broken | shyland ✓

chapter four

s h a n e

my plan had not gone well. ryland hadn't even left the house yesterday, so there was no way of speaking to him without going to his house, which evidently was a step too far.

currently, i was sat anxiously in class, waiting for everyone to arrive whilst tapping my foot against the carpeted floor. i think - it may have been someone else - i saw him leaving a year twelve home room a few minutes ago. there was a very small possibility that we might have a class together today, meaning that i had been on edge all morning in the hopes of him walking through the door.

he wasn't in chemistry at 9am, nor was he in my biology class at 10am. after break, in which i had quickly eaten a bag of cheetos, i had french class. he didn't take french, either. by english, i was starting to lose hope as i waited for my friends to arrive.

for some reason, i didn't have any sciences with my friends. in french, my best friend garrett was in my class but we'd been split up onto different sides of the room after we made a supply teacher cry. it's not as bad as it sounds, trust me. it wasn't just us who were playing on our phones, but we seemed to get the blame instead of the whole class.

english was my favourite class in my whole timetable. not only were my whole friendship group sat right next to me in the back row, but it was my highest scoring subject (in my last essay i had gotten an a+) and i found it really easy.

a few people who i didn't really know sat down in their assigned seats near the front of the classroom, and in the mix of them i saw my friend trisha. she was my closest girl friend, and she was more like my sister than anything.

she ran up to me, cheeks pink and flushed to match the streaks in her bleach blonde hair. her flawless make up accentuated her face as she bit her pink lower lip, grabbing my hands.

'shane, you'll never guess what just happened.' trish squealed, talking at a million miles an hour, making a few people turn around and roll their eyes.

i grinned in amusement. 'what? what happened?' she was practically jumping up and down at this point.

'jason just asked me out.' she blurted, 'tonight, to the movie drive in down town.'

my eyes widened. 'oh my god! oh my god! what did you say? was he all like "oh i'm a year thirteen" or not?'

she shook her head, sitting down in her seat (leaving an empty chair for garrett between us) and reciting their whole conversation at least three times for me before i was saved by joey and daniel.

joey and daniel had been dating since the start of year ten now, and i can't really remember them ever going anywhere without each other. they'd both dyed their hair purple over the summer, and it had mostly faded back into their natural colours; joey caramel, and daniel a dark brown, almost black.

i wasn't dating anyone, unlike what seemed like the rest of my friends. drew and garrett were single, but everyone else was seeing somebody. i'd had a girlfriend in year nine for a few months, lisa, but we sort of drifted and she chose to go to college instead of staying for sixth form here.

'what's up, bitches?' daniel said, throwing himself into the seat next to trisha's with a smirk on his face. joey pulled out the chair next to him and sat down, linking their hands and leaning down the table to see trish and i.

'jason asked trish out.' i filled them in briefly so i wouldn't have to hear the whole story again. it had only been three minutes and i could probably reencounter in in my sleep.

'jason jason?' joey confirmed. we nodded and they interrogated trisha whilst i turned my attention back towards the board.

garrett and drew arrived together, not stopping their flow of conversation about some ghost hunting thing and smiling at us all as they sat down, garrett between trish and i, drew next to joey on the edge of the table. there was always an empty seat next to me in english so i pushed my folders onto it, leaning my head on my hands.

the teacher had arrived and silenced everyone, so any hope of ryland being in this class had been crushed.

'you're acting weird.' garrett whispered. 'you okay, shane?' he smiled softly and squeezed my shoulder. i nodded and smiled, turning my attention to the board.

a crash made everyones' heads snap towards the door, and my eyes practically fell out of my head as he walked (well, fell) through the door.

'sorry i'm late, sir, some idiot sent me in the wrong direction.'

oh my god.