A thousand nights

XIX

School started, and with it the verbal abuse.

I hadn't seen Hamlin for the whole of the last week of Winter break; I thought she might have been ill or drowning in the sea of homework and revision, but apparently neither of these were the case.

As I walked to my morning class I saw her sitting on her own in the far corner of the school's library. A small, thin book in a white cover lingered between her hands. She looked a bit uncofrortable, as if she was forcing herself to look as if she was having the time of her life between those pages. Her long kinky hair was tied in a knot on top of her head, her eyes...they were too fixed, too still, to be actually reading.

I didn't know what to do. At that point I could feel that she didn't want me around her, but I couldn't just leave.

I couldn't.

She ignored my initial demands to not be assoscited with me, she wanted this friendship, I needed her and she had been there when Deadpool and Leo Valdez were my only companions.

And yet my feet moved in the opposite direction. My eyes trailed off from hers and my hands gripped my backpack. The guit built up with each steps I took towards my maths classroom,

Why, why, why?

What was I doing?

During break, I looked everywhere for Hamlin's dark eyes, I looked for her laugh or her babbling but nothing.

She was nowhere to be seen.

I decided that I had enough of scanning the ground floor for her, so I forced myself to venture on the upper floors.

I looked through all the windows of all the empty classrooms I could see, but it was no use. A voice in my head kept urging me to go back to the library, but I couldn't understand why, but I was scared to find her there.

I walked two times around the second floor in the hope of spotting her but nothing. Nothing.

In the panic of the moment I decided at last to pay a visit to the second floor, where the library was. I took the stairs two at the time, hoping that whatever I had messed up with her could be forgiven.

When I finally reached the library I scanned the place for her, and there she was.

I sighed deeply and started walking towards her when I heard some voices approaching. I hid behind a bookshelf and waited for them to disappear, but they instead grew louder and louder.

It was Aaron, Matt and Jake.

They were messing around, like they always did, hitting each other's arms and calling each other stupid names.

'Can't believe you did all that in a night, you're a legend!' Aaron exclaimed as they walked towards a table.

'Honestly, it's just happened, I wasn't looking for any of that' Jake replied. My eyes went back to Hamlin who had gotten up from her seat, her bag was on her shoulder as she walked to the door. Unfortunately the group spotted her, and they instantly went over to where she was.

'Yo Hammy, what happened to the little guy you hang around with?' Aaron called out smirking 'Did you finally see what a waste of time it would have been staying with him?' Ha. Funny, I rolled my eyes.

'Leave me alone' she greeted her teeth. The look she gave the three of them was so intimidating that even I looked away.

'Come here bab, did he hurt you?' He hugged her from behind, resting his head on her shoulder ' did he put his bloody hands on you?'