nerd.

quatorze

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 Arielle Evans

Thoughts race through my mind as I walk down the hall, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. Why would he stand up for me two times in a row when he hasn't been for four days? This boy, I tell you, he needs to make up his mind. As I walk, I bump into a muscular frame.

"Oh, I'm sorry." I apologize immediately, not even bothering to look up.

"Not a problem." A raspy voice replies. I look up to see a curly-haired, green-eyed boy looking down at me. He has broad shoulders, and he stands much taller than me, probably six feet or so. I furrow my eyebrows in confusion at his appearance. "Is something wrong, love?" His thick British accent brings me out of my thoughts.

"No, not at all." I shake my head quickly.

 "Alright then. My name's Harry." He extends his arm out to me.

 "My name is Arielle." I tell him, bringing my arm out to shake his.

 "Pretty name for a pretty girl." He wiggles his eyebrows. I blush profusely and look down at my feet. "Alright, Arielle, would you mind taking me to room 203?"

 "Oh, that's where I'm headed to as well." I tell him, looking up.

 "That's excellent. Come on, then." Harry says, showing his dimples with a huge smile. I smile back and lead him to our next class.

 *

 "So Harry, tell me about yourself." I say, looking up from my cake batter frozen yogurt. After I had let Harry use my notes for our science pop quiz, he decided to pay me back by treating us both to frozen yogurt.

"Ah, let's see. What do you want to know?" Harry replies.

"Anything."

"Okay...I have a sister named Gemma, a twin brother named Marcel, I live with four of my mates in a flat, I'm an exchange student from England along with those four friends I was speaking about, and I like cats." Harry blurts without stopping to take a breath. I burst out laughing, and he lifts an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just that you were all serious and then at the end you randomly said you like cats." I cackle in between laughs.

"What? I do!" Harry protest, placing his hand on his heart in mock hurt.

"Wait...wait a minute." I say, finally processing his words. "You have a twin brother named Marcel?"

"Yeah...you probably don't know him, he takes online courses." Harry replies.

"No, no, it all makes sense now! You looked familiar when we bumped into each other, but I couldn't put my finger on it who you looked like. But now I can see it, you look just like him!" I ramble.

"You know Marcel?" Harry lifts an eyebrow.

"Well, of course." I nod rapidly.

"Oh, well he only comes to school once in a while." Harry tells me.

"I know." I reply, smiling at the thought of our friendship.

 "How do you know him?" Harry asks, taking a bite out of his frozen yogurt.

"He's just like me." I blurt without thinking. "Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that."

"What do you mean?" Harry asks.

"Nothing, I didn't mean to say that." I shake my head, looking at the unstable table.

"C'mon, Arielle, just spit it out." Harry whines, plopping a gummy worm onto his tongue.

"Well, I guess you're going to find out anyway, considering he is your brother and all." I shrug. "We're kind of both bullied by the same people, and we became friends and started sticking together so the bullying wouldn't get as bad and we can at least try to protect each other. When it got really bad, as you must know, Marcel came fewer and fewer times until he hardly came at all. We're still friends and all, I'm just...alone now, I guess." I ramble.

"You're bullied? Just like Marcel?" Harry whispers, his voice barely audible. His green orbs pool with sadness, but the emotion quickly changes into something else that I truly don't want to see coming from Harry.