Broken (a Niall Horan love story)

Chapter 18

***Navaeh's P.O.V.***

You're Navaeh, right?

I looked down at the note that had just been placed on my table by the girl next to me. The class was completely silent, and for the moment we were supposed to be reading, but there were multiple people who had their phones out. Our teacher was on the computer, and she really didn't care as long as we had finished reading what she had assigned us. I was a slow ass reader so I was only halfway through while most of the other students were done. Plus, I kept on getting distracted by my long sleeve shirt which was itchy and uncomfortable; it felt like I had made a cactus into a sweater. It was irritating my cuts, and I had to pull back the sleeve a few times just to relieve the more than uncomfortable feeling.

I turned to look at the girl next to me, and she was already looking at me. When I raised an eyebrow to question why she was asking, she pointed to the boy that was beside her. So he must've sent it... Quickly, I jotted down my answer of a simple, 'yes,' before giving it back to the girl so that she could pass it over to the boy. I wanted to look over at him to get a better look at him, but I didn't want to just stare at him and be creepy so I refrained from doing so. Instead, I went back to reading the text that the teacher had assigned.

The words were jumbling together, and I couldn't stay focused on what I was reading so I ended up reading the same sentence about twenty times. It was incredibly hard to think about what I was reading when my mind was trying to figure out why someone was passing me notes in class (a boy nevertheless). No one had ever given me the time of day when it came to school; this was a place where people weren't worried about socializing too much but rather passing their classes. Everyone would just keep to themselves unless it was lunch time which was the next part of the day for me.

The piece of paper was placed back on my desk, and I sent a thankful smile to the girl who was in the middle of all of this. She seemed bored, but she smiled back politely nevertheless and sunk back into her chair while preparing to keep passing the notes for us. I looked down at the wrinkled piece of paper in my hands, and then over to the boy before unfolding it and reading what it said.

I saw your scars.

My eyes widened even though this wasn't a very big deal. Lots of people in the school had caught a glimpse of the scars, but they never said anything about them. I, of course, wasn't the only person in school who donned them. People didn't avoid us because of them, but they certainly didn't want to talk to us about them either. It was just odd for someone to bring it up. My simple response was, 'oh'.

I sent back the note and tried to go back to reading the assigned text only to fail again. So, I put the book away and pulled out my drawing of Niall that I brought along so that I could work on it. It was almost finished; it just needed a few more accents on it and then it would be perfect. Well, as close to perfect as it was going to get. My colored pencils swiped across the page, and I was happy that I had found something sort of mindless that could pass the time between notes.

Another paper was dropped onto my desk, and I quickly opened it to read what it said this time.

I have some too.

My gaze snapped over to the boy who was slumped over in his chair while he picked at his fingers. He was wearing long sleeves just like me, so it was hard to see his scars. I wondered if this was just some trick to get me to talk to him, but I didn't see why anyone would lie about something just to talk to me. There was more on this note, though, and I looked down at the other words that he had written in his somewhat scratchy handwriting.

When do you have lunch?

I jotted down my reply after looking at the clock. There was only a few more minutes left to this class, and then I would have lunch. So, I wrote down, 'next,' before sending the note back to the girl who passed it onto this strange boy. This time, I watched him open up the paper while I put my drawing back into my backpack. He smiled down at it with one of those smiles that you get when you get a text you've been waiting for and it makes you feel like a sentimental idiot. I looked away when I saw him start to write something.