Figuring You Out

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I tap my foot in anticipation and check my phone for the fifth time in the past fifteen minutes: 8:17. We'd agreed to meet at twenty past so I knew I had to be patient but I couldn't help the ascending feeling of butterflies rise in my stomach at the thought of him standing me up in some sick joke.

I feel a tap on my shoulder and instantly snap behind me towards the ominous figure when I see my best mate cloaked in a tracksuit. "What are you doing here?"

"Errm," my brain scrambles quickly looking for an excuse, "Pope wanted me to help out with setting up for his lesson,"

"Oh right," he shrugs, then his eyes narrow, "Shouldn't you be at PE then?"

"Yeah, just heading there now," I cover, the lie coming out far too easily, "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Randov has us in catching up doing business coursework," he explains, moving backwards towards the building, I give him a nod and step a few feet forward as if I was heading towards the PE block. I force myself to turn backwards and steady my erratic heart after twenty seconds I steal a glance back and see he has disappeared into our sixth form building. I let out a puff of relief and return back to the tree I was standing just as Red enters through the rusting six foot gate, my face breaks into a smile as I step forward and he embraces me in a hug, "Hey," he whispers, pulling away, "Let's go to the library, it's quieter there," twitching his head towards the slow spill of students strolling through the gates. I nod my head and we step in line towards the library, my arms swing beside his and I'm practically fitting with the yearn to hold his hand but the desire is crushed by the blackening feeling of pure terror.

We slid into the library empty of everyone including the greying librarian, he smiles and walks to the back of the book encased room where we stretch on the bobbling sofas. I stretch my dead legs on the seat opposite as he chuckles and pulls out a large sheet of paper and lays it on the tacky table in front of us.

"This is your updated revision timetable," he says, fully concentrated on the colour coded sheet, my eyes don't falter from his lightly spotted face.

"Did it need to be so big?" I ask, fondly, he peers at me over his glasses and gives me a half playful smirk. His fingertips tracing the boxes labelled with my lessons and timings

"So, Mondays after school is chemistry-" he drags his right index finger to the box labelled Chemistry under the day of Monday.

"I got it," I finish, smiling from ear to ear before taking the paper and folding it in three then sliding into my bag, "Let's talk about you,"

"Me?" he raises his eyebrows, "What do you want to know?"

"Everything," I say faux sexily, we wait for a moment and then meet each other's eye giving each other permission to laugh before bursting out great guffaws of laughter.

"I read a lot and I like coffee so essentially take me to a coffee shop with a good book and you are easily my new favourite person," I smile fondly at him, "You think I'm weird?"

"Is that such a bad thing?" I tease.

"You've never been so poetic,"

"It's rubbing off on me," I snipe comically, he rolls his eyes ever so slightly and checks his leather strapped watch, "We should get to maths,"

"Ok," I agree, standing and noticing how much taller I am than him, "That was a very productive revision session,"

"Very," he muses, perching upright on his tip toes so he can give me a discreet peck on the side of my mouth. I stand there stunned for a moment, I don't think I'll ever get used to that. A part of me doesn't want to.