Floating On Air

VI. Trials

VI. Trials

It had been almost three weeks since I'd started attending Northern Heights High School and two days since I'd witnessed Twiddle Dum and Twiddle Dee break up. Those two days were annoying, tedious and frustrating. 

Austin was my prime source of entertainment and all he'd been doing was drown in his self-pity. It was annoying me to no end. For him to be so quiet and gloomy was immensely unusual. 

"Come on," I whined, pulling on his arm. "Talk to me." 

The boy ignored me and continued on with his poetry. Unfortunately, I'd already finished my assignment about a week ago when it was distributed. Sometimes, I really wished that I could progress things slowly rather than do everything in one go. I watched as he scribbled lines onto his crumpled piece of paper, rubbed it out and repeated the process. 

Unable to help it, I sighed dramatically, throwing my hands up in the air and pouted. "You're so boring now." 

He shot me one sidelong glance and sighed. "You won't stop until you get what you want, right?" 

"Right," I grinned. 

Austin tapped his pencil against the table repeatedly and I slammed my fist on top of his. He reeled his hand back in shock, staring at me in shock. "What the hell was that for?!" 

"It was annoying," I replied bluntly. I couldn't help but sigh in irritation again as he turned back to his work, ignoring me. 

I watched the second hand of the clock tick. I tapped my fingers on the table, picked at my nails and doodled in my exercise book. My frustration was rapidly increasing as the second hand ticked by at an agonizingly slow rate. It felt like hours before the miraculous idea of pulling my earphones out came to mind. 

I would marry the man or woman who invented earphones. 

It was only a few seconds after I'd turned my music up, that Austin decided to speak. "Are you auditioning for the play?" 

"Yep," I replied with a groan. 

"What character?" 

 "Benvolio. You auditioning?" 

"Have to," he responded. 

"Have to?" 

"Dance is a talent branched off sport and I'm only in this school because of my sister. The deal was that I had to play a role in every play the school holds, whether it be an actual character, understudy or one of those background guys, and participate in two other sports, or I'm kicked out." 

I nodded, uncertain with how to reply to his explanation. "What role you auditioning for?" 

Austin laughed bitterly. "Not Romeo, that's for sure." 

"Why not?" 

He chewed on his bottom lip nervously and wrote his lines down more frantically, pressing the pencil down harder onto the sheet of paper. "No reason," he managed to utter out through gritted teeth. 

I stared at him for a second, frowning at his unusual behaviour. Wouldn't most guys want the role of Romeo? With only one suspicion, the words flew out of my life like projectile vomit. "I saw what happened between you and Hayley." 

Austin's kunckles turned white as he clutched his pencil in a death grip. He pursed his lips. "I know." 

"You know?" I echoed, raising my eyebrows. "Holy crap, I didn't mean to, I swear! I was just walking to the cafeteria and I heard your voices. I'm a naturally curious person so I couldn't help eavesdropping on you guys. What she said was pretty harsh; you didn't deserve that, I guess. What the hell's her problem, anywyay? Like, was she PMS-ing or what, eh?"