Almond Boy

Almond Boy - 2

Elliot doesn't expect Emma again today, so he lets his crap take up the bench. 

Emma stares at Elliot's papers that are spewed all over the bench, being weighted down by various things; a calculator, a big thing of headphones, and a binder. She begins picking up some of the papers, setting them under the hard surface of the binder in some semblance of order - trying to at least keep classes together. 

Elliot looks over and finally catches note of her, and he begins helping her move his things. 

"Again?"

"Yup."

"Why?"

"Why are you?"

Elliot doesn't answer and looks back towards the running students. Emma doesn't really need an answer, though, despite how much she'd like one. You can see that there's something wrong with Elliot if you look at him long enough. At first glance, Elliot looks like a pretty fit kid; he's thin, has bright eyes, and at first looks like he has a healthy skin color.

Look twice, though, and you can see that his skin color changes on his body quite rapidly. Some patches of skin are noticeably redder than others and his cheeks look like you can see little veins sprouting like tiny vines crawling up a building. His bright eyes are sunken in and he has dark shadows making it look like his eye sockets are caves, which probably only makes it look like his eyes are bright by how dark the surrounding area is. And finally you can see that his shirt is quite a bit bigger than his body, making him actually quite thin. 

There is something obviously wrong with Elliot, and that is why he sits out of gym every single day for as long as Emma can remember. 

Elliot gets out his homework, his bag of almonds and begins doing his homework. 

"What's with the almonds?" Emma asks.

"I like almonds." 

"But do you need, like, a pound bag?" she asks, looking at the almost overflowing massive bag of almonds. 

"Yes I do." 

Emma rolls her eyes and slumps against the back of the bench. She lets out a shuddering breath, a small cough coming after it. 

"Still on the bench, Emma?" Claire Duvall asks her. 

Elliot's head snaps up when he hears her. He looks between the black haired girl and Emma, remembering that he used to see them running together often during warm-ups and often worked together during other sports. 

He's not used to people talking near the bench. After all this time of sitting here, Elliot apparently blends into the wooden grain of the bench, like he's become a part of it himself. Someone might as well sit on him. 

Emma nods and Claire gives her a weary look. "You alright?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Emma says with a shrug. Claire sighs. 

"Alright, well, if you need anything -"

"Yeah, thanks Claire." 

At first Elliot thought Emma was being cruel, but with the small smile on her bright red lips and the glimmer in her eyes, he decides that she really is being sincere. Either that or she's a damn good actress. 

"Is Claire your best friend?"

"No, but she's a damn good one."

"Okay?" Elliot watches Emma with a weary gaze himself, and she sighs. 

"What?"

"Why are you on the bench?"

Emma rolls her eyes and grabs her own schoolwork. She clicks her mechanical pencil repeatedly until a bit of lead pokes out and starts focusing on some homework assignment. 

The rest of the time the only words they have are written as answers on homework.