Figuring You Out

Chapter Seventeen

The bell rings and I force myself to move towards the library, I keep my eyes lowered slightly as my six-foot figure easily creates a break in the sea of lower school students, when I see the back of his blonde mob of hair, I move towards him simply because I couldn't help myself. I reach him with him still unaware of my presence and place a tentative hand on his shoulder he jumps out of his skin and I squeeze his shoulder comfortingly.

"It's just me," I say, laughing a little to ease the obvious tension.

"Hey," he says, exhaling slowly, I almost pause. Almost. He regains himself before I summon the courage to question him about his rather sketchy behaviour, "I just have to go to my locker to grab my textbook"

"I'll come with," I say, shrugging my shoulders.

"You don't have to," he says, immediately. There was something about him, the edge of his voice; it wasn't challenging but it was just weird like he was on guard.

"It's on the way anyways, isn't it? Ours is on English corridor, right?" he simply nods, fighting his way through other students that had merged around us again. He shuffles his satchel bag on his shoulder, I chuckle lowly because he's probably the only boy in the entire school with a leather satchel.

"What?" he asks, his tone lightening.

"Why don't you just get a backpack?" I ask.

"Not really my style," he replies, side eyeing me a little. I chuckle but the tension emerges immediately again when we arrive at the military style rows of lockers, the shiny red reflecting the scuffed lino. Red stops and is punching the code into a locker when I'm frozen.

The word "fag" is scratched roughly on the surface of the locker. The deep gauges morphing the polished metal, I step closer as he ruffles around his locker for the dreaded science textbook, my fingers trace over it feeling myself swallowing hard as a deep seep of guilt washes over me.

"Who did this?" I ask, my fingers still mesmerized by the insult, I watch him as he turns to face me and the engraving. He shrugs nonchalantly.

"It was done a few days ago, maintenance haven't got around to changing it yet," he sighs, finally shutting the locker and turning to walk.

"You mean this has been done before?" I say breathlessly as I feel myself jogging to catchup with him.

"Gosh, you really are naïve," he comments, hugging his book, closer to him, there's a slight edge to his voice but I brush it off too scared shitless.

"Who?" I say, we arrive at the library and his hand is pushing on the handle as he pauses and contemplates answering me.

"Your rugby team," I nearly stumble I'm so shocked, "now come on, you have an exam to pass,"

I follow him dumbly into the library, taking a seat at one of the tacky varnished tables. He opens his maths textbook and looks at me expectantly, I drag out a few textbooks and open to the simultaneous equations page. I feel his leg brush against mine as he scoots closer to the table to look at a certain page, I freeze not moving my leg away but not responding to him. My breath catches at the touch, but I force my gaze to be kept down on the book, I dare a glance at his hands which are poised already folding the corner of the age anxious to turn.

"Ok," he starts, "So, what do you want to do? Biology, chemistry or physics?"