You bow your head, letting your hair conceal your face. You peek out through the blonde ends, your eyes scanning your tutor group. Maybe today, you’ll find the courage to talk to someone. You shake the sleeves of your sweatshirt down over your hands and glance up one final time. You see the final straggler walk into the classroom and your head bows once more.
“Why can’t I talk to anyone?” You mutter, your voice audible to only you. “Come on, Em, it’s not that hard,”
Your tutor claps her hands and the class instantly springs to attention. “We have a new student with us today,”
She brings a boy in from the corridor, who has messy brown hair and is dressed a little bit like you, what with his skinny jeans, scuffed shoes and baggy sweatshirt. Your stomach twists itself into a knot as your brain pops an idea into your head: why not talk to the new guy? He knows nothing about you, so it’s perfect.
“This is Alex Gaskarth,” She announces. “And I’d like to assign him a buddy,”
A collective groan ripples through your tutor group. Being the buddy for the new kid meant that you were constantly showing them around the school and to their classes, eating lunch with them, walking them to the toilet, the whole shebang until they found their own group of friends.
“Emily,” Your head snaps up and you shake your hair out of your eyes. “Seeing as Alex in all of your classes, perhaps you can be his buddy?”
“I… Uh, yeah, sure,” You stutter, unable to form a proper sentence.
“Soooo,” Alex drawls as he slides into his seat next to you. “Emster. Emz. Em-meister. What’s our first lesson?”
“Em is fine,” You say shyly, looking away from your desk. “And we’ve got double maths first,”
Alex groans at the mention of the ‘m’ word and flops back in his seat, giving you a chance to take in his appearance. While he’s clearly done his best to make it look like he’s made no effort on his hair, you can see the way it’s been carefully styled and held in place with hairspray. You smirk to yourself, entertaining the possibility of messing up his hair, just to see how he reacted.
The bell rings and you get out of your seat, slinging your bag over your shoulder and flipping your hair out of your eyes. “Are you coming or not?”
Alex tails you through the corridors, fighting his way through the throngs of people that push and shove around you. You keep your head down as you walk, shaking the sleeves of your sweatshirt down over your hands once more.
Once you get into your maths classroom, you slide into your seat at the back, still not making eye contact with anyone. Even as you walk to your seat, you feel like the whole class is staring at you, as though you’ve got something stuck on your back.
Alex sits in the seat next to you and nudges you gently. “Is everything okay?”
You nod, and see his brow furrow.
“Really? Then how come you never talk to anyone? If someone’s pissed you off, a pro tip is to piss on them,”
“I can’t,” Your voice comes out as a hoarse, cracked whisper. “I can’t talk to anyone,” Tears threaten to fall from your eyes and you knuckle them away fiercely. “Do you mind if I don’t get into this right now?”
Alex scribbles something on a piece of paper and pushes it onto your side of the table.
If you’re not going to talk, can you at least write?
You roll your eyes and scribble a reply.
I would, but I really need to focus.
A wave of courage sweeps through you. Screw maths. You were all set to pass your exam, so what would it matter if you didn’t pay attention in one lesson? You scribble out what you’ve written and write a new answer.
YOU ARE READING
Band One Shots - CLOSED
Fanfic**OPEN** One shot requests for band members of your choice.
