Him and His Hoodie

Chapter 13 | Final Chapter

Chapter 13

       I had been staring at the clock in the classroom for the past fifteen minutes, not even paying attention to the lesson. I was surprised my teacher, Mr. Garland, never called me out on it yet. He was very adamant on making sure people pay attention and would do whatever it took to do so.

       Since Mr. Garland hadn't noticed that I wasn't paying attention, I pulled out my cell phone to text Jerome since I was extremely bored and already knew what Mr. Garland was going over.

       I kind of wished I just went home after biology class but I wouldn't have had anyone to pick me up because Jerome would have still been at work for about twenty more minutes.

       At least he wasn't working now so he was actually able to reply to me.

       Even though he kept telling me he wasn't going to reply since I was in school and shouldn't be on my phone.

       He still did anyway. He couldn't ignore me.

       While I was texting him, Mr. Garland suddenly cleared his throat so I looked up to see him standing in front of my desk with his hand held out. "Phone," he said. "And I hope you weren't saying anything secretive."

       One thing I really didn't like about Mr. Garland was how he would literally read the text messages out loud if any of his students were caught texting. It was a violation of privacy and if anything, he should just take the phone away and keep them with him until after school.

       When I didn't give him my phone right away, he said, "Now, Nolan," in a very stern voice and since I wasn't really the type of person to stand up for myself, I handed him my phone.

       I was so screwed.

       School was the one place I hadn't come out yet because I definitely didn't feel ready for it. There were just some people here that I knew wouldn't be nice about it and I couldn't handle that.

       "I really wonder when you are all going to learn not to text in class," Mr. Garland said to the whole class. "This is the third text conversation this week I'm reading to the class."

       "Can't you just take my phone away?" I asked quietly.

       "No, I'm not," Mr. Garland. "These rules of texting in class and the punishment for doing so were established on the very first day in this class. You have to live with the consequences now."

       Great...

       I could already feel it harder for me to breathe. If he read all the messages, I was no doubt going to have a panic attack by the end.

       "So this conversation is to someone under the contact name My Love," Mr. Garland said. "Nolan starts out by asking if his love is home from work yet, to which the response is 'Yes, now leave me alone. You're in school'. Smart. If only you actually listened, Nolan."

       Mr. Garland was about to continue but my phone started ringing. Who on earth would call me during school?

       He immediately looked over at Alan and Orchid; Orchid was sitting in between me and Alan. "Alright, which one of you is calling him?" he asked.

       "Uh, why would we call him?" Alan asked. "This is class time. If we wanted to talk to him, we wouldn't do it over the phone."

       "Then explain why someone named Triplet One is calling him," Mr. Garland said.

       Alan was the one calling me. He was trying to stop Mr. Garland from reading the messages.

       "People can make contact names whatever they want," Orchid said. "That doesn't mean whoever is calling him is one of us."