Love Bites; Bullets

Who is He?

The rest of the day of the first day was pretty straight forward, and I ended up doing the Music project all on my own. While sitting there with Ryan, I couldn't help but continue to look up at him every once and awhile. He seemed so mystical and kept to himself more than talked, and only really speaking when spoken to. I already knew he wasn't a happy normal guy, and seemed to be carrying tons of negative emotions. But why? Why I wondered? Who really is he? I walk out of school that day with his face still fresh in my mind, and I couldn't get him out of my brain for the life of me! Never the less, I go home and see Mom arguing with Dad yet again in the living room about something stupid. I just ignore and walk into my room and do homework. Nothing else really happens the rest of that night except for doing chores, and organizing for school, until the second school day rolls around.

The second day, up and adam, let's go. I am agile and light on my feet this particular morning, and I have Music again as my schedule repeats the same every day for the first semester.

Get dressed, brush my teeth and hair, before practically jumping all the way downstairs and scaring the hell out of my Dad.
"Watch yourself there young lady!" He says in a startled manner, and I giggle while eating peanut butter toast.
"Nancy?" He says to Mom, she doesn't answer and continues reading the paper.
"Honey.." She slams the newspaper down on the dining table and stomps upstairs and slams the door.
"Don't worry about her Case, she's a wonderful wife and mother, but can also be a demon from the fiery pits of hell." He kisses my forehead and grabs his briefcase before leaving for work yet again.
By this point, I was actually early enough to catch my bus, so that's what I did.

Once arriving at school, I noticed that neither of my friends were there. I looked all over for Lindsay and Ivy, but they were a complete no-show. But look, there's that boy Ryan again! How come everywhere I turn, there he is! He walked right by me and didn't even notice me staring. I mean, thank god. Because I've felt like I've been practically stalking him from the moment I laid the first glance.

Bell rings for the first time on the second day, heart begins to pound for no reason. I follow right behind him as I approach the front doors to the Music room. He sits on the opposite side yet again while placing his bookbag thing on the seat beside him. He appeared to be wearing the exact same clothes as yesterday's attire.
"Alright class, today we are going to be practicing some Vocal and Body Warm-ups!" Our teacher shouts at the front of the room.
"Everybody up!" Everyone looks happy and excited for this, including me.
"Everyone at the front of the room please!" She stares straight over at Ryan sitting down.
"Huh?" He says.
"C'mon at the front please Ryan!" She says with a big smile on her face.
I hear him take a breath in and make a huge sigh of annoyance before walking over to the back of where everyone was, which happened to be directly behind me.
We begin the exercises and I was doing good for the first few, until one where we had to bend over and breathe a certain way for our lungs.
As I bent over, I had this strange feeling of eyes looking right at me. Already damn well knowing that Ryan was right behind me looking at.. Well you know what!
"Great everybody! We are finished!" Everyone sits down and takes a big breath in and out.
"Now you can finish your partnered projects!" She walks away, while everyone commences once again into their own circles.

I look behind me to see Ryan awkwardly standing there.
"How you ever done a Vocal Warm-up before?" I ask out of the blue.
"No." He says with his hair in his face.
"I think you enjoyed it a little too much.." I winked at him to let him know that I was for sure aware that he was in fact staring at my ass during that last one. I think I might've made him feel more uncomfortable, and he looked somewhat annoyed with me.
"Yeah, umm.." He nervously and quietly says.
"Hmm?" I smirk in a sassy way on purpose.
"I'm kidding!" I laugh nervously out of impulse, because I honestly have no idea what I am trying to accomplish with this boy.
He doesn't say anything, and just walks back to his corner but I immediately follow.
"Ryan I'm sorry if you weren't looking, and if you were then that's okay." I say genuinely. Because for the first time, I felt like I was actually achieving talking to him with my true feelings for once.
"I wasn't.." He says while looking the opposite way.
"Okay umm.. Let me start over." I stick my hand out for him to shake it, and once he gets the hint, he does take grasp while I shake it.
"I'm Casey, and I am not really all that quirky and popular as you may or may not think." He lets go of my hand gently, while pushing some hair out of his face.
"I literally only have two friends, and they're not even here today as far as I know." I pause and sigh.
"The only reason why I am probably being annoying is because I am lonely, I literally have no one else to talk to at the moment." He pulls out his notebook and flips to a page.
"What are you doing?" I ask, but he doesn't answer, just continues to flip through.
Once finding the right page, he points at the corner of a random page and it reads,

I am very alone, with no friends or family.

"What do you mean no friends or family?" I politely ask, and he closes the book to look up at me with the hair in his face barely covering his eyes.
"I don't have any friends anywhere, and my family hates me." He sounded like he said that with loads of emotion in his voice.
"I'm sure your family doesn't hate you they may not just.. Understand you?" I asked without trying to trigger him.
"Oh trust me, they hate the shit out of me!" He loudly whispers.
"Why are you so angry all the time.." I sigh, and he takes a long pause to think about it.
"I don't know how to answer that.." He backs up.
"I have to use the bathroom." He scoots back his chair to make it squeak loud enough for a few groups to turn their chairs, and look towards his direction.
I felt horrible, thinking I did trigger him into something that bothered him. I just couldn't hold it in anymore! I had so many questions to ask him and felt like I'd already messed up with Ryan.
He came back to the class about a half an hour later, and by the time he came back, I finished the project and the teacher was shocked.
"Where were you Ryan!?" She shouts nervously.
"What!? I drink a lot of water!" He yells back sarcastically before taking his seat.
"I finished the project." I show him the paper, and he looks antsy, like he's about to explode into tears.
"I am sorry.." He says while plopping his head onto the table.
"Talk to me Ryan.. I wanna help you." I whisper back while I rub his shoulder gently, and as I do, he springs back up and I jump backwards.
"I don't need your help! I don't need anyone's help! I am perfectly fine on my own! I don't need your fucking charity work."
He stands up from the chair and pushes it back in with such a strong and angry force, and I got very startled to say the least as he simply takes his leave and the bell rings minutes later.

The rest of the day was an absolute blur. Finish school, go home, in my bed to just think. Think about what I said, and how bad I felt that he couldn't just tell me where his anger really stemmed from. Why can't I just talk to him like a normal human being? And why can't he confide in me and all the kindness I have to give? Maybe I should let fate decide how to take care of him.