Thunder to your Rain (YA)

[8.5]

Rain's POV

"It has to be serious to have you crying? Are you sure everything is alright?" Luke asks worriedly. His eyes darted around the classroom before coming back to his paper.

"My best friend right," I start, grabbing my notebook and flipping to a new page to start the bellringer. I accidentally nicked my finger on the end of the spiral. That shit hurt.

"Yeah," He says nodding showing that he's paying attention.

"Well, he confessed to me." I say putting the emphasis on confessed by nodding.

"Confessed what?" Luke asks confused. Oh my god, I can't believe he's this dense.

I try to tell him again but Luke still doesn't understand. What else does he think confessed means? Oh my god.

"My best friend told me he likes me. It was really shocking, and I didn't even notice it." I state picking at my dead skin on my fingernails. I really shouldn't do that but it's just a bad habit of mine.

"Was that it? Why were you crying though? I'm confused." He asks doing the bellringer.

I lower my voice as Ms. Greene tries to quiet the class down. We're a talkative bunch as of lately. I look over to Gray but she doesn't meet my eyes.

"He's gonna be distant for a while because he knows I like someone else. It hurts though cause I need my best friend, you know." I reply as I wrote down the equation so I could balance it. This has to be the easiest lesson we've learned.

"Wait, you like someone else. Does this person know you like them?" Luke asks putting his pencil down only to pick it up again to erase his answer. He did it wrong twice. I wonder what's on his mind. He seems nervous but I'm probably just seeing things.

"No, at least I don't think they know. If they do know then I'll be like so mortified." I replied curtly, fixing his answer for him. He always makes simple mistakes that are easy to correct.

"Thanks, are you gonna tell them?" He questions as he starts the worksheet Ms. Greene is passing around.

"Class it's 12:42 you guys have until 1:00 to finish this worksheet then we will go over it alright," Ms. Greene says before sitting back down. I wonder if her legs hurt with all that sitting she does. She could teach the class from her seat if she wanted to.

"I wanna tell him but I don't even know if he likes me back. And I don't know if he even likes black girls." I'm giving away too much. Fuck.

"Wait, is he one of those self hating black boys who doesn't date his own race?" Luke asks raising his eyebrows. Wow he might just be woke.

His phone pings and he rushes to turn the ringer off. I see the message though. It's from someone named Noah. It reads DO IT BITCH! He doesn't respond though.

"No, he's not black but it's still a c-concern of mine." I finish the front side of the worksheet and flip it over. Loudly. Oops. This makes Reese and Amanda look up before going back into their bubble again.

I sort of forgot they existed because they only seem to talk to each other. I mean, I do the same thing with Luke but still. It's not like I go out of my way to only speak to him. My anxiety won't let me be extroverted and make new friendships this late into the quarter.

Personally, I feel like that would come off as fake to them and that's the last thing I want to do.

"He seems open minded but I don't know how he was raised, he could still think he should date his own race. And besides that I don't think he likes me back anyways." I respond calmly.

"I feel that, I'm not sure the girl I like, likes me back either." He says cheeks turning pink.

"Oh, you like someone?" I ask trying to hide the disappointment in my voice.

"Yeah, she's amazing." He says tapping lightly on the floor with his foot.

Well shit, I guess I really don't have a chance then. If he likes someone I might as well just give up now. Of course he likes someone. I should have known better.

"Do I know her?" I ask feigning interest even though my heart is breaking on the inside.

"Yeah, you know her really well." He replies coyly, shaking his head.

"What does she look like? Is she cute?" I ask trying to disguise the hurt. I can't believe he likes someone.

"Yeah she's really fucking cute. Like a whole 11 out of 10." Luke states and he starts blushing for some reason.

"Show me a picture, I wanna see," I ask excitedly. One part of me is devastated but another part is excited to see him happy. I don't know what's wrong with me. I should be super upset that he likes someone. But I'm not even that hurt about it.

He unlocks his phone. His password is 7246. I should tell him I saw it so he can change it. It's not like I'm gonna take his phone and snoop through it though. That's childish and disrespectful.

He turns his phone so I can't see it. He's probably in his camera roll. I wouldn't want anyone to see my camera roll. Not because of nudes but because of my memes. Those are sacred.

Luke turns his phone back to me and it's on the camera app. It's in selfie mode.

"You forgot to go to the picture silly," I reply chucking at him.

Luke takes a deep breath before saying, "No, I didn't." He replies. Suddenly the phone moves cause his hand is shaking. And I hear his feet tap the floor once more.

"What do you mean?" I ask confused.

"The girl I like is right here," Luke says pointing to me with a hopeful look on his face.