Skin & Bones

chapter 1

you know what's to come to not accept this

Advil, water, and yogurt. I already knew I was staying home from school tomorrow. A headache like this usually last two days for me. I started today, Sunday, so that means I'll be missing the "dreaded" Monday. From past experiences I had found out that yogurt helps with major headaches. One problem: I hate yogurt.

I made my way up to the cash registers. Anyone at work at this hour must really need money. The only cash register that was open was being worked by teenage boy.

While he was scanning my items I tried to read him. But he wasn't an open book. He was closed.

"It's on the house. This is the kind of stuff I buy when I have massive headaches so you must have one. It sucks." The boy spoke softly. He was in my maths class but he rarely spoke.

"Thanks. Sorry you have to go through this shit too." I said while putting a 5 in the tip jar. "Have a nice night" my mouth mumbled.

--tuesday

Well yesterday was a living hell. Every single noise bothered me. It could range from someone starting up a car to someone yelling on the T.V. .

My headache is all better now, though. I'm sitting in maths watching. Other people are watching the video the teacher is making us watch so he could have a day off. I was watching the boy who checked my things out at the grocery store. He sits towards the middle rows of the room but by the wall. I still can't read him. He closes himself up. Just like me.

The bell rang and now everybody was packing up our things. I was usually one of the last out of the class to avoid the crowd of getting out of the tiny little door space.

Although it was very generous of that boy to put the money of the house, I still felt like I needed to pay him back. I racked my brain to remember his name but it was a blank.

He stayed after class, though. Who knows why. I walked up to his desk and placed a 5 on the corner of his desk.

" It was generous of you to put my items on the house but I felt guilty if I didn't pay. Thanks, though."

He just nodded without looking up.

--

That night I went to the store again. Not to see the boy though. My mom ran out of strawberries for the dessert she was making for her work and I was the only choice to go to the store.

It was 7:30 so it wasn't too late but the boy looked exhausted and annoyed. But I still went up to him.

"That'll be 4 dollars and 76 cents." He mumbled.

I handed him a five. " Keep the change." I looked at what seemed to be the problem of his annoyance: maths homework. " It really isn't that hard. You just aren't adding the exponents. Everything else you're doing seems fine. Night."

Then I walked out of the grocery store leaving the boy astonished on how I figured that out so quickly.

-don't really do a/n bc they're annoying but sorry it's so short