Room To Breath

Chapter ten

Vic's pov

Josh cares about me so much. It's nice but I hate making him worry about me so instead of moping around near him I'm going to my quiet spot. Josh will never come to the pool because someone pushed him in the pool once and now he's paranoid it will happen again. He doesn't know how to swim so I had to jump in and save him.

When I walk into the back where the locker room is I hear crying. Crying? Nobody is ever here, I should know, I'm here everyday. Quietly I follow the noise to the pool room to see a person with a dog-

Kellin?

Yeah this is definitely kellin. Carefully I walk up behind him and freeze, I hope I dont scare him.. I resume and sit next to him and put my feet in the water. He gasps because he sees me and I gasp because I just put my shoes in the water.

He then looks at my feet and laughs and wipes his face quickly. "Did y-you mean to do that?" He hiccups and sniffles a little. His smile is gone but it was amazing when it was on his pretty face.

"No, I'm quite the airhead," I say laughing at myself and moving my converse in the water. I already got them wet, might as well go with it and not worry.

He wipes more tears away but I look forward so he wont be embarrassed. "I should go-" he starts but I grab his shirt making him not being able to get up. He stops and looks at me with wide eyes.

"Um.. please dont go, I wanted to talk to you," I say and he gets out his notebook and looks through it. As he does that I continue to talk. "You changed a lot since middle school," I say and he makes a face.

Me and him had a class together, only one but we use to take a little. We didn't flirt or anything because I didn't know I was gay plus we were hardly friends. We didn't text or hang out after school. No, we just shared answers to school work and our friends were friends.

He looks at me with parted lips. Eyebrows knitting together like he's trying to think of something. When he blinks studying my face I realize he doesn't remember me. I dont blame him, he moved or something halfway through middle school.

"I have?" He says and changes his face to neutral.

"Yeah, remember your short spikey hair?" I laugh a little but he looks away and into the pool. His hair falls into his face and he puts his hands in his face and starts crying.

My face drops and I look away. I messed up or something.. I look at the crying boy sadly. Slowly I put my hand on his back and rub his back as he crys.  "I don't remember you," he cries and I know he must feel guilty about forgetting but he doesn't need to.

"Oh, shit. That's fine. That was so many years ago. We had math- no- English? I'm not sure but we had one class together. I don't know why I thought you'd remember me, I hardly talked back then," I say and he looks at me and I blush seeing my hand is still on his back.

"C-can we restart? Pretend you've never seen me before?" He asks and I smile and nod.

"Yeah, I'm Vic," I say and he smiles for half a second. Its forced but beautiful. Kellin has always had an amazing smile.

"I'm kellin. sorry," he says wiping his tears that wont stop. He seems embarrassed by crying in front of me but he's trying to pretend he's not crying.

"Its okay, do you want to talk about it?" I ask and he bites his bottom lip. His dog starts licking his teary face making him giggle and lean away from the dog closer to me. He ignores my question and pets his dog and after a while he pulls out a notebook and faces me so I can't see what he writes.

"Um.. why are you here? I just wanted to cry alone," he whispers looking up at me but his pen continues to move as he writes. The simplest things are what impress me the most. I'd be writing sideways or something if I tried that.

"I-" I should just tell the truth. "I'm here to be alone but I'd rather be with you than alone," I say and he makes a little face and glances at his writing and then back at me.

I feel like my hint of flirting made him uncomfortable. He's probably straight.. "um.. okay.. so.. are we going to talk again or..?" He asks skeptically.

"Yes, I mean yeah.. if you are comfortable with that. I think you're pretty. Cool. Pretty cool," I say stumbling over my words making him giggle.

"I think you're pretty- cool, too," he says and I smile and blush. He's still writing as he talks.

"Do you know Oli? He's a tattooed guy who has an accent?" He says and flips the page.

"Yeah, well. Not personally but word about him gets around and my friend likes him so I hear about him a lot," I tell him and he wipes his eyes and swallows hard.

"W.. would he.. would he do something to hurt someone on purpose?"

Are they a thing? Oh god I hope oli didn't cheat on him or fuck with him. Kellin looks very vulnerable and scared right now.

"Well.. he gets around and theres rumors that he's high 24/7 but I'm not him, I cant answer a vague question like that," I tell him and he glances at his paper that he's filling up.

"Would he-.." he stops and faces away from me and sneezes a very cute little sneeze. He then looks at me and then his notebook.

"Um, I need to go," he says getting up and then looking at the room weirdly.

"Okay bye kellin," I say and he looks me over weirdly.

"Yeah.. bye," he says and then leaves
He's got the hippy aesthete going on now plus really shy. He use to be the popular boy who would try to talk to the cheerleaders. Of course he never got with them but he flirted with all those girls.

He's straight..

I look at my shoes in the water. Great, I embarrassed myself..

K e l l I c is life but so is koli

;)