Let's Pretend (5sos Adoption Story)

0.5

A couple hours later, Brynn and I had lunch. Since our last class had been together, it was easy for her to show me to the cafeteria.

As we walked, I kept glancing at Brynn and trying to pretend I wasn't. I don't think was doing a very good job though because she kept smiling for no reason, like she knew something was up. Finally she turned and looked at me knowingly, with this amused expression pasted all over her face.

"Why do you do that?" She asked and at first I thought she was talking about the staring, but I realized after a moment that she was referring to something else, but something I still wasn't sure of. "Do what?"

She nodded toward my sweatshirt pocket. "You shove your fist into the pocket and I can tell that it's something that you do often because it looks like after a long time of doing it, it's beginning to make a hole."

I looked down. She was right, I hadn't even noticed, but thinking back I seemed to have this habit of shoving my fist into my pocket really hard. So hard, that it was starting to rip a hole through my jacket pocket. "Oh," I blushed, "I don't know. I just, I guess it's just a bad habit I picked up somewhere."

I knew where, too. My mom always used to do this. She always wore a blue zip up hoodie and it's right pocket had a hole in it. I hadn't thought anything of it until now, but somehow I knew that it was one of those few things we shared.

"I-" I blushed again and said the first thing that came to mind. "Your eyes are really pretty."
What an idiot, I thought. Why would I say something so stupid?

Those pretty blue eyes I had been speaking of widened and i realized I had caught her off guard almost as much I had myself. "Sorry," I quickly apologized.

"No, don't be," she said, almost in awe. "I like yours too." Her tone was distant, almost as if she were talking to herself. "Never seen eyes such a bright green before... They're amazing."

I felt my face go red and she chuckled before taking my hand and pulling me through a set of double doors into a large room bustling with teenagers who were in the process of trying to get a million different places at once, each balancing a tray precariously.

"This way," Brynn pulled me with her toward a line and we stood together in a comfortable silence that I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed because I hadn't felt it in a long, long time.

So school didn't end up being as bad as I thought it would be. Nearly everyone was extremely kind, and having Brynn help me along made everything much easier. I say nearly everyone because there were a few kids who looked at me like I was something they'd found on the bottom of their shoes, but Brynn filled me in on them, she told me to steer clear. They were what she called The Cliches, popular, mean, and infuriatingly beautiful. She wasn't wrong. Unfortunately two of them were in over half of my classes.

But Brynn made the rest of school more than bearable. She was in four out of my six classes and we had lunch in the same block, so it worked out well. Speaking of Lunch, during that time Brynn introduced me to a few of her friends, Penny, Will, and Delia, the last of which curiously shared a last name with Michael. I didn't feel like passing that information out so I kept quiet about it. They asked a lot of questions about America and what it was like there, how I was adjusting to the change in time zones. All that stuff.

After school, I gave Brynn my phone number. She put it into her phone, waved goodbye to me, and began walking toward the parking lot. Apparently, she lived close so she didn't have to wait for someone to pick her up or ride on the bus. I, unfortunately, did not have that luxury.

I waited fifteen minutes until finally Luke pulled up at the curb in a red convertible, leaning over to look at me through his dark sunglasses. That just wasn't right. Sunglasses don't belong in November. I slammed the door behind me and stared at the empty courtyard as Luke pulled out of the parking lot. I was the only kid left, the last kid before me had been picked up ten minutes prior.