Exception (Harry Styles)

Chapter 2

It's about halfway through the school year. It's the same thing each and everyday. No one  around me pays me any mind. Why would they? I'm just a long lost, broken shadow roaming through the halls of the school. All the girls seem to have their nose in the air. Their parents have money, and they have no problem showing it off.

At 6:15 in the morning that stupid school bus shows up at my drive. I am one of the first few people to get on the bus so I go to the very back. I sit down and put my stuff in the space beside me. I slip my earphones in my ears and rest my head on the window. I'm always so tired in the mornings, I never sleep well at night, but my body has gotten use to the lack of sleep so I am still able to function.

As the bus starts to fill up, I don't bother moving my stuff. Everybody avoids me, or so it seems. It's obvious people don't want to sit with me, it's like there is a force field that surrounds me to keep everyone else from getting close.

As the time passes, we start getting close to one particular house. The boy that lives there is very mysterious. He has dark hair, and big brown eyes. He's quiet and kind of stays to himself, but he does have his little group of friends. I want to say their names were Liam and Niall. I've seem Louis hang out with them a little, but I had always been to scared to let him introduce me.

I have always been curious about this boy, I think his name is Zayn. He has never been rude to me, or given me hard glares like most, but I've always tried to stay invisible to him, like I don't exist. So far it has worked, he hasn't noticed me to my knowledge, and that is how it will stay. I mean he has looked at me before but it was like a glance in my direction, like I was an object in his way of whatever he was looking at.

As we pull closer to the big house, I can't help but look for the young boy with the bad boy look in the dark jeans and black leather jacket. I see him walking to the bus with his binder in his hand. I can't help but put my hood over my head as he starts getting on the bus. The only two seats left are the seats in front of me or the seats to the left of me, across the aisle.

Zayn starts to make his way down the bus aisle, nodding his head at a few girls trying to flirt, and one or two guys saying "hey man." As he get closer to the back, I get nervous. I don't know why I do, he sits in the seat across the aisle from me everyday. It's a habit. I always expect the worst in anything I do. As he takes a seat, I watch him, unnoticed, from my seat positioned by the window. He doesn't seem to mind sitting there, but he doesn't acknowledge my presence either.

After a few minutes of him just sitting there texting on his phone, I start to loose interest, and the tiniest bit of hope he would speak to me. I lean back on the window and close my eyes to rest.

As soon as I start drifting off, I hear "shit" come from the left of me. I open my eyes to see the dark headed boy flipping through papers and looking in the pockets of his binder. I watch him for a couple of seconds before he looks up. When he looked up I automatically looked away. 

Oh my gosh, did he just catch me staring at him?

I couldn't help the dread that took over my body. I braced myself for the rude remarks that never came.

Instead, I hear Zayn's voice, "hey" is all he said at first. It wasn't a mean comment, just to get my attention. I didn't move at first, I sat there paralyzed. There's no way he's talking to me, he's talking to the preppy girls in front of him. My mind kept telling me that there is no way he's noticed me.

I was soon proven wrong when I hear him again, this time slightly louder, "Hey you, girl in the jacket." I slowly glance up and met his big brown eyes. He's looking at me confused, probably thinking why I look like a scared puppy, but instead of saying anything about it, he asks me a simple question, "Can I borrow a pencil?"

It took me a second to register what he had just said. He asked nicely, and not rudely. I shook my head to rid the thoughts of my mind and replied quick and nervously "yeah sure." I dig around through all my stuff and find one of my many pencils and hand it over.

He looks at my strangely for a second then takes it and replies nicely, "thanks." I am actually very surprised on how polite he is, it definitely does not fit his image. He pulls out a paper, it looks like a math assignment, probably homework. I watch him closely, and it looks like he is stuck on a problem. Before I knew it, he is looking back up as I am quickly looking away. I hear him say "hey" again and this time I know it's to me. I look up at him slowly. "Are you good at math?" he asks. "Yes, kind of." I reply. It's true. I'm pretty good at all my classes, but my favorite is writing for sure.

"Do you think you can help me?" Zayn asks. He gets up and sits in the seat right next to me as I move my stuff out of his way. I am shocked by his actions, he asked me for help and sat down right by me in the same seat. I must be imagining things, but then the smell of his cologne automatically tells me, that there is no way I am imagining this. He's real.

I reply, "Uh sure, what do you need help on?" he looks down at his paper and points to an x then an i. "I don't understand these letters, math is suppose to numbers, not the alphabet, I don't get it." I laugh softly at his explanation and help him with his homework. By the time we get done, we are finally at the school. "Thanks for the help, you're really smart" Zayn says as he tries to hand me back my pencil. "Thanks, and no you can keep it, I have plenty." He smiles... 

He smiled at me!

He continues to show his white teeth and asks, "Thanks.... and hey what's your name? I've seen you around quite a bit?" 

"Avery Williams" I reply.

 "Zayn Malik. I'll see ya around yeah?" 

I couldn't believe what had just happened, or what he just said. 

"Yeah, I'll see ya around," is all I could say. I grabbed my stuff and shyly made my way off the bus, as he followed closely behind.