String of Fate

Chapter Ninety

The lesson that I was in droned a little bit and I wondered what the point of Religious Studies was. There were a ton of different religions in the world and they decided to just study one for the whole five years that I was here. Surely there wasn't anything else that I could learn about it. Then again, what more could you expect for a public school.

I had actually been surprised that my parents had allowed me to go to a public school. They had always been adamant that I should go to a private school, but I had managed to convince my mother to let me go to a public school so I could see more of the world – I did use the bribery of being able to stay at home rather than go to the boarding school so she would see me more and she had been more than happy to convince my father.

My father hadn't seemed happy about it since he wanted me to have a good education for when I took over the family business, but if there was one thing I knew about my mother, is that she could be very persuasive. I thought that she was already thinking about potential partners that would make good kids with me even though I just wanted to be with the person at the end of my string. That would not go down well with my parents.

Well, unless my string led me to a girl that was really pretty and from a rich and prestigious family that would benefit the business. Which was extremely unlikely.

"Harrison, the lesson is over. We should probably move. We don't want to be late for Chemistry." Oliver told me, surprising me. He already has his bag slung on his shoulder and all his stuff was away. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I was just lost a little in thought. My brain always wanders in this lesson because I find it boring. It should not be compulsory." I replied, giving him a smile as I started to collect my stuff up. I squished it all into my bag and quickly slung it onto my shoulder and Oliver and I headed out of the classroom to walk quickly to our Chemistry lesson that was practically on the other end of the school.

I was lucky that I had become friends with Oliver. He was the only one in the school who hadn't alienated me because I was rich. Everyone in the school had seemed to hate me when I first started even though they knew nothing about me. Oliver had also kept to himself and we had met after two weeks of school hiding in the back corner of the school library. I'd been trying to find somewhere quiet to get away from the other students staring at me and Oliver had been searching for somewhere quiet to read his book.

We'd easily struck up a conversation when I decided to just sit next to him and had immediately become friends. It helped that we were actually in all our lessons together as well. I kind of did the stupid thing for GCSE's, too, and selected all the same subjects for the exams. I didn't really mind since my dad made sure that my studies were covered outside of school with the private tutor. It just meant that I got to spend more time with Oliver, who was the only friend I had outside of my siblings.

I knew that if my parents knew about Oliver, they would not have liked it, so, I decided to keep him a secret, so, he never came over to my house and if we ever hang out outside of school, I always went to his place. That's how it had been for the last five years, at least.

As we walked out of school at the end of the day, I thought about Oliver's birthday that was coming up on Sunday. It was finally going to be his sixteenth and it was something that should be celebrated. I knew that he was too shy to say anything about it, so, I knew I had to plan something otherwise he probably wouldn't celebrate it at all. "Right, Ollie, is there anything you want to do this weekend to celebrate your birthday?"

"I haven't got anything planned, if I'm completely honest. My parents haven't mentioned anything about going anywhere, so, I reckon I'll just be chilling in the house for the day." Oliver replied as we headed in the direction of the gate. He looked a little sad as we walked. "It's just going to be a nice relaxing day."