Artwork [h.s]

seven

The next day, when I entered my maths class, he surprisingly was already there. I made my way towards my desk looking down not to meet his gaze.

The teacher started talking just a couple minutes later, making it impossible to go to talk to him, and inevitably forcing me to postpone the dreaded talk to the end of the class.

I gave Harry what I hoped was a subtle glance. He didn't seem to be paying attention to what was written on the blackboard, scribbling something down on a piece of paper that certainly didn't look like a notebook. I wondered what he was doing.

I went back to looking at the teacher not to be caught staring - by him or anyone else. I tried to listen to what the teacher was saying, but after a while I couldn't help but give him another glance. He brushed a dark curl out of his eyes, his pale fingers resting between his chocolate hair a while longer as he kept writing down. The blonde next to him put his hand on his forearm to catch his attention, before whispering something to him. He turned his head towards him, playing with a silver ring on his index.

"Mr Roberts has been giving you dirty glances for the past minute, just thought you should know" a voice said next to me, snapping me out of my trance.

I looked up, discovering that Ella was indeed right. I lowered my gaze, pretending to write down what was written on the blackboard.

After a while the class ended, and I rushed to gather my things, hoping to get to Harry before he left. I turned around, seeing that he was walking to the door, Niall right behind him, giving a hard glance to everyone that dared to step in front of him.

I started walking towards him, but a voice stopped me in my tracks.

"Miss Regan, come here."

I slowly turned towards the maths teacher, slowly walking towards him.

He looked up at me from the chair he was comfortably sitting on. "I noticed you were rather... busy staring at Mr Styles today."

I widened my eyes.

"There's no point in denying it, it's a miracle he hasn't noticed" he mused. "The next time it happens I won't hesitate to call you out in the middle of the class. Goodbye."

"Goodbye" I said in a whisper before leaving the class.

To my disappointment, Harry had already left. I searched for him in the corridor, for once thankful that his locker was quite close to mine. I opened my locker and left my maths book inside, glancing up as soon as I heard the unmistakable Irish accent.

Harry was leaning against his locker staring at Janette, that was giving him hot glances from the other side of the corridor, as Niall spoke to him. Contrasting the excitement on his friend's face, there was a cold, emotionless look in his green eyes.

I sighed, knowing that it was the best opportunity I would've had to talk to him, and took the dark jacket, silently walking towards him.

Despite the fact that I was right in front of him, he didn't look at me right away, seemingly determined to ignore me even more than usual.

I cleared my throat, making the blue eyed boy next to him notice my presence. He stopped talking, and an awkward silence fell over the three of us.

At that point, he looked down as well, his height intimidating and his cold gaze on me, but no sound came out of his lips.

"I'm so sorry for what happened yesterday" I said in a thin voice under his icy stare. "I don't know why I asked you that, I know I shouldn't have and I'm just so sorry." I handed him the jacket, that was still clutched in my hands. "You forgot your jacket at mine, by the way."

He took it in one fast move, his fingers gently tapping on the fabric for a few seconds, his eyes still not leaving me. "Leave me alone" he said coldly at the end, and when he turned to look at Niall, I knew my time was over.

I turned around, catching Janette's grey eyes staring at me from the opposite wall. She gave me a hard look, probably to warn me from her boyfriend, or whatever Harry was to her, anyway.

I walked back to my locker, taking out the books for the next class with a sigh.

Ella walked to me, leaning on the lockers. "I want to see you making it up to him, now" Ella said sarcastically, enjoying the situation more than she should've.

"You've seen it?"

"What, the look he gave you or the one blondie gave you?"

I sighed again. It was a proper disaster, that's what it was. I looked at Harry again.

Janette had walked to him while I was talking, her hand on his chest as she laughed at nobody knows what, in a desperate attempt to have his full attention. On the other hand, Niall was still talking, and Harry was looking at him, completely ignoring the girl in front of him. She put her index on his jawline, shamelessly turning his head to force him to look at her, before connecting their lips, pushing him against the locker harder. He didn't put his hands on her waist, or make any other move that would've shown he was enjoying it, but he didn't push her away either. Their lips parted and she gave him a winning smile before walking to her friends again, missing the way he cleaned his mouth with his index before going back to listening to whatever Niall was saying. The blue eyed boy hadn't stopped talking during the whole exchange, resorting to giving the blonde girl a harsh stare as she went away.

"Damn, she really went in for it, didn't she?" Ella said next to me, giving the girl a surprised stare.

"Do you think he minded?"

"What that asshole does is none of my business" she replied, resentment in her voice.

"Suppose so."

"Come on, let's go to class" she said, changing topic. "Besides, I totally forgot to ask you. Did you get some good pictures of him yesterday?"

I gave her a suspicious glance. "I did, why?"

"Just curious. How did he pose? If he posed at all. He probably doesn't even need to pose to look good, I hate him."

I shrugged. "He took off his shirt" I said casually.

"Hang on what the fuck?" She whisper-shouted. "Oh my goodness, you saw him shirtless. Is he fit? He looks hella fit."

I nodded. "He has a lot of tattoos."

"Right when I thought he couldn't get hotter, it turns out he's a bad boy turned popular? Goodbye, world" she said dramatically. "And you saw him shirtless! I bet he looks so hot he's unreal."

"Didn't you say you hated him?"

"I do, but nobody can deny he's smoking hot. Like, have you even seen him?" She replied giving me an obvious look.

I didn't reply as we entered the class and sat down, wondering how I could've possibly made it up to Harry. On one side, I wanted to make sure everything between us would've been okay again - more like, as it was before -, but on the other I wanted to do just what he had asked me to, and leave him alone. Temporarily choosing for the latter, I opened my notebook as the class started.