"What time should I pick you up princess?" This was the second time Levi had asked me this in less than a minute, I was stalling my answer. Maybe it was because I liked the way 'princess' rolled off his tongue and I wanted to hear it again. We had been on the phone for ages now just getting to know each other some more and I was surprised at how comfortable I felt talking to him. He knew just what to say to make me feel at ease and his humour was unparalleled, I had not laughed like this in ages. My laughter was so clapped but he didn't even seem to mind, it made him chuckle – those deep melodic vibrations, mm. "Hello?"
"You can pick me up at 7pm," I gave him the address of the park around the corner from my gran's house, there was no way he was coming here. "I have to go and get ready for college you know."
"Ah, that's long but I get you," He groaned, it sounded like he didn't want to go, the feeling was mutual.
"Don't you have a lecture to be going to anyway?" Levi had told me he was studying Biochemistry at one top university in London, it sounded like a lot of work was involved the way he was describing it. They had exams at least once every two weeks.
"Yeah in like an hour still,"
"Get up then, lazy," I reprimanded him, he wasn't going to fail on my watch or because of me.
"You right, you right," He said in a southern American drawl which made me giggle. This guy had a whole bag of accents hiding away in a chest of voices, ready to be used at the most random times. "Aight b, I'll chat to you inabit."
"Bye," I shyly said before hanging up the call.
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It was coming up to the end of lunch and I hadn't seen or heard from Layla. She hadn't been home for two days now and even though she was a vindictive bitch, I still worried for her. Currently I was trying but epically failing at eating my cheese and bacon pasty wrap while trying to match the speed of Sarah's replies on Whatsapp. She was at work at the moment – she worked for a high-end retail company with the hopes of someday being a part of the designing team which made me question how she had the time to be on her phone. She was just catching me up on all the things I had missed while I was on my "hiatus". I was yet to tell her about the date with Levi later, I knew she'd just interrogate me and I was not ready to spill the beans. It was still early – this thing me and Levi had going on and I didn't want to ruin things.
"Can I sit here?" I was sure I recognised that voice, but I couldn't put the face to it. I looked up in surprise, unexpected to see Leon pleading with his eyes for me to oblige. I nodded and shifted over on the bench. I put my phone in my lap and dusted the crumbs off my legs, I was in shorts today and felt quite exposed with him so near me. I began to play with my blouse when he refused to speak, the silence was nerve racking. "Soo.."
"Soo.." I followed on.
"How... How are things?" I could tell he was nervous, not something you would expect from one of the most popular guys at college. This bully had made my life hell since secondary school and now he could barely muster up a coherent sentence, interesting. Being nice would not erase those years of torment and I could feel myself heating up the more I thought about it.
"Look," I was tired of beating around the bush. "Whatever you're trying to say, let it out because I don't have your time."
"I deserve that," He nodded with his eyes focused on something above, it was as though he was spaced out, body present but mind elsewhere. He let out a huge sigh and that's when I saw for the first time how stressed he looked. He had bags and dark circles under his eyes, his forehead was littered with deep lines reminiscent of old age. He looked... bad. "I deserve more than that actually. I know we'll probably never be friends but I wanted to apologise from the deepest part of my heart for the way I've treated you."
