Grey

Simon Says

"Simon. Get up."

"Leave me alone."

"Simon. You can't call in sick forever, bro. Get up, or you're gonna be late."

After a long moment of trying to procrastinate getting up, the boy- man- slowly rose out of bed, his black hair messy and sticking out in multiple directions. He didn't open his eyes until he reached the dresser, pulling a sweatshirt out of the mass of button-downs and polos. He didn't feel like trying today.

"Did you get drunk last night?"

Simon turned to face his roommate, Joey, who was already dressed and throwing his books into his bag. Simon looked at him with distaste as best as he could muster, barely able to see without his glasses. "Shut up, Joseph."

Joey rolled his eyes and picked up the crookedly taped black rims from the nightstand, handing them to Simon. "Dude, what's going on with you? You're all out of whack. Did you get dumped or something?"

Simon sighed, blinking sleep out of his eyes as he put his glasses on. He took off his shirt, only to replace it with the sweatshirt, and pulled on a pair of jeans that only had a few holes in them. "No, I didn't get dumped. Who would there be to dump me in the first place?" He had purposefully avoided the original question, but either Joey didn't notice, or just didn't bother to say anything about it.

"Well, not dumped, but rejected. Last I checked, Cynna hadn't said yes." Joey smirked, and Simon scowled.

"Leave me alone, Joey. I just wanna get through today."

He scooped up his bookbag, heading out the door to begin walking to his first class. Joey trailed behind him, still grinning. "You got rejeeeeeecteeed," he teased, drawing out the e's. "Everybody's tellin' you to let her go, man. She's never gonna let anyone in, especially not you."

Simon whipped around, glaring. "Didn't I tell you to just shut up? Go bother someone who gives a flying f-"

"Language, boy!" The Bookkeeper- also known as the Cat Keeper, for her seemingly endless supply of on-grounds felines- scolded Simon as she passed by. "You kids and your mouths," she muttered.

Joey laughed. "We're adults, missus. We have the right to say as we want."

Simon sighed, irritated at the expected reaction and exchange between Joey and the librarian. Daily, it happened- and usually, Simon, although having technically been the first instigator, would politely pull Joey away, apologize to the woman, and as she walked away, proceed to slap Joey upside the head for his rudeness. But right now, he just walked away from both of them, not really caring if his roommate got yelled at a bit and was late to his class. He deserved it.

Upon entering his class, a Literature that he insisted himself on taking, and thoroughly hated, Simon tossed his bag onto his normal seat, sitting down next to a girl with blue streaked curly hair. Cynthia. She turned to face him, and her face lit up. (Figuratively, or course.) "Simon! Where have you been? I haven't seen you in almost two weeks!"

Not almost. Two weeks today.

Two weeks today, and they still didn't call him.

Simon ignored his churning thoughts and smiled crookedly at the girl. "Sorry. I, uh, haven't been feeling great. You okay?"

She smiled back, nodding. "Yeah.. I'm fine. I was going to ask you the same thing, though. Anything you wanna talk about?"

Yes, Simon thought. But you won't listen...

He shook his head, playing with his pencil.

"Have you heard from Julia?"

Simon's head shot up, and he stared at her. "What?"