Knockout (Sequel to Dark)

Chapter 2

I was late. Thankfully it was only by a few minutes so I could slip into the back without most of the class noticing. Discussion on the set reading and enquiries about the essay due next week filled the session's allotted time. I glance back and forth the clock for the last fifteen minutes, keen to escape the stuffy room and assignment questions that make my stomach churn. I haven't started it, and the fact that some people are on their second draft weighs heavy on me and most of the other unwashed students.

I'm out and tripping over poorly placed legs to whom the owners decide the corridor floor is a marvellous place to wait for their seminar to start. I shouldn't really complain as I'm the first one to slump down the wall and furiously read the assigned articles that should have been completed days before.

I'm just about to take the stairs down to the ground floor when a familiar laugh echoes in the dead-end where the vending machines are crowded by hungry students. He's wearing the same navy bobble hat I've seen him in for the past week.

"James."

The flush to his cheeks makes me smile because it means he was late in getting up too and the chocolate bar he's midway unwrapping is his breakfast. Sandy hair is unkempt and escaping from his headwear, a "fashionable accessory", rather than something he rushed to wear whilst jogging for class.

"Did you enjoy your run this morning?" I ask on approach.

My tone is mocking, but I'm in no position to doll out verbal gibes.

"It was more of a sprint," he cheekily grins.

"Is your class now?" I ask

"In a few minutes, I got Kit to save me a seat though. I'm not sitting at the front again."

He squashes me in a hug, making a point of munching his chocolate in my ear range. Regardless of the ponderings Tiff has placed in my mind, I'm happy to see him. I am. He's sort of dorky, in a weird I-don't-care-if-it's-not-in-season-any-more-I-want-to-wear-my-Christmas-jumper kind of way. There's an oddly shaped blemish just above the corner of his right eyebrow; a consequence of him succumbing to gravity when he was seven and falling from a tree. I'd gained this information whilst helping him collect dropped stationary up off the library floor. James's words had run along with his mouth, filling any potential awkward silence before being shushed by irritated people nosing through books. He's not what I'm used to, there's no issues to work through, there's no horrendous skeletons hiding in the closet; and that should come as a comfort to me. But there's just something yet to click into place.

"Oh, while I've got you with me," James continues, still locking us together. "Do you wanna go out on Saturday?"

He laughs as I squirm away, using his ticklish sides as leverage.

"I'm sorry, I can't. I'm going home for the weekend. The manager of the music shop I used to work for phoned me the other day. He said they were desperately in need of someone."

"That's not your problem though," he moans, pulling his hat down further.

"He's a friend."

One of James's mates is beckoning him to hurry up from an open seminar door. The tutor isn't there yet, but I guess he has about two minutes.

"When will you be back?"

The chocolate bar is finishes and I can feel him slyly slipping the empty wrapper into my back pocket.

"Either Sunday night or Monday morning."

He heavily sighs, leaning against the wall and puckering his lips.

"What's wrong?"

"My flatmates are out, thought we could spend the evening at mine."

The glum expression he wears tells me he's sincere in disappointment.