I personally, as someone who revises constantly before exams say this. But don't let them be the only thing you can think about in 6th Form.

He nodded at me and said "Could you and I know this might be a bit harder but could you tell Asher and anyone else who has been asking me that I have caught Severe Food Poisning and it would be better that no one could see me at them moment because I might be infectious.....it would just make it easier."

"Yeah, no bother, that's a pretty good one too, but Nathan, I know this isn't something you will want to hear or be reminded off but what about at P.E time, you know you share a changing room with the boys and they are going to wonder about....the scars or whatever. I don't mean to rub it in or anything and I am sorry if you don't want to talk about it, I'm just curious!" I looked down as I said this so I wouldn't be making eye contact, just to appear that I was mutual.

"Honestly Ves, I have no idea what I am going to do with any of this, I don't even know exactly who I am because let me tell you this, this is not the Nathan that I was a few months ago and to be honest, I am not so keen on this Nathan, this Nathan has seriously just gone and fucked up his life, my mum is never going to let me by myself anymore, I think I just went and threw my privacy in the bin.  She was threatening to take the lock of my door, however I reminded her I was a teenage boy and I sleep naked so she finally agreed to let me keep the lock." He said this with a slight grimace on his face, as though the thought of him losing his privacy was something he was dreading, I was kinda dreading it too, after this incident I knew I would be seeing him more just because he has asked for me and I wanted to make sure he was okay, we had a weird friendship, no that wrong, connection and I knew I would not be able to get away from him.

I nodded again, not entirely sure what to say to him. That feeling that you get when you exhaust all the subjects you can think off and there is now an awkward silence filled the room. I knew he was feeling the awkwardness practically sweating of me but he clearly had run out of ideas to say so in the end I said "Yeah..." and stood up, pushing back my chair.

He looked up from his silent reverie with the window pane above my head and made eye contact with me.

"I'd best be going," I said "I'm sure my mum is probably getting worried where I am, I haven't had time to text her but I will see you tomorrow, okay? and I will bring you the school stuff, basically just relax for now and don't worry about all of that, I think sometimes you need a bit of a break and I hoped it wouldn't be like this but because it is I think you should make the most of this rest and you should sleep more."

"Okay, thanks again Vesper, for everything."

I nodded and bent over him and kissed his cheek lightly as I gave him a very gentle hug. He still winced though and I looked at him concerned. He smiled as I walked out and shouted a goodbye as he lowered his bed again to the lying down position.

When I finally got back and was contemplating the whole occasion in my head as I lay on my bed, I realised that he seemed happier in a way, which was very weird, to date I am not sure why, but after that incident it seemed to set him free."