black hearts 🖤🖤 (a short story)

chapter 4

History was the only lesson which me and Mai shared, luckily we had a lesson 4 times a week, everyday except Wednesday. We made our way from our tutor group room to our History classroom, which was on the other side of the school, and with these packed corridors it was going to take us some time to get there. The corridors here at Bogdan always seemed like we were a bunch of sardines squished into a small tin. However this school was massive, way bigger in size than my old school. I guess there were just loads more pupils. Too many pupils in fact.

"So, how was your first lesson of art?" Mai interupted my thoughts.

"It was good," I replied with a huge smile, wondering if I should ask her about Dom just yet, "we were looking at the work of an artist called Frida Kahlo, who Fred is apparently named after."

"Oh yeah, her parents were obsessed with that artist at the time she was born, and still are. When we went round to Fred's house there were self portraits and weird paintings by the lady all over the place. It's quite creepy actually." She explained this to me just as we got caught up in a crowd of pupils also trying to get to their lessons. These corridors seriously need to be built wider.

"Oh. How comes I never knew this?" I asked curious, Fred usually kept her family to herself.

"She invited me and Fizzy over to her house a while back once. Fred was collecting her things for band practise before we went over to Sadie's. It was the day when we recorded Impossible by Shontelle for Mr Sam." She explained to me as if I should know, but this was also news to me. I remembered playing and recording Impossible, I loved that song, but I hadn't known that the girls had played it to Mr Sam. It felt awkward knowing that my, so far, favourite teacher had heard me play chords on the piano. I decided to let it go and not continue talking about it, there was no point in complaining over nothing. And I'm sure it was just that, them not telling me was nothing.

"Oh ok. So, how was music? You take music while I take art, don't you?" Mai had always preferred music while I preferred art.

"Ummm, it wasn't too bad.." she began, "UGH, why don't these people move?!" I laughed at her sudden outburst, this was getting really annoying but there was nothing we could do about it, no one was even moving.

"There must be another way we could get to History?" I asked her, she knew the school better than me and I just hoped she did know another way, it would be so embarrassing walking into my first History lesson so late.

"Hmm.. we could go back that way down the bridge, but I hate going that way," she thought aloud, "or we could go downstairs, through the corridors and come back upstairs right near the history class. Yeah! Come on lets get to the staircase." She grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me back out of the crowd to the stairway, she went down the corridors quite fast and I struggled keeping up.

"Whoa, slow down." I gasped, at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if she got a speeding ticket.

"You're the one who wants to get to the class early and anyway, the class is quite far away so we have to run if we're going to get there less than 20 minutes late." She chuckled at me trying to keep up with her. Why did they decide to make the school so big yet give us such narrow corridors? Even so, this school was far better than Stately.

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The class had already started work on the First World War as Mai and I walked in. We had a young male teacher who Mai claimed she had a crush on. He was cute for a young teacher but liking a teacher is weird, how did she even do that? There were so many people our age, even in this school, who were way cuter. One person in particular creeped into my mind.

"Oh yeah, Mai I forgot to ask about Dominic. Who is he? Do you guys know him? He was in our art class." I decided to finally ask Mai, seeing as our teacher, Mr Barley, had left the class for a moment to get our textbooks.

"Dominic? As in Dom? As in the blonde kid who's late for everything and should actually be here in our history class right now? How do you know him? And why are you asking about him?" she fired the questions at me, she seemed shocked and confused at the same time.

"Yeah, the one who's late for everything, he came in late to the art lesson," I started to explain to her, "there were about seven empty seats in the room but he came and sat next to me. And then he helped me with my shading in for a moment. I don't exactly know him, that's why I'm asking you about him."

"He probably noticed that you were new and wants to get in your pants. He's a player. He's a bad person and make sure you do not get involved with him. I swear, Kris, I've known you forever and you're my best friend. He's bad news and I wouldn't just be telling you this. Make sure you stay away from him." Mai's answer took me by surprise. Dom seemed like a lovely guy and he looked great too. I was slightly annoyed with what Mai had just said, I was starting to really like him and now she was acting like an overprotective mother telling me to stay away from him.

"Wait, you said he's meant to be here, in the history lesson right now? What?" I remembered her mentioning it in between her chorus of questions.

"Yeah, he's in this class. He usually sits here, on this table. He'll probably be back tomorrow. I usually just ignore him but it's horrible when Mr Barley makes us do group work. He's always in a bad mood and he doesn't know how to communicate with other human beings." Mai complained to me, but I didn't take any notice of what she was saying, I spotted Dominic at the door, about to come in. He seemed to be looking through the small window on the door, checking who was in his class. Shouldn't he know by now? He saw me and our eyes locked for a moment. He smiled at me. It was a small smile which seemed to light something inside me. It made me feel alive. His smile was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I never wanted it to stop. As I thought about his smile, I felt a small smile appear on my face.